With a long summer of mowing ahead, parents of teens and pre-teens may be wondering when it's safe for a child to take over this chore. Children under 18 suffer 13 percent of the 68,000 mower injuries treated annually in emergency rooms, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. With that in mind, the AAP recommends that no child younger than 12 operate a walk-behind mower, that no teen younger than 16 drive a riding mower and that children never be allowed to ride along as passengers.

Corded-electric string trimmers are definitely tempting if you have a small property without a lot of dense growth. They're the least expensive and fairly lightweight. And because they start with the press of a button, you face none of the starting issues of gasoline-powered models, let alone the maintenance.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is asking Americans to become a "weather-ready nation" one emergency kit at a time. This spring there's already been a spate of severe weather and NOAA cautions that there'll likely be more to come as May is the peak season for tornadoes and June is the start of the hurricane season. So it's time to get packing, or updating, your to-go kit.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released this week a list of 28 chemicals and two viruses that it will monitor from 2013 to 2015 as part of its drinking water contaminant monitoring program. The list Includes hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, a likely carcinogen made famous by the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, about a real-life single mom played by Julia Roberts who learns that a major utility company might be poisoning local residents by illegally dumping toxic waste.

More than one million grills have been recalled over the past five years. Knowing that, the first thing you should check when getting out your grill this season is whether it's on the list. An estimated 3,800 injuries from gas or charcoal grills were treated in hospital emergency rooms in 2010. Cooking with a defective unit just increases the odds of getting burned or setting a fire.

About 48,000 Digital Concepts Compact Travel Chargers are being recalled by Sakar International Inc. of Edison, N.J. The rechargeable battery chargers can fall apart, exposing consumers to the internal components which pose an electrocution or electric shock hazard says the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Viking Range Corporation of Greenwood, Miss., has recalled about 2,000 Viking dishwashers because an electrical component in the dishwasher can overheat, posing a fire hazard. Viking has received 21 reports of incidents, including five reports of property damage from fires.

Office Depot is recalling 307,000 of its Brand Biella leather desk chairs in the U.S. and another 12,000 in Canada because the weld connecting the seat plate to the gas lift can fail, causing the chair to separate from the base and posing a fall hazard.

Consumer Reports has removed its Don't Buy: Performance Problem judgment from a $5,000 Viking range after confirming that the manufacturer has fixed a design flaw that resulted in a melted wiring connector on two separate test samples.

The snow hasn’t been piling up like it did last season, but there have been several weather events that have caused power outages and other problems across the country. Witness this morning’s tornadoes that tore through parts of the Midwest. When such things happen, it’s good to have a generator at the ready. But not everyone does, which led us to ask whether a small power inverter could help homeowners survive an outage. The answer was—in some cases.

Worthington Cylinders Wisconsin has recalled more than 30 million of its Map Pro, Propylene and MAPP Gas Cylinders because the cylinder seal can leak after torches are disconnected from them, posing a fire hazard.

If you can lock and unlock your car without a key, why not your home? That’s part of the appeal of SimpliciKey’s remote-control deadbolt door lock, which was on display at the International Builders’ Show. Owned by Electronic Warfare Associates, a Department of Defense contractor, SimpliciKey draws on its parent company’s high-security background.

Designs Direct of Covington, Ky., has recalled about 2,000 of its Living Traditions rooster lamps, because the electrical cord can fray near the base of the lamp, posing a fire or shock hazard, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reported today.

York International is re-announcing the recall of some 226,000 Coleman, Coleman Evcon and Red T gas furnaces for manufactured homes due to more than 300 incident reports since the 2004 recall involving the furnaces, which can overheat, posing a fire hazard.

While human error is a common cause of residential appliance fires, the equipment itself is often to blame as well, according to a months-long investigation by Consumer Reports. Faulty refrigerator compressors, defective dishwasher circuit boards, and self-starting cooktops and toasters are just a few examples of the design flaws identified in our report. In fact, more than 15 million appliance units have been recalled in the past five years for defects that could cause a blaze. And our analysis of nationwide fire reports suggests the problem may run even deeper.