The updated and highly illustrated guide to understanding how just about everything in your house works! The revised and updated third edition of How Your House Works is a hands-on guide that gives you the low-down on why your faucet is leaking, your dishwasher is overflowing, or your furnace is on the fritz. This comprehensive book is your reference to virtually everything in your house with richly illustrated explanations of electrical systems, heating and air conditioning, plumbing, major household appliances, foundation, framing, doors, and windows. This must-have book answers most questions homeowners face when repairs are needed or when a new house or addition is in your future. How Your House Works is filled with easy-to-understand illustrations that show how things should be put together and how they function. The book also highlights issues outside the house as well as clock thermostats, ventless gas heaters, moisture and mold, and passive solar heating. Using the illustrations and the author’s clear explanations might save you the expense of calling a professional. This invaluable guide: Offers a colorful resource to home electrical systems, HVAC, plumbing, major household appliances, foundation, framing, doors and windows, sustainability, and much more Includes easy-to-follow information for troubleshooting problems Contains dozens of new full-color illustrations Presents new chapters on solar power and smart home technologies Helps homeowners save money on many common household repairs Written for homeowners with little or no knowledge of home maintenance or repair, How Your House Works is your illustrated and updated guide to understanding how appliances, electrical, plumbing, heating, air conditioning, and more work!

Conquer the clutter, clean your house and give yourself more time for the good things in life-with this new edition Drowning in clutter, but don't know where to begin? Feeling overwhelmed by a home that's out of control? Help is on hand from the creator of the popular home-management website, OrganizedHome.com. With wit, humor and style, Cynthia Townley Ewer goes about solving the many obstacles of running an orderly home. From how to combat, and stay on top of, the clutter tide, to the most effective tools for, and methods of, cleaning. Plus, pick up tips on the specifics of running an organized home from sections such as food, clothing, surfaces and systems, room to live, and paper handling. Whether you want to know how to tame 'the great white' (fridge, not shark!), or add rhythm to your clothes closet, Cynthia will inform you, entertain you, and very possibly save your sanity along the way.

Presents practical tips and strategies designed to help people organize their home in order to cut down on chaos, clutter, and cleaning time.

If you're tired of staring at the same mess every day, but struggling to find the time and willpower to clean it, you probably have a very good reason: anxiety, fatigue, depression, ADHD, or lack of support. Designed by therapist KC Davis, this revolutionary method of cleaning and organizing helps end the stress-mess cycle. After KC Davis gave birth to her second child, she didn't fold a single piece of laundry for seven months. Between postpartum depression and ADHD, she felt numb and overwhelmed. She regained her sanity--and the functionality of her home--after one life-changing realization: You don't work for your home; your home works for you. In other words, messiness is not a moral failing. A new sense of calm washed over her as she let go of the shame-based messaging that interpreted a pile of dirty laundry as "I can never keep up" and a chaotic kitchen as "I'm a bad mother." Instead, she looked at unwashed clothes and thought, "I am alive," and at stacks of dishes and thought, "I cooked my family dinner three nights in a row." Building on this foundation of self-compassion, KC devised the powerful practical approach that has exploded in popularity through her TikTok account, @domesticblisters. The secret is to stop following perfectionist rules that don't make sense for you--like folding clothes that don't wrinkle anyway, or thinking that every room has to be clean at the same time--and to find creative solutions that accommodate your needs, pet peeves, daily rhythms, and attention span. Inside, you'll learn exactly how to customize your approach and rebuild your relationship with your home, including: -How to stop seeing care tasks as a reflection of your worth, but rather as kindnesses to your future self -How to use calming rituals to keep you from feeling overwhelmed when you look at a big mess -How to stagger tasks that are easy to procrastinate throughout the week and month -How to quickly transform a room from messy to fully functional through the "5 Things" tidying method, and other shortcuts requiring minimal energy Read this book to make home feel like a sanctuary again: where you can move with ease, where guilt, self-criticism, and endless checklists have no place, and where you always have permission to rest, even when things aren't finished.

An accessible, comic book-like, illustrated introduction to how the internet works under the hood, designed to give people a basic understanding of the technical aspects of the Internet that they need in order to advocate for digital rights. The internet has profoundly changed interpersonal communication, but most of us don't really understand how it works. What enables information to travel across the internet? Can we really be anonymous and private online? Who controls the internet, and why is that important? And... what's with all the cats? How the Internet Really Works answers these questions and more. Using clear language and whimsical illustrations, the authors translate highly technical topics into accessible, engaging prose that demystifies the world's most intricately linked computer network. Alongside a feline guide named Catnip, you'll learn about: • The "How-What-Why" of nodes, packets, and internet protocols • Cryptographic techniques to ensure the secrecy and integrity of your data • Censorship, ways to monitor it, and means for circumventing it • Cybernetics, algorithms, and how computers make decisions • Centralization of internet power, its impact on democracy, and how it hurts human rights • Internet governance, and ways to get involved This book is also a call to action, laying out a roadmap for using your newfound knowledge to influence the evolution of digitally inclusive, rights-respecting internet laws and policies. Whether you're a citizen concerned about staying safe online, a civil servant seeking to address censorship, an advocate addressing worldwide freedom of expression issues, or simply someone with a cat-like curiosity about network infrastructure, you will be delighted -- and enlightened -- by Catnip's felicitously fun guide to understanding how the internet really works!

Backed by the expertise of the editors of Home magazine, HOW YOUR HOUSE WORKS is a fully illustrated guide that provides a complete blueprint for every system and structure in your home. From water meter to faucet, from electric meter to lightbulb, this entertaining, beautifully designed volume will answer many questions you might have about your home's electrical system, plumbing, heating, structure, interior, and design, covering every component you can imagine...including the kitchen sink.For those who want to talk knowledgeably to contractors, architects, and designers, prepare for emergencies, master the fusebox, and much more, this is the first book they'll turn to--and the last book they'll ever need.

Anyone who's ever quailed at the thought of buying a two-by-four or suspected that his (or her) dwelling is breaking down out of spite will be charmed, educated and entertained by this delightful history and how-to of the house.

Important Information for Anyone who Designs, Builds, Owns, Works, or Lives in a Building.

From the hosts of the Civics 101 podcast—and a New Yorker cartoonist—“an informative and appealing civics lesson for first-time voters and old hands alike” (Publishers Weekly). Do you know what the Secretary of Defense does all day? Are you sure you know the difference between the House and the Senate? Have you been pretending you know what Federalism is for the last twenty years? Don’t worry—you’re not alone. The American government and its processes can be dizzyingly complex and obscure. Until now! Within this book are the keys to knowing what you’re talking about when you argue politics with the uncle you only see at Thanksgiving, and a quick reference to turn to when the nightly news boggles your mind. This approachable and informative guide gives you the lowdown on everything from the three branches of government to what you can actually do to make your vote count to how our founding documents affect our daily lives. Now is the time to finally understand who does what, how they do it, and the best way to get them to listen to you. “An easily digestible, illustrated guidebook to the agencies and institutions that make up the federal government . . . Just the thing for students of civics—which, these days, should include the entire polity.” —Kirkus Reviews

A first introduction for toddlers who love rockets and space travel! Zoom! Zoom! Follow the speeding rocket up to the moon and back in this first introduction to space travel. With layered die-cuts, fun facts, and a mouse to find on every spread!