Whether you're purchasing lumber to construct a home, add a room, build a deck, or just...

Here's a cool number to know. This is the rating, given by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), to central air conditioners and heat pumps (operating in cooling mode) to indicate their level of energy efficiency. It is the cooling output of the unit (in Btus) divided by the energy input (in watt hours) over the course of the cooling season, in an average U.S. climate. The higher the SEER, the more efficient the unit will be. As of January 23, 2006, the federal minimum standard SEER was 13-those rated even higher will have better energy performance.

Many catalogs that arrive in people's mailboxes across the nation end up going straight to the...