">HomeOwnerNut

Accidental execution by electrical shock is NOT one of the leading causes of death in the home.  Falls are the single, largest cause. But I did see that 3,000 lives a year are taken by home fires, and that brings me back to faulty electrical wiring as a hidden culprit in home disasters.

Okay, a third of home-fire deaths are caused by smokers, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. But if you had home wiring setups like some of these people, you’d smoke, too.

You Get Meatballs With That?

This look might be fashionable for people who love Reggae, but when it comes to home safety, clean and uncomplicated is the key. And put a cap on it! You certainly don’t want anything that looks like this:

or……

Rotate Until Done

The clever homeowner who installed this additional lighting fixture is, one could say, in touch with his inner pyro.  It’s important in this scheme to leave an open socket for “finger-testing” the connection.

Visionaries Are Born, Not Made

From our friends at There I Fixed It comes this example of how to green up a sustainable disaster at home. Today’s efficient Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs produce about 75 percent less heat than conventional bulbs, according to EnergyStar. That means you can overload your fixtures with confidence!

Faulty Brain Wiring

Every so often, appliance manufacturers recall a potentially dangerous clothes dryer. But in this case, the homeowner is responsible for the recall of this family to their maker.  If you’re wired this way, make a point of cleaning your dryer vents and lint traps regularly.

News Alert: Village Idiot Escapes!

True mindfulness is difficult to attain, even after several lifetimes.  One can’t tell the ultimate destination of the power cord that’s resting comfortably on the baseboard heater. With any luck–in a Darwinian sense–it’s wired into a hair dryer or heating blanket.

The world’s largest city, Tokyo, is divided into 23 individual wards. One of the most populous of all wards, Setagaya is itself subdivided into five districts. Putting a new home in the crowded ward is akin to using a shoehorn to slide a grey whale into a thimble.

But that hasn’t stopped innovative architect Yasuhiro Yamashita from trying. Yamashita claims that 60 percent of nature is destroyed by architecture.  Consequently, he spends almost all of his time on commuter trains in designing small homes with even smaller footprints.

Good Fortune

Yamashita created his “Lucky Drops” home to fit the skinniest parcel in Setagaya—a forty-foot wedge in an afterthought of land in 2005. The idea is that, shaped like a cathedral with light streaming in from above, the house is illuminated like a paper lantern.

Going Cellular

National Public Radio has reported on the “Cell Brick” micro house that Yamashita built in Tokyo in 2004. The three-story house is designed of “cross stitch” glass and steel.

Crystal Clear

Yamashita used a steel frame to hold air-filled glass blocks in place to create this unique home in Tokyo called Crystal Brick. These kyosho jutaku (ultra-small homes) are rather unique, even in jam-packed Tokyo. Says Yamashita, “People tend to think of homes simply in terms of floor space. We architects think in 3-D.”

You can’t judge a small house from the outside. This interior of Crystal Brick illustrates Yamashita’s point: “I think that the Japanese architecture system is very veiled. This means that the outside of a building does not necessarily reveal how the inside is organized.”

I was enamored with Yamashita even more to learn that his small homes are also low-cost dwellings.  America could learn a few things from this sensei.