An apartment dwelling friend called me last week and complained about her upstairs neighbors who sounded like they were raising cattle. The clomping noise was driving her nuts and she wanted to know how much acoustic ceiling tile would cost her. I told her that ceiling tile would be virtually useless in this application. That's not what it's made for. There are two basic types of noise control: ...

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My favorite power tool isn't my Delta table saw nor my router table. It's my central vacuum. In terms of sheer usefulness, it's done more work on the house and saved me more time than any tool in the shop. Before someone comments that a vacuum is a household appliance, not a power tool, check out my router table. That hose isn't attached to a commercial dust collection ...

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In my previous two articles I talked about my experience with the X10 home automation protocol. After having been burned by X10, one might rightly assume that I would have to be a glutton for abuse to move on to an even more expensive and less time-tested protocol like Insteon. But that's in fact what I did. X10 is a very old protocol. It was developed in 1975, ...

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