Five tips for keeping your home cool without air conditioning this summer

While budgets, like rules, are often made to be broken, there are some additional costs associated with the purchase of a new home that buyers should keep in mind to avoid breaking the bank.

How to control almost everything in your home with your phone

Want to have the coolest home on the block? Then fill it with all the latest smart home devices.

"A lot of people are familiar with smart home, and they have bits and pieces of it, but are looking at expanding," said Steven Toews, general manager of Best Buy's Deerfoot Meadows location.

According to Toews, smart lighting is the top-selling smart home category.

Devices that allow you to monitor everything, from cooking progress in your Crock-Pot down to the forkful of food you just ate

Chances are at some point in the past five or six years you've heard the phrase, "the Internet of things." In some industrial tech circles it's even being shortened to "IoT" these days.

Sounds cool and acronym-y, right? And like a lot of the buzzwords that propagate online today, you have to wonder sometimes if the people using it even know what it means.

I'm going to talk about kitchen appliances in a minute here, but because connected appliances are prime examples of the Internet of things in action, let's get clear on the term first.

New programs could see homeowners coming out ahead

If you've been paying attention, you're aware that, starting Jan. 1, we'll be paying $1.01 more per gigajoule for natural gas to heat our homes and a few extra cents a litre to fuel our cars.

It's the provincial carbon levy, and it's inevitable.

If you're like me, you want to know what the government is going to do with the revenue.

For starters, it's setting up an agency whose goal is to reduce our utility bills, decrease emissions and save energy in general.

Appliances and automation solutions that can save homeowners money

"It's cool, yeah. But will it save me money?"

For most of us, that's the obvious question when it comes to technology products for the home.

The answer may very well be yes. If you are a homeowner, a little research will show you that spending a little up front can reduce energy bills, insurance premiums and hassles down the road.