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The Ultimate Guide to Walls: How Your House Works
Popular Mechanics — By helping you look into a wall with near X-ray vision, both a stud finder and a digital inspection camera can eliminate guesswork. An advanced stud finder, such as the Zircon Multiscanner i700, can find wall framing, electrical wiring and metal ...More…
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How Your House Works: Insulation
Popular Mechanics — More than anything else, our homes need to keep us dry and comfortable. While handling rain is straightforward--the roof leaks or it doesn't--keeping heat in its place is a slippery issue. Air leaks account for up to 15 percent of the heating and ...More…
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Window Theory: Seal Windows for a More Efficient Home
Popular Mechanics — A new model may consist of wood, metal, plastic, glass, mineral oxides and perhaps an inert gas. Yet even a well-insulated unit delivers an R-value no better than an uninsulated wood-frame wall's (roughly R-4 to R-5). And a house can lose nearly ...More…
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The Refrigeration Cycle
Popular Mechanics — Conventional central air systems graft into a house that has ducts for forced-air heating. The hot and noisy portion of the cooling system, the compressor-condenser, is located outside. The cool and quiet component, the evaporator coil, is ...More…
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Photo Gallery
Popular Mechanics — The capable Icon makes short work of Imogene Pass. The trusty companion took us on a four-day adventure in Colorado's Rockies. If you've got five days to spend in a single state, and you want to experience the best roads, the best views and the .. ...More…
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CONTINUED: High-Speed Rail, Roads and Bridges >>>
Popular Mechanics — In addition to roads and bridges, initiatives such as smart electric grids and high-speed rail received funding-along with attention from politicians and pundits quick to seize on a new set of buzzwords. There's just one problem: While the law ...More…
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Recycling By the Numbers: The Truth About Recycling
Popular Mechanics — Negligible amount recycled By Alex Hutchinson Published in the December 2008 issue. Drink cans Discarded/year 10 tons CO2/ton aluminum Bottles and jars 0.34 tons CO2/ton glass 2.5 tons CO2/ton newsprint Soft-drink bottles 1.7 tons CO2/ton ...More…
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CONTINUED: The Environmental Debate >>>
Popular Mechanics — Roughly 1 million tons of plastic bottles were recycled in 2006-only 24 percent of the amount Americans dispose of annually. Every ton of plastic bottles recycled saves about 3.8 barrels of oil. Yet doubts remained. Some critics wondered if, far ...More…
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How Your Heating System Works: A Primer
Popular Mechanics — Then there's a fuel bill that lays waste to household finances. Let's say you have a boiler or furnace with 80 percent efficiency that produces a monthly gas bill of $279. About $56 of that has fueled nothing more than wasted heat that has gone .. ...More…
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It happens like clockwork.
Popular Mechanics — The weather cools and people come to PM with heating questions. One of the things they ask a lot is why they never seem to have enough hot water to shower. While it's slightly annoying to shower in less than optimal water temperature in summer, ...More…
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Clayton's I-House: Prefab Green Homes Get Affordable
Popular Mechanics — Clayton Homes is one of America's largest manufacturers of mobile homes and prefabricated housing. So when president Kevin Clayton wanted to go green, he gave his architects a free hand, instructing them to incorporate as many green products as ...More…
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Fifth Place /// Toyota Tundra 4x4 Crewmax SR5
Popular Mechanics — The automotive world is downsizing. The high cost of fuel has forced automakers to shrink both the size of vehicles and sales expectations, too. Big, thirsty and, yes, profitable vehicles just aren't moving off dealer lots the way they used to. ...More…