Welcome to DIY Doctor's blog

We are trying to find out which building jobs you prefer and which tools you value most.

So we have set up a short questionnaire – if you can call two questions a questionnaire!

We will use this information to improve our projects section, and to make sure we are doing the right tool reviews for our tool information section.

So if you don’t mind spending five or six minutes to humour us, please click here to go to our tasks questionnaire.

To entertain you, and get you in the mood for thinking about tools and what you can do with them, here is a video from the incredible German Hammer Juggler – as if juggling with hammers wasn’t hard enough …

Oh and did we mention that if you answer our questions you get a chance to win a complete tool kit, and if you are in the trade you will also get a year’s advertising on DIY Doctor?

If that makes you more interested then click on the link above or you can nip over to our Facebook page, and you will find the survey pinned to the top.

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A housing estate in Uppingham, Rutland is to trial a “no cold calling” zone. A scheme to make it harder for rogue traders.

The residents of The Beeches, have decided to protect themselves from traders who use cold calling methods. Such workmen are more likely to be rogue traders, with no qualifications, insurance, or (worse) no intention of finishing the job.

From next week, there will be signs up at the entrance to the estate. The zone will be enforced by trading standards officers, Rutland County Council, and the local police.

We welcome this idea as an excellent move towards eliminating rogue traders and cowboy builders. We would really like to see this idea expanded to other areas. By integrating it with Neighborhood Watch it should help protect vulnerable people who are often targeted by unscrupulous cowboys.

As you know DIY Doctor is aiming to eliminate Cowboy Builders, by giving consumers the tools they need to avoid poor tradesmen and only employ those who want to do a good job for you. This type of initiative is really inspiring. Homeowners are taking control and showing that they are not prepared to be passed off with shoddy workmanship.

“I welcome this scheme as a method of helping homeowners to avoid cowboy builders and other rogue traders. It is vital to give consumers the tools they need to protect themselves against these unscrupulous tradespeople”  Mike Edwards, Managing Director DIY Doctor.

We have a whole section on our main site about avoiding Cowboy Builders by finding reputable tradesmen. In it we stress the importance of homeowners taking responsibility for their homes. We help you to make informed decisions by providing tools and information so you can avoid common pitfalls and get the right work done at the right price.

Visit our Home Improver’s Protection Solution for our five-part programme to avoid the cowboy builders.

Some points to bear in mind

Professional builders and gardeners are not likely to just turn up at your house. Most good tradesmen are busy anyway, but even if someone is looking for work if they are genuine they are much more likely to advertise locally or put leaflets through the door which allows you to make contact with them.

We would never recommend employing anyone who cold calls.

If you ever have someone cold calling who wont take ‘no’ for answer, don’t hesitate to call the police.

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TrustMark have just announced a 20% increase in online viewings of their listed tradesmen in the last 12 months.

DIY Doctor recommend using TrustMark to find tradespeople as part of our ‘Home Improvers Protection Solution’ (HIPS) campaign, because they are a government endorsed organisation and the only ‘find a tradesman’ scheme that insist on their tradespeople having membership to a trade body.

Your builder being a member of a trade body is not a safeguard in itself but it does mean that tradesmen must be insured, and the trade body will have a complaints procedure, and even an ombudsman, if things do go wrong.

Find a Good Builder

Builders who pay to belong to a trade body are more likely to be genuine professional builders rather than fly-by-night organisations that come and go – sometimes with your money in their pocket!

The mentality of a professional builder is one of long term business building, including doing a good job, being professional and open, being accountable, being insured, and desiring repeat business and recommendations. This is the sort of person you want to be working on your home.

Cowboy builders lie

Be aware that unscrupulous builders, who make a living out of ripping people off, may use a trade body to give their business a veneer of respectability, so do not accept their membership as proof they are genuine.

This is obviously annoying as it makes Cowboy Builders harder to spot, but just because they use a trade body logo on their paperwork or van doesn’t guarantee that they are actually members. They may have been members once, and let it lapse, or they may simply have lifted the logo illicitly.

Check out your builders before you employ them

When you are ‘interviewing’ builders, and other tradespeople, ask for their trade body membership number and check with the organisation involved. Trade bodies want to protect their good name and that of their legitimate members keep. They do not want to see cowboys stealing their good name. They may even want to take the matter further if you find your prospective builders are not members, but claiming they are.

If your builder does not readily give you their membership details, get in touch with the trade body anyway – they will be able to check their records against the builders name and address. If this builder is not registered don’t use them. If they are lying at this stage it does not bode well for future relations!

How can I avoid Cowboy Builders

If you are thinking of having work done at home, use all the tools on our website to help you employ a good tradesman and avoid the bad one. Read more in our HIPS section Home Improvers Protection Solution on our main site.

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Have you considered using wind power to supplement the energy you use at home?

Generating renewable energy using domestic wind turbines will help to save money and reduce your carbon footprint.

Also you are likely to find that, as you become aware of how much effort is needed to generate electricity, you will be more likely to find ways to conserve the energy you use.

Using Microwind turbines

Small-scale wind turbines are also known as microwind, or small-wind turbines. They convert wind energy into usable electricity for your home, so you can power your lights and electrical goods. In addition providing you qualify for the government’s Feed-in-Tariff scheme you can also receive payments for every unit of electricity you generate. If you generate electricity you don’t use this ‘extra’ electricity can be exported back to the National Grid.

Find out more about the Feed-in-Tariff Scheme.

You have a choice of mounting the turbine on your roof, or on a mast to make it freestanding. Your choice will depend on the land you have available, and on what is the the most efficient way of capturing wind energy in your area.

Obviously turbines work best in areas where exposure to the wind is unrestricted.

So how effective is a domestic wind turbine?

According to the Energy Saving Trust, wind turbines are a viable source of self-generated energy for the home owner. The Energy Trust is a social enterprise company with charity status, aiming to help Britain reduce carbon emissions, use water more sustainably and save money on energy bills.

“A well sited 6kW turbine could generate around 10,000kWh per year which is equivalent to around 5.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. A system this size could generate income and savings of around £3,200 a year when eligible for the Feed-In Tariff” Energy Saving Trust

Can you move a wind turbine?

If you move house it is possible to relocate your turbine, providing the new site is suitable. However there are costs involved with dismantling and reinstalling, so you might be better off using your money-saving device as a selling point, and planning to put in a new one at your new home.

For more information on Green energy including wind power, visit our Green Living section.

Our Green Living pages are written in conjunction with our ‘Green’ partners Be Energy Smart. Their website is full of useful information about energy saving initiatives, and generating green energy, including questions and answers, and free energy assessments for your home.

Click here to visit the Be Energy Smart website.

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Xenophobia rules in Northampton as the local paper advises consumers not to employ builders who ‘don’t have a local accent’. This is under the heading ‘Dodgy and Dangerous’. Oh dear!

The Northampton Herald and Post is advising it’s readers on how to avoid cowboy builders in response to a report from Sainsbury’s Home Insurance which highlights how big the problem of rogue traders actually is in Britain. Sainsbury’s report shows that more than 6 million homeowners have suffered from botched building jobs in the last 5 years at a cost of some £3.7 billion.

You know we are always improving our information about avoiding cowboy builders here at DIY Doctor. Much of what the paper has to say makes sense, but this is one piece of advice that we have never seen before. We won’t be adopting this advice as part of our Home Improver’s Protection Solution, because we believe that people should be free to move around the country, and even around Europe, providing the service they are offering is a good one.

Go to our Home Improver’s Protection Solution pages to find out how you can really find a good tradesman and avoid Cowboy Builders. This includes free tools such as find a tradesman, Price Doctor quote checking tool, and the Desired Outcome Contract to use with your builder.

There is also lots of advice on our You Tube Channel – including a seminar from our Managing Director Mike Edwards which deals with avoiding the cowboy. Click play on the video below to see what he has to say.

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