When guests come over to your house, your front door is the first thing that they see. You’ll start things off right and give them a good first impression if you lay out an eye-catching personalized welcome mat that says who lives here and says it with attractive color combinations and graceful lettering.

Buying a personalized welcome mat is in a lot of ways like buying any other doormat. Most of the same rules apply. First, it needs to be a good fit with your front door. Bring a photo of the doorway with you when you go shopping so you can compare the colors of doorway and doormats side by side.

But bear in mind that a personalized welcome mat is more decorative than most, so you’ll have more coloring and detailing on it to guard against fading and staining. Think about how much exposure your mat might have to rain, snow, and harsh weather in general. If you’ve got the good luck of having a steep overhang above your doorway, then you’ll be fine. The overhang will keep your mat covered. The same goes for if you live in an apartment and your door opens to an interior hallway.

If you’ve got no such covering, then you might consider playing it safe and sticking with a simpler mat for outside. You can always pick out a decorative one for inside your home. But if your heart is sold on adorning your outer doorway, weather regardless, then choose a personalized mat made of durable, weather-resistant materials. Polypropylene, which is a plastic that imitates natural fabrics, is one such material choice.

That polypropylene mat will stand up to the elements even better if its top layer is tightly woven. That means that any dirt will get trapped underneath, and the mat will stay looking fairly clean.

Rubber mats are another weather-resistant bet. They’re especially desirable if your neighborhood happens to get a lot of rain. Rubber doesn’t get as muddy as fabric, and it’s much less prone to fade from moisture.

Maybe your area gets a lot of snow and ice. In that case, a mat with raised patterns along their borders will be a better bet. A raised border traps moisture before it has a chance to soak the mat. No matter what type of fabric or material composes the mat, it will stay that much drier and need that much less maintenance.

You may have the good fortune of living in a community that doesn’t have to worry about the cleanliness of its water supply. But many people in other communities aren’t so lucky. There might be a lot of human-made pollution leaking into the water table. There might be old plumbing systems that are laced with lead or prone to bacteria outbreak. Or the problem may be caused by nature—naturally heavy mineral deposits that seep into the water supply and reduce water quality.

The possible causes of unhealthy drinking water are many. But an effective reverse osmosis water system installed into one’s own home sink can counter almost all of them. Reverse osmosis is the process of pressing tap water through a semi-permeable filter that allows the water through but traps contaminants within its net-like membrane. Studies say that a reverse osmosis water system can remove 90% of biological and mineral contaminants.

A typical home-based system has a mechanical filter that removes dirt, sediment, and other impurities. Once the water exits the filter, it passes through a semi-porous membrane that further screens out impurities, followed by a carbon filter that removes lingering organic compounds. After the water has run through all therse cleaning cycles, it leaves your faucet and pours into a storage container for you to use.

The water system will also have a flow regulator and valve that “back-flush” the membrane once it becomes heavy with contaminants. Back-flushing entails sending water back up through the spigot to flush trapped contaminants and particles out.

This may sound like a lot of parts, but the actual system is fairly compact. Most are around 5 inches wide and 25 inches long.

Depending on where you live, a reverse osmosis water system might be well worth the cost. You’re investing in better health, after all, not to mention better-tasting water. But be mindful that some systems work better than others. A given water system’s effectiveness at clearing out contaminants depends on the water pressure, the type of membrane, and the quantities and properties of the contaminants that are present in the water.

Reverse osmosis is generally best at removing lead, arsenic, many organic chemicals, and other pollutants. It also reduces the presence of chemicals that give water undesired tastes or alter its color. Reverse osmosis does not remove dissolved gases, like radon. Also, nitrate and certain pesticides, solvents, and other volatile organic chemicals will usually seep through.

There are lots of reasons why you might want a new garage-door opener. Maybe you’ve just bought a new home. Maybe you have a home already but are building a new garage for it. Perhaps you have a garage now, but the existing door opener is no longer working properly. Or you might not be a homeowner, but a business owner who is looking for a garage-door opener for your business’s office building. Whatever your reasons might be, you’ll do yourself a favor if you consider buying a Raynor garage door opener.

The Raynor garage door opener catalogue breaks down into four product categories: economy, standard, premium, and deluxe. You choose from the four depending on how big your garage door is (the upper categories have more-powerful openers to lift heavier doors) and what you’re willing to pay for in terms of extra features and amenities.

The economy category has inexpensive and medium-power options like the Navigator, a one-third-horsepower chain-drive mechanism that comes equipped with top-of-the-line security enhancements: Protector System photo eyes and a PosiLock Security System. The control pad fits onto a doorway and lights up for convenient use after daylight hours. And though one would hope you won’t have to use it, the warranty is good for four years.

The Raynor Garage Door Opener standard group is where you’ll find the Commander II, a one-half-horsepower screw-drive mechanism that never needs lubricating, thanks to the anti-corrosive channel that encases it and thus eliminates metal-to-metal contact.

Plus, every Commander II has especially smooth and quiet operations due to a built-in Motor Vibration Isolation System and a “floating motor” design that acts to prevent vibration of the powerhead. It, too, has PosiLock Security and a Protector System. It’s also got a lifetime warranty.

The Aviator is a deluxe garage-door opener. It’s a one-half-horsepower mechanism that runs on belt drive. Motor Vibration Isolation, Floating Motor, PosiLock, Protector System, and lifetime warranty are standard features. So is a polyurethane belt reinforced with steel for ultimate strength.

In the premium group, the upper echelon of Raynor garage door openers, you’ll find products like the Ultra, a three-fourths-horsepower belt-drive door opener with all of the features of the Aviator, exception for the Aviator’s polyurethane belt. The Ultra replaces the belt with a super-strong I-beam rail and a chassis support bracket that, put together, are enough for even the heaviest of garage doors. Also included are 200 watts of lighting.

Garage doors are awfully heavy. You can manually pull yours open and shut when you’re going to and from your garage. But would you really want to? That’s why almost every modern garage today is equipped with a garage door opener. This mechanical apparatus does the heavy lifting for you. All you need to do is press a button on a key pad (the key pad can be on the side of the garage, in your car, or even both) to alert the door-opener’s garage door sensor and—voila—your garage door opens or closes for you.

The sensors don’t only make the doors much easier for you to use. They also make them much safer. They detect when someone or something is underneath the garage door and respond by stopping the door from falling down. If you have a child or a house pet, this is a feature that could save his or her life.

The garage door sensor operates with an infra-red radio signal that beams to the control unit in the garage the instant that you press the button on the key pad. When the control unit receives the signal, it activates an electric motor that turns a track-and-pulley system, which in turn opens or closes the door.

Note that the garage door opener’s sensors need to be both clean and properly aligned in order to work properly. You can keep them adequately dirt-free by regularly wiping each garage door sensor with a cotton swab dabbed with isopropyl alcohol.

As for the alignment, gather a few tools, string, and some measuring tape, and then proceed along a few simple steps. First, turn off the system. Then locate the sensors (you’ll find them near the bottom of the rail frame that stands on each side of the door). Loosen the screws on each sensor and readjust it, making sure that it’s no more than 6 inches from the ground. Tie a string to each sensor and check it to make sure that it’s level. Readjust the sensor if it’s not. Then turn the power supply back on.

Verifying the alignment and keeping the sensors clean should keep the sensors in great working order for a long time. But sometimes, they might still stop working on you. That’s when you need to either call a professional to get the sensors repaired, or visit your local hardware store to get them replaced.