If you’ve tapped your home’s equity for a renovation, a kid’s tuition, or just to keep up with rising bills, you’re not alone, and the average balance on those loans just crossed a threshold it’s never hit before. The New Number The average home equity line of credit balance reached $52,347 in 2026, an 11.2% … Read more
Every September, the Federal Emergency Management Agency spends the month trying to get one fact through to American households: the government cannot show up in the first 72 hours after a disaster, and most families have never actually tested whether they could get through that window on their own. FEMA kicked off its 2026 National … Read more
Vornado Air is recalling about 255,000 SRTH small room tower heaters after receiving reports of eight fires, according to the recall notice posted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on June 4, 2026. The heaters were sold at Kohl’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, ACE Hardware, Vornado.com and Amazon for between $40 and $50 from … Read more
Roughly 15,800 above-ground pools sold under the Blue Wave, Sunneday and Blue Bay brands are being recalled because the compression strap wrapped around the pool’s exterior support poles can act as a foothold, letting a child climb in even after the ladder has been removed. The Blue Wave recall, covering about 13,400 units sold at … Read more
At least three bicycle helmet brands have been pulled from Amazon in 2026 for violating the same federal safety standard, and every single one of them was sold exclusively through the same online marketplace rather than a bike shop or sporting goods chain. Federal regulators say the pattern is becoming familiar: a low-cost helmet appears … Read more
The Environmental Protection Agency spent 2024 telling Americans it was finally cracking down on “forever chemicals” in drinking water. In May 2026, the same agency proposed walking a meaningful chunk of that crackdown back, and most of the households whose water utilities will be affected have no idea it’s happening. What’s Actually Being Rescinded The … Read more
Samsung, LG and Maytag took the top spot in nine of 12 appliance categories in J.D. Power’s 2026 U.S. Appliance Satisfaction Study, released this month, while brands that led the field just a year earlier, including GE and Whirlpool in refrigerators, failed to crack the top two in any fridge category this time around. Who … Read more
The U.S. Department of Energy quietly changed the rules on its $8.8 billion Home Energy Rebates program this spring, and the new guidance, effective May 29, 2026, bars homeowners from using the rebates to replace gas furnaces and other fossil-fuel equipment with electric heat pumps. Two states, South Dakota and Idaho, have declined to run … Read more
Women spent an average of 0.81 hours a day on housework in 2025, compared with 0.30 hours for men, nearly three times as much, according to the newest American Time Use Survey data, released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on June 25, 2026. The one category where men logged more time than women: … Read more
A household that swaps out a handful of old fixtures for WaterSense-certified versions can cut its annual water costs by hundreds of dollars, according to data the EPA publishes on its own WaterSense program, and the savings add up faster than most people expect once showerheads, faucets and toilets are counted together instead of one … Read more