The humble bathroom fan is getting a decent amount of buzz at the Builders' Show, thanks to several interesting innovations. If your bathrooms lack this critical fixture, or the fans you have are old, noisy, and ineffective at eliminating moisture, these new products are worth a look.

“Upgrade your shower from ordinary to extraordinary.” That’s the promise of the new HydroRail shower column launched at the International Builders’ Show by Kohler. It combines a rainhead showerhead with a handheld shower. HydroRail uses existing plumbing, so Kohler claims it can be installed by a do-it-yourselfer for less than $400.

In Kansas, the bad guys are doing a good thing and next week federal authorities will visit the Hutchinson Correctional Facility to honor its inmates. The prison has been awarded a WasteWise award by the Environmental Protection Agency for keeping 1.5 million pounds of solid waste out of local landfills. Talk about rehabilitation.

You’d expect to see Samsung and Sony, Toshiba and TomTom at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. As trade shows go, this one’s billed as the world’s largest for consumer technology. But not every exhibitor features a savvier smart phone or crisper 3-D TV. For the first time, Serta is there showcasing one of its mattresses for the wired-but-weary.

New York is known as the city that never sleeps but there are four cities whose residents are even more sleep-deprived, according to a recent study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control. This weekend is a good time to start making up that sleep deficit by taking advantage of the extra hour we’ll get when daylight saving time ends early Sunday. You should also explore what’s keeping you up at night—your mattress or something more serious.

AMC’s drama “The Walking Dead” is a ratings blockbuster, and the zombie genre is frighteningly lucrative, having generated more than $5.74 billion from movies, video games, Halloween costumes, books, and more, according to MSNBC.com. One theory is that zombies reflect our anxieties of these scary times. Whatever the reason, we’ve seen zombies turn up in the most unexpected places like Sears where zombies are trying out treadmills and lurching around the outerwear department.

Gel mattresses are a hot item at the home furnishings trade show this week in High Point, North Carolina, according to Furniture Today, a trade publication. Gel may be hot, but it’s cool, so cool that it acts as a cooling agent for memory-foam mattresses.

Here’s a switch: Made in America, sold in China. When Noah’s Manufacturing, a Houston-based company, recently announced it was busy setting up distribution channels for its mattresses in China, the company joined a small number of U.S. mattress makers that ship and sell the promise of a good night’s sleep to China’s burgeoning middle class.

The best mattress is the one that feels the most comfortable and supportive, and when shopping for a new mattress, the only way to know that is to kick off your shoes and try them out. But what if you can’t? That’s the Costco conundrum. You can’t try out the mattresses sold in most Costco warehouses, but the prices are alluring.

For mattress retailers, Labor Day weekend sales are all important. For consumers, timing is everything. Markups are so high that stores routinely advertise sales of 50 percent off or more, but that means if you don’t time it right you can end up overpaying by hundreds or even thousands.

It’s not the usual Match.com profile: Meet Rip the Drip, he “was born under the water sign Pisces, and is an assistant shift manager at a local water park. He enjoys taking long showers, listening to running faucets and opening fire hydrants. ... His favorite movie is Waterworld—which he has seen 786 times—and he dreams of one day visiting Niagara Falls.” Rip is the face of a new public service campaign called “Wasting Water is Weird” but while well-intentioned, the ads aren't just weird, they're creepy.

In the new movie “The Help,” the plot turns on a toilet. Or rather a front yard full of toilets. And this isn’t the first time a toilet has taken a star turn. From the groundbreaking movie flush in “Psycho” to Jeff Bridges, The Dude, punishing the pink porcelain in “The Big Lebowski,” the comely commode has often commanded the screen. This week New York magazine celebrates the toilet’s contribution to 11 movie classics. But they missed a few.

Whether guys go for that rough and scraggy look or the smooth, suave appearance of a debonair actor, keeping up with facial hair can be a chore. Making the task even more complex: The range of electric razors—from cheap $10 models to others that cost more than 20 times as much! To find out which shavers really cut "as smooth as a razor," Consumer Reports uses an interesting item: Sandpaper.

With temperatures ranging from the high 70s to over 100 degrees F in most of the country, a lot of folks are becoming air-conditioner shut-ins. Even though you might have the summer version of cabin fever, it's not a good time to attempt a big cleaning project. Better to wait until you can throw the windows open and get better ventilation because some of the most common cleaning products can irritate your lungs, skin and eyes or worse.

Think Dr. Scholl’s and foot powder and orthotics come to mind but one manufacturer is hoping the Dr. Scholl's name will help sell mattresses. Using a cool blue gel on top of a foam mattress, Technogel is hoping its mattress can do for your body what Dr. Scholl’s innersoles do for your feet.