> Refrigerator only needs a GFI if it is within a certain distance of a sink.
Not anymore. NEC 2023 requires GFCI for every 120 or 240V outlets in the kitchen, regardless of their location or proximity to the sink. This was a big change.
According to the CPSC, who analyzed some 10s of thousands of fires, something like 50% of them were caused by wire arcing that could be prevented with AFCI breakers. This is the exact reason why the NFPA is moving the NEC towards eventually requiring AFCI on every circuit in the house.
I'm in my 40s now but I didn't get serious about saving and managing money until my mid-30s. Lived a very fun but expensive lifestyle downtown in a major city for many years while single.
I'd be a lot closer to some of my financial goals if I had been more focused on saving through my 20s and 30s. While my family is doing fine compared to many others, it feels like I'm always trying to catch up. This really starts to hit home when you add kids.
The wirecutter DIY test used a filter with a rating of FPR 9. Since FPR isn't standardized like MERV or HEPA, it's hard to tell what this means, but likely to be < MERV 13. The OP used a HEPA filter on their testing which is > MERV 16.
After working at home for ~13 months now, it will be very hard for me to go back to the office. I have young kids at home and getting to spend extra time with them every day is a huge gift, on top of having no commute. There are some negatives, but I feel just as productive and more engaged.
Great for you! I feel exactly the opposite, I feel trapped in my house, super-ecstatic that the kids are finally in school now and can't wait for the office to open.
Do you think you'll enjoy the office as much if (for simplicity sake) 50% of the people enjoy working from home so much they do not want to return? From my discussions with colleagues much more than 50% hopes to work from home 3+ days a week once this all is over.
Not the O.P., but speaking from experience, yes, a thousand times yes.
Here in Sydney, Australia, both office and WFH are available at my work. I'll have anywhere between 0% and 90% of my team in the office depending on the day or week.
In my experience, even being the only one in the office is a thousand times better than WFH.
Whether teammates are WFH affects me less than whether I'm WFH.
The problem with low humidity in winter isn't forced air heating, it's air leakage. But since most houses have poor thermal envelopes, your statement turns out to be mostly true.
Winter temperatures in the US midwest and northeast with average daily temps far below zero (C), combined with leaky old houses. The stack effect draws in cold, extremely dry air at a rapid rate.
Typical CO alarms only go off when there is a level of gas that is an imminent danger. A lower level of gas could be present and go totally undetected, but present an ongoing health risk. There are special CO monitors that are capable of detecting and alerting down to 5ppm but they are rarely installed in homes.
I think you need to move further back. Civilization accounted for a sharp decline in life expectancy due to disease and other factors like extreme agricultural labor. Humans have only gained back what was lost since the industrial and technological revolutions.
Extant hunter gatherers, living without access to modern medicine, have been studied to show life expectancy closer to 70.
This is doubtful. All the research I've seen points to very different story. One example:
"the expected annual probability of death for a 65-y-old hunter-gatherer is about 5.3%; in contrast, for 65-y-olds in Japan today, the chance of death is only about 0.8%.
The figure for Japanese elderly today reflects a life expectancy in the 80s. There's nothing weird about a mortality rate of 5% at 65 corresponding to a life expectancy close to 70.
I couldn't downvote jly's reply to me even if I wanted to. I didn't upvote it either though. It doesn't cite any evidence and it appeared to be incorrect when I searched for evidence on my own.
See for example: Gurven, M., & Kaplan, H. (2007). Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination.
Population and Development Review, 33(2), 321–365.
For the longest living group estimate, 5 year olds can expect to live to ~54, 10 year olds to 55, and even 20 year olds only have a life expectancy of 60. Life expectancy only starts approaching 70 for a hunter-gatherer who survived into his 40s.
This would put life expectancy of young adult hunter-gatherers ahead of that of young adults living in historical agricultural societies, but behind that of those living in highly developed countries in the last several decades. The life expectancy of people living in developed countries today has more than "gained back what was lost since the industrial and technological revolutions."
[1] Enter DOI into sci-hub for full text.
[2] The link to the full text of the PDF in that Reddit post is now broken, which is why I noted the DOI.
Not anymore. NEC 2023 requires GFCI for every 120 or 240V outlets in the kitchen, regardless of their location or proximity to the sink. This was a big change.