Home Things

Weight moves through the day with food and water, so the reading depends heavily on when you stand on it.

The bend in the pipe below holds water on purpose: it is what stops drain gases coming back up.

Uses more water than a shower unless the shower runs a long time, which it often does.

Used for about a third of a life and usually chosen in an afternoon.

Standard plumbing in parts of Europe and Asia and a novelty elsewhere, which is a plumbing history rather than a preference.

Block light at the edges as well as the middle, which is where cheap ones give up.

Cuts rather than crushes, so the blade speed matters more than the motor's advertised wattage.

Loaded shelves sag over time, which is why depth and support matter more than the wood's appearance.

Stiff bristles for outdoors, soft for indoors. Using the wrong one mostly moves dust into the air.

Every home has one, nobody planned it, and nothing in it has been identified in years.

Does not lower the temperature; it moves air so sweat evaporates faster, which is why it does nothing in an empty room.

Holds far more than it was designed for, and stays upright until it does not.

Espresso needs pressure as well as heat, which is the main thing separating machines that cost very different amounts.

Low, central, and the surface where everything in the room ends up.

Heavier fabric blocks light and also insulates, so thick curtains do two jobs at once.

Directional light for a task, which is a different job from lighting a room and needs different placement.

Furniture that gets used for eating, working, homework and folding laundry, often on the same day.

Uses less water than washing by hand, because it recirculates the same load through the cycle.

One of the few devices in a house that has to work for someone who is not inside it.

Removes grit at the door, which is where almost all of a floor's wear comes from.

Slower than a dryer and free to run, and it puts the moisture into the room you are standing in.

The rubber lip matters more than the pan: without a flat seal, the last line of dust never comes up.

Warmth is measured in tog in some countries and fill power in others, which makes comparing them across borders awkward.

Rated for a total current, so what matters is everything plugged in at once rather than the number of sockets.

Lights a corner without using a surface, which is its whole reason for existing.

A full freezer holds its temperature longer than an empty one, because the frozen contents act as a reserve.

Does not make cold: it moves heat out of the box and into the room behind it.

Needs to be about half your height to show all of you, because reflection halves the apparent distance.

Sold as decoration and kept alive as a responsibility, which is not the same transaction.

Folds flat and stores badly, and there is no good place to keep it in any home ever built.

Adds counter space and takes floor space, so it works in wide kitchens and blocks narrow ones.

Storage for a task, which is why it fills faster than it empties.

Firmness ratings are not standardized between makers, so the same word means different things in different shops.

Heats by shaking water molecules, which is why it warms food unevenly and does almost nothing to a dry plate.

Wet mopping moves dirt into the water, so how often the water is changed decides how well it works.

Exists to hold a lamp, a glass and a phone, and ends up holding everything else too.

Adjustment range is what makes it fit a body, so the same chair suits one person and not another.

Fan settings move heat around, so recipes give a lower temperature for fan than for conventional.

Its job is to fill the gap between head and mattress, so the right height depends on how you sleep.

Same principle as the ceiling version, aimed at one person and moved around the house all summer.

Sold cheaply and priced through the ink, which is the business model rather than an accident.

Heats mostly by warming the air that passes over it, so covering one with furniture works against it.

What may go in it is decided locally, so the same packaging is recyclable in one town and not the next.

Switches off by sensing temperature: while water remains, the pot cannot get hotter than boiling.

Maps a room and covers it in passes, which takes longer than a person would and happens while nobody is watching.

Absorbs sound as well as covering floor, which is why bare rooms echo and carpeted ones do not.

Solves the pile by the door, on the condition that everyone uses it, which is the part that fails.