There’s plenty of reasons to want to change a showerhead in your head. Perhaps you’re trying to fix a leak in the faucet; or, remodeling your bathroom; or, trying to conserve water via a low-flow showerhead.

Whatever the reason, changing a showerhead can be a basic do-it-yourself project. The tools aren’t complicated and the job is a quick one.

In this 2-minute video from AOL, you’ll learn:

• What tools you’ll need to change the showerhead
• How to remove your old showerhead
• How to firmly attach your new showerhead to prevent leaks

If you get stuck, or just want to outsource, call a professional handyman to finish the job. Changing a showerhead should take less than a hour to complete.

It doesn’t take much effort to stand over a pot and “stir continuously”, as called for in some recipes. It can be tedious, though, and once a chef stops stirring or leaves a pot unattended, the recipe is sure to ruin.

Enter the automatic stirrer.

With its self-adjusting, self-centering blades, the Ardenté Gourmet Stirrer latches on to the side of most kitchen bowls, and does that stirring for you. The machine’s constant blade-turning protects your milk-based recipes from burning; your sauce-based recipes from charring; and your temperate-sensitive sugars from caramelizing.

While it does its job, you’re freed up to tend to other tasks in the kitchen, or to spend time with family around the house.

It protects your pots from scorching, too.

The Ardenté Gourmet Stirrer runs on 4 C batteries and can be run continuously, or intermittently. Its blades run at different heights to promote consistency, and are dishwasher-safe for easy clean-up.

You can buy the automatic stirrer in white or black on Ardenté’s website, or on Amazon. It retails for $59.95.

Want to replace your kitchen faucet? It’s a job for which you could hire a plumber, or, with just a little bit of craftsman skill, it’s a project you could finish yourself.

Watch this video from the Lowe’s YouTube channel. You’ll get step-by-step instruction on how to take out an old faucet and how to install a new one. The supplies you’ll need are minimal, too.

In 3 minutes, the video covers:

• How to shut the kitchen water supply off and drain residual water from the pipes
• How to detach and remove the old kitchen faucet
• How to align the new faucet and reconnect to the water lines

There’s some good tips along the way, too, including how to make sure you don’t accidentally connect the hot water supply to the cold-water faucet.

If you’re uncomfortable working with your home’s plumbing and would like a referral to a plumber near Huntingdon Valley , please just ask. I’m happy to help how I can.

Related articles

• How to Fix an Outside Faucet (brighthub.com)
• Quick Fix: When the Lever on the Faucet Breaks (apartmenttherapy.com)
• Tips on installing a soap dispenser in a sink (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Christmas is more than a religous holiday – its a season that reminds us of family, and childhood, and giving – and this cartoon from 1953 is a simple and pleasant childhood experience rom a quieter and simpler era.

So if you’re spending some time on the computer today, take a minute to relive a childhood memory, or perhaps create one by sharing this with a child in your family.

But whatever you do, accept our thanks for reading and being part of our community – and allowing us to be part of yours.

People love lists. And in October, what better list could there be than the  20 best cities to trick or treat in. Zillow, an online real estate website listed Philadelphia as one of the best places in the United States for children on October 31.

Last year Zillow created their first list of the top 5 cities in the country, and expanded it this year to a top 20 , thereby placing Philadelphia in this hallowed company (or Halloween company?)

According to the original post on Zillow’s blog

the Zillow Trick-or-Treat Housing Index was calculated using four equally weighted data variables: Zillow Home Value Index, population density, Walk Score and local crime data from Relocation Essentials.

As one of childhood’s favorite memory makers approaches, its nice to know that our children are making their memories safely.

With the start of autumn comes a chill in the Rhawnhurst air, plus a simple way to drop your home’s energy bill. For homeowners with ceiling fans, it’s as simple as moving a button.

In this vintage video from The Weather Channel, you’ll learn how the blades of ceiling fan are meant to work, and how they amplify a home’s heating and cooling systems. You’ll also learn the optimal settings for blade rotation, and how to reverse your room’s air flow to take advantage.

A quick “cheat sheet”:

• When a home’s heating system is on, rotate fan blades clockwise
• When a home’s cooling system is on, rotate fan blades counter-clockwise

Running a ceiling fan consumes a nominal amount of energy as compared to adjusting your home’s overall temperature. On a warm day, for example, running a ceiling fan creates a “windchill effect”, reducing a room’s effective temperature by 4 degrees — all with the equivalent power of a 100-watt light bulb.

On a cold day, the fan pushes hot air back from the ceiling where it tends to collect.

If your home is without ceiling fans, installing them is inexpensive and easy.  There’s videos online to walk you through the steps, or you can call a qualified electrician. Need an electricians name? Call or email me — I’m happy to offer a referral in Philadelphia.

Just because the expiration date has passed, that doesn’t mean that the food is spoiled. It’s a deep-seated misconception that results in the average American household wasting 14% of all food purchases. In my house it probably costs me even more because I tend to forget about stuff on my pantry shelf if its not something I eat everyday, and I sue the expiration date as the reason the item has to leave the buildin.

The estimated cost of waste like that totals in the billions. (Here however I only contribute – I have not wasted anything that costs a biollion in my house)

The data comes from a study commissioned by ShelfLifeAdvice.com, a website devoted to helping households cut food bills by providing better information of how to properly store food; of how food expiration dates work; and, by defining what “use by”, “sell by” and other product dates actually mean.

Among survey participants, women fared better than men, older people fared better than younger people, and married people fared better than non-married people.  Overall, however, there’s room for better understanding.

For example:

• Milk will remain safe for about a week after the “sell by” date. It’s safe to drink beyond that, but the taste may change for the worse.
• Cottage Cheese will remain safe for about 2 weeks after the “sell by” date.
• Mayonnaise will last for up to 4 months after opening, when kept cold

And, perhaps the biggest surprise, is that eggs, if properly refrigerated, will remain fresh for up to 5 weeks after the “sell by” date on the carton.

Read the survey’s complete results on the ShelfLifeAdvice.com website, including facts you may not have known about keeping your food beyond its expiration date.  What you learn will keep you from pitching food prematurely, and help you save money at the grocery store.

An EPA study shows that close to dozen common air pollutants are 2 to 5 times more concentrated indoors versus outdoors, regardless of whether the home is is located in Rural America, or in an industrial zone.

The cause is volatile organic compounds, more commonly known as VOCs.

VOCs are gases emitted from certain liquids and solids including paints, cleaning supplies, pesticides, air fresheners and permanent markers, among others. In the short-term, can cause respiratory irritation. In the long-term, VOCs can lead to “Sick Building Syndrome“, cancer and other illnesses.

There are a number of ways to keep VOC levels in your Mount Holly home to minimum and the EPA published some tips to help with home health safety. The advice includes:

1. Meet or exceed all product label precautions
2. When buying paints and chemicals, don’t buy bulk. Buy only what you need. Dispose of the rest.
3. If a product label says “use in well-ventilated area”, move to the outdoors or use a fan

VOC levels can remain elevated for long periods of time even after the VOC-generating activity is completed.  Therefore, take care to protect your home and your health.

Read the EPA’s complete guide to volatile organic compounds on its website.

Home maintenance is an ongoing project. There’s always something to do around the house, or something to fix. The problem is, you may not have the time, or the skills, to get it done yourself.

In this 4-minute piece from The Today Show on NBC, you’ll see some projects are quite simple.

Dubbed “15-Minute Fixes”, see how simple it can be to handle 3 common household chores:

1. De-alcification of a shower head
2. Clearing hair from the inside of a bathroom drain
3. Sealing a granite counter-top

Each clean-up job is cheap, quick, and can be handled sans handyman. As Spring Fever sets in, put these fixes on your To-Do List.

Every year TIME magazine reports on the top 50 inventions. 2009 is no exception and you’ll find some that are incredible and practical too.

*Tweeting by thinking. Last April, University of Wisconsin doctoral student Adam Wilson tweeted 23 characters just by thinking! Wearing a cap fitted with electrodes, he focused his attention on one flashing letter on a computer screen. The cap monitored changes in his brain to figure out what character he wanted. His efforts spelled out “USING EEG TO SEND TWEET.” This discovering paves the way for people with “locked in” brain syndrome to communicate.

*The Solar Shingle. The Dow Chemical Co. developed a new roof shingle that doubles as a solar panel. The shingles, which can be incorporated into rooftops alongside traditional asphalt shingles, uses low-cost thin-film cells of copper indium gallium diselenide. The shingle is expected to cost 10 to 15 percent less than traditional solar panels and will be cheaper and easier to install.

*The $20 knee. Poor patients in Third World countries who lose a knee joint have few options as a titanium replacement can cost $10,000. A team of engineering students at Stanford has designed a knee joint that’s not only inexpensive ($20!) but mimics the knees natural movements. The JaipurKnee is both  flexible and stable even on irregular terrain.

*The Smart Thermostat. Set Frader-Thompson has invented the EnergyHub Dashboard, a little device with a screen, that can talk wirelessly to your furnace and your various appliances. It lest you know exactly hom much electricity or gas each one is using and how much it’s costing you. It can also turn appliances on and off and raise and lower the temperature in your house. EnergyHub will be available directly to consumers this year.

*The Handheld Ultrasond. Vscan is as small as a cell phone as as powerful as a l large ultrasound console.