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Last summer you went out into the garden with your tool kit and DIY knowledge to build yourself a patio and BBQ area. The days were spent under the sun supplying friends and family with delicious food and enjoying the surroundings of the garden instead of the confines of the lounge. However, with the winter still with us, spending time outside seems a distant memory. Spring is the perfect time to restore your patio and BBQ area back to its former glory, and we’re here to show you just how easy it can be, so long as you have the right tools.

Preparation 

• Remove any garden furniture that you may have outside during the winter months
• Pull up any weeds that have grown and pick up any stones that might be lying around the patio – use a weed killer like Jeyes Fluid

Pressure Washing

Now that you have removed the weeds and stones from the patio you can begin pressure washing the surface. We would suggest that you wear safety goggles as the device can be extremely powerful and forceful. Ensure your pressure washer is fully powered by running it for a couple of seconds. Point the nozzle at a small area a couple of feet away from your body and test the pressure. Check the patch you’ve just cleaned and if all the debris has cleared, you know you have the right distance. This could take a couple of goes, but experiment with different distances to ensure you get the best clean. Carry on as usual, section by section and if the build up of water gets too much, have regular resting intervals. Allow for the patio to dry and you can start putting the finishing touches to it.

Tips

• It’s best to do this sort of work on a dry day – check the weather forecast to determine what the best day would be
• Have clear start and end points to ensure you don’t spread dirt across the patio where you’ve just pressure washed
• Direct water from the pressure washer to any nearby drains

Cleaning the patio

We would recommend that you use Jeyes Fluid for most outdoor activities. It can disinfect and deodorise drains, can be used to clean bins and clear pathways.  A Jeyes Fluid 5 litre bottle should be all you need to disinfect a large patio and BBQ area, four litres covers approximately 90 square meters. This is a must-have product to store in the shed if you have a dog, as he is sure to have done his business on the patio. Using this product will destroy pathogens, making it a safe place for children to play without running the risk of becoming ill.

Jeyes Fluid is also known to kill weeds, algae and moss making it a good product to use when preparing the patio before pressure washing. In fact you could even use this while you pressure wash, depending on the device you have.

If you will be using it after pressure washing, scrub the patio down using an outdoor brush and Jeyes Fluid to kill any lingering bacteria and stubborn debris.

Restoring your patio and BBQ area couldn’t be easier, especially if you combine the cleaning powers of a pressure washer with Jeyes Fluid. Doing so can save you a lot of time and energy, and the results will be a lot more rewarding – after all you’ll have more time to enjoy the space and get the BBQ going.

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We are all thankful for central heating at this time of year, and we thought we would look at the early years of central heating history.

Being able to heat our environment is an essential part of survival in cold-climate countries.

We have been heating our homes since man ‘discovered’ fire or at least managed to bend it to his will, this happened some 200,000-400,000 years ago. A broad span of time, but experts differ on what constitutes use of fire in domestic terms.

Open Fire

Early man would have used an open fire to keep warm, cook and deter predators. As a source of heat an open fire is primitive. Most of the heat rises up away from the bodies around it, and it generates a lot of smoke which is inconvenient in an enclosed space.

When fires were used in early dwellings there would have been a trade off between the heat required and smoke to tolerate. Chimneys, which would have been a simple hole to begin with, helped with the removal of smoke. In Europe the earliest record of a chimney is in a Swiss Monastery in AD820, but they did not become commonplace until the 12th Century.

Fireplaces

With the development of the chimney a fire could be moved from its central location in a room to a perimeter wall. The fire then started to become enclosed by a fireplace. The invention of the fireplace made the fire safer and less smokey. It also allowed the whole hearth and surround to heat up which radiates some heat into the room rather than losing all the heat up the chimney.

Kang and Ondol

We shouldn’t forget that while this was the history of heating in Europe, China had already had heated beds call Kangs and the Koreans had developed heated floors called Ondol meaning Warm Stone. These development went on between 10,000 and 5,000 BC. They often used charcoal for heating rather than wood as it is much less smokey.

Kangs were developed in Northern China where the winters can be very harsh. They are still used in some homes and guest houses. They consist of a raised area or platform in a room. There is a furnace underneath which heats the whole platform area. Traditionally these would have been heated by charcoal or even coal. At night bedding is laid down and the whole family sleep on the Kang to keep warm. During the day bedding is rolled up and the area is used for daytime activities.

The Korean Ondol system is similar to the Chinese Kang but the whole floor is heated. A raided masonry floor is heated from beneath using the smoke and heat from a fire lit in a fireplace or stove in an adjoining room (often a kitchen). There is a chimney at the opposite side of the room to allow the smoke to escape.The family would traditionally live and sleep in this heated room during cold weather.

Both of these systems make use of the benefits of body heat. By everyone in the household using the same space at night, as well as during the day, their body heat is shared into the room. Also by only heating one room it is much more efficient than heating many individual rooms.

Roman Heating

The Romans are often credited with inventing central heating, but they probably got the idea from the Ancient Greeks and the Koreans were way ahead of them. Although without the internet it is unlikely that the Greeks were influenced directly by the Koreans.

Whoever invented the idea, the Romans definitely brought their Hypocaust heating systems to Britain. Our primitive hearths must have made them shudder especially with their penchant for wearing sandals in all weathers.

The hypocaust system had a central fire which was fired by wood, or by coal in the UK as it could be surface mined and was more efficient and less smokey than wood to burn. The heat from the fire was then distributed under hollow floors as well as through pipes and ducts in the wall, to give an even and effective heating system. It was obviously an expensive and labour intensive process to keep the buildings warm in this way, but they had slaves and servants for cheap labour.

Roman settlements usually had shared bath houses, which allowed a much more efficient use of fuel to heat water and create steam for saunas.

Underfloor heating today

Underfloor heating went out of fashion when the Romans left Britain, but it has started to become more popular again. If you want to know more about types of heating for your home you can browse through our projects section on the main site. If you are interested in underfloor heating then you can start with our project using water for underfloor heating systems.

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A QUICK THANKS TO YOU

We just wanted to thank all our regular users on our forum for making it such a wealth of useful information for other users of the site.

When we originally started DIY Doctor in 2000 (wow 13 years ago – really?) the DIY Doctor tradesmen were able to answer all the questions that came via the site on a personal level by email.

As the site grew this became impossible to sustain if we wanted to remain a free site (which we do), so we set up the forum to allow our users to contact builders, GasSafe fitters, roofers, plumbers, gardeners and, well, any tradespeople in any trade really.

In addition we also welcome constructive feedback from users who have experience or want to share their knowledge on a particular Home Improvement subject.

USING DIY DOCTOR’S FORUM

Our forum is easy to use (we hope) it is divided into different home improvement and trade sections and you can search for subjects in the search box. There are links to active topics and unanswered questions if you want to get involved with someone else’s questions.

We picked this one out of yesterday’s DIY Doctor forum questions as an example. Garden abutting gable wall question on DIY Doctor Forum

We often get questions about damp including condensation, rising damp and (in this case featured above) ground levels causing a breach in a Damp Proof Course (DPC).

Damp can have very damaging effects on your house, if you would like to find out more about causes of damp then do visit our Damp Causes and Solutions in the Home DIY Project.

When you are reading through our Projects section you will also see related projects featured in a box to the left hand side. This makes it easy for you to read all the information we have on a subject, and if you still cannot find the answer that is the time to post a question on the DIY Doctor Forum.

You will need to register, but it is quick and free.

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Jason Costner of Saltburn, North Yorkshire was jailed after leaving one pensioner with no water in her bathroom for five months and another with a hole in his roof over Christmas – in the snow.

The Daily Mail reported yesterday that a rogue trader has been jailed for leaving a trail of destruction and misery in his wake, not to mention the financial pain he inflicted. You can see their full story by clicking on the photo above.

Costner gained the confidence of people by offering his services free or for very little money, and then started to charge large sums of money, before turning abusive and threatening. He even managed to pocket money received from an insurance claim without completing the promised work.

He was arrested for fraud in September 2011, and received an 18 month sentence on Monday.

DIY Doctor wants to eradicate Cowboy Builders

We have been working on various ways to arm yourself against getting caught by Cowboy Builders. We continually update this information as we develop new advice and products to help keep you safe.

On the main website you will see a button ‘HIPS’ which stands for Home Improver Protection Solution. OK so we know that isn’t as catchy as it could be, but the information in there is invaluable if you are having work done on your house. The information is free and so are most of the products. (Where something is not free we clearly say so).

What’s new?

Lots of sites give you advice on avoiding Cowboy Builders, but we also give you some tools to weed them out and help you choose good builders.

The latest addition to the website is a product called Price Doctor. The basic product is Free and takes about five minutes to use.

Price Doctor allows you to find out how much your extension should cost you before you speak to your builder, or if you already have quotes from builders it allows you to check that those quotes are reasonable.

How often have you heard the advice ‘get three quotes and pick the middle one’ but how do you know any of them are right? They might all be too much or,worse, too little.

How can a quote that is too cheap be a problem?

You might think it is great if you get cheap quotes but if the builder gets to your job and realises he hasn’t quoted enough, he will need to find ‘extras’ to charge you, and these can be hefty.

A good and experienced builder will quote you based on his knowledge of similar jobs, and so any extras will be legitimately unforeseen things. (In our building days, we once found an old Morris Minor buried in a garden when the diggers went to dig the foundations for a conservatory. That is a legitimate extra, it could not have been foreseen by anyone!)

Check your quote with Price Doctor before making your decision

If you know your builders quotes are about right you can be sure they are pricing correctly which means they know what they are doing and they are fair about what they charge. This is a good sign!

If your preferred builder has quoted significantly more you can ask him to look at the Price Doctor quote with you, you could even go through the process together. He might have a good reason for being more expensive, but at least it gives you a tool for negotiating with your builder.

Some builders are using our full level of Price Doctor to prepare their building quotes, in the knowledge that Price Doctor provides a clear and transparent quote for the homeowner. The more comprehensive versions of Price Doctor do cost money but for £20 you get increased choices for your build, a ‘shopping list’ of materials and you can also get a professional model which allows you to build in profit margins and trade discounts on materials.

What else do you have that protects me against Cowboy Builders?

We will continue to add to this list as time goes on but these are the main areas to help you avoid cowboy builders so far.

• Desired Outcome contract
• Guidance notes for entering into a contract with your builder
• Advice on using a payment plan
• Advice on finding a tradesman

Go to DIY Doctors Home Improver Protection Solution section to see all our advice, products and information to help you find a reliable builder and avoid the cowboy.

To try Price Doctor for yourself please click on the banner below, and do let us know how you got on with it.

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We should be concerned about the decline in Bee population – bees are the primary pollinators of our flowers and also our crops.

Bees have been declining in recent years, some of it due to disease. However the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and various environmental campaigners, have highlighted the detrimental affect of a group of chemicals called neonicotinoids present in some building materials. They are pesticides which act as nerve agents that are seriously damaging to the health of bees and other insects.

DIY sheds pledge to remove harmful compounds from their shelves

The good news for bees is that two big DIY retailers have pledged to remove products containing neonicotinoids from their shelves. Although B&Q only stock one product with imidacloprid, Wickes have several containing thiamethoxam, both chemicals that are members of this harmful group of compounds. This is good news for home improvers and DIYers who can feel confident in not destroying bees while carrying our their building tasks.

Bees are not the only pollinators in trouble

We may not think of the role that Moths play in our lives, however they are also important pollinators and their numbers are also falling. Numbers of moths have declined in Britain by approximately 28% in the last 40 years, however this is nearer 40% in the South of England. It is believed that removal of habitat is the most important factor.

While we might not feel very fond of moths they are an important source of food for our birds. Our gardens just wouldn’t be the same without the songbirds that visit would they? Those of us that watch the birds feeding fledgelings know that caterpillars make up a large proportion of food for chicks.

Wildlife garden tips to encourage pollinators

The best way to encourage beneficial insects into our gardens is to leave some sections of the garden to run a bit wild. Allowing some wild flowers and weeds like nettles to grow, will give valuable shelter and food to moth larvae and eggs. If you can’t bear to see a messy bit of garden why not screen off an area with your shed or an attractive willow hurdle? Even better would be to plant a screening hedge using native British species such as hawthorn, blackthorn and hazel, to offer even more natural habitats to garden wildlife.

You could build a compost heap, a leaf mould basket, a log pile and even sink a shallow container to collect water, all in a very small area, and then allow weeds to self seed around these fixtures. You will be amazed at the biodiversity this will encourage into your garden as insects shelter, frogs and toads take advantage of cool sheltered damp spots, and you may even get hedgehogs moving into your log pile.

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