Nov 25
Just as a little light relief we thought we would show you what this enterprising DIY’er did to get hot water for their basin.
We would like to think we could show you this just for the ‘What the …’ value and that you would never dream of copying the design. However since this guy made it in the first place we obviously need to say, please don’t.
Picture source
Don’t plug a kettle into the mains in your bathroom
Don’t drill a hole in a kettle
Don’t balance a kettle on the edge of any surface, especially not one that could be full of water
Don’t try to make an electric kettle continually boil, they switch off for a reason
Did I miss anything?
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Nov 24
A new phenomenon is going on that is surely an indicator of how masculine and feminine roles are blurring.
The humble garden shed is being ‘feminised’.
We saw this fantastic picture on the Garden Resources Blog, and we were very interested to read that they are finding that what was once the male domain is now being claimed by women.
At DIY Doctor we have noticed that a large proportion of our users are women, which surprises some men when we tell them, but we are delighted to be a resource for both sexes. In fact back in 2000 when we started the site, one of our very first questions was from a women who couldn’t afford a plumber, but her immersion heater had stopped working. We explained how to change the immersion and she wrote back so pleased to have been able to get hot water. This allowed her to save money, but also it made her feel more independent and in control to be able to make her own repairs.
It has been one of the main objectives of DIY Doctor to give people the confidence they need to carry out Home Improvement tasks safely and effectively. We know what a sense of satisfaction it can bring to complete a job really well, stand back and say ‘I did that’.
When we started the site we could answer all your questions individually ourselves, but as the site grew we were able to write projects for many of the subjects because we noticed the same questions cropping up time and time again. Now we have hundreds of Project Pages from ‘acrylic cutting’ to ‘wrecking bar’, plus a forum in case you can’t find what you are looking for.
We just wanted to say thank you for using the site, whatever age or gender you are.
Nov 23
We have many project pages on our site, but sometimes you just need assurance or detail on your particular home improvement plans.
This is where our forum is an invaluable tool. Our posts are modified to ensure safe practices are adhered to, and to avoid the 3am ranters who want to put the world to rights after a session out on the town!
We are lucky to have contacts with many tradesmen around the country who are members, and who are willing to share their knowledge. Our own team are also very knowledgeable and can point you to the right resources on the site, or if appropriate they will answer your questions.
Anyone can view the contents of the forum, simply go to the DIY Doctor forum page.
We need you to register before you use our forum to make sure that the email address belongs to a human, and not a robot! This helps help us to ensure that fraudulent and malicious postings do not appear and is a measure to prevent spam.
Our forum is laid out in categories, and postings are in date order, this helps you to find what you are looking for and will help others with similar questions.
See below for an example – in this case a question about an Internal Block Wall.
What you may not realise is that while we are moderating and responding to your queries we are also noticing trends in certain topics and if it is clear that there is a demand for more information we will write a more in depth article for our projects section. Click here to browse the DIY Doctor Project pages.
All these resources are free to our members and we appreciate your support so please spread the word by clicking on the social media buttons below.
Nov 22
The Government launched an initiative called the Green Deal earlier this year, but it appears the public are not interested. Not one household has registered to take part in the scheme, according to a report in the Telegraph this week.
If you are now thinking, what is the Green Deal, then you can read What is the Green Deal? in our Green Living Section, (as ever we try to keep it simple).
In a nutshell the scheme is designed to make our homes more energy efficient without having to pay for work up front, instead the work is carried out by approved contractors who have an arrangement to collect the money back in small increments via your fuel bills.
The idea being that the energy saving will decrease your bills so the energy saving work will ‘pay for itself’. It is worth noting that when your home is assessed for the work the contractor will have to prove that the expected savings will be equal to, or more than the cost of the work, which is known as the ‘Golden Rule’.
These assessments have been available since 1 October prior to the launch of the scheme in January 2013, but the tumbleweed must be blowing through the offices of registered contractors as they wait for customers.
The Climate Change Minister, Greg Barker had to admit that “no assessments have yet been lodged” on the Government’s official register. The shadow minister described the situation as a “shambles”.
So why are people not getting engaged? We would really like to have your thoughts on the Green Deal, which we can then feed this back to Greg Barker.
In our Green Living section you will also find a free energy assessment tool. It is easy to use, you just answer some very simple questions to get a report on what energy saving measures your home could benefit from. This will help you decide if you might benefit from making changes to your property, which may be covered by the Green Deal scheme if you are interested, or they may just be very simple DIY improvements such as improving insulation or even just changing your lightbulbs.
Nov 21
We think we have managed to make Price Doctor as simple as possible to use, you do not need computer experience and it is all broken down into easy stages with choices of pictures for you to just click on. Visit Price Doctor and get a free total for for your build, which you can compare with builders quotes or use to budget your project. Click on the image below or visit our home page and find Price Doctor in the navigation buttons on the left.
Click on the picture above to use Price Doctor and then please let us know what you think, did you know we have a facebook page?
Grab a coffee and we will see you over there…
