Welcome to DIY Doctor's blog


May 18
Trust mark logo How do I know my builder is an honest tradesman? – Trust TrustMark

TrustMark registers and vets UK building companies and tradesmen

Regular DIY Doctor visitors know we support good building practices by promoting the use of our building contract and quality vetted tradesmen like TrustMark builders

One of the ways we help consumers find reliable building professionals is to recommend you use a registered insured tradesman when you need a builder. Our find a tradesman section features Trustmark registered builders to help you do this. We say this because they are approved and vetted by TrustMark, the only Government endorsed quality mark for the building industry.

Last month TrustMark reached out to more than 3.4 million consumers in BBC radio broadcasts across the country. The idea was to promote their service and to help anyone looking for a builder to find local, reliable, trades people.

Liz Male, Chairman of TrustMark, said: “The radio interviews have been a great way for us to communicate with consumers up and down the country and to raise awareness of TrustMark and our tradesmen. We need to put a stop to the rogue traders who continue to take advantage of unsuspecting and vulnerable people” The radio programs were broadcast on Local BBC stations, all the way from Scotland down to Northumberland, across from Wales to Kent and back to Cornwall.

Find a building firm you trust

If you are planning on employing a builder or building company, you want to be confident that you are using someone you can trust. Trustmark vet and register UK building firms, smaller general builders and if you need a more specialist tradesman, they have those too, such as a plumber, electrician, plasterer, decorator or landscape gardener.

DIY Doctor has been promoting the idea of a reliable system to help consumers find the builder they need for their building job for the last 5 years. This is why we introduced our ‘Desired Outcome’ Building Contract, which you can download from the site, along with guidance notes to help you plan your build step by step (with you builder) so everyone knows where they stand at every step of the process.

Why you should use a building contract

Reliable builders are usually happy to work with a contract, where Cowboy Builders are likely to run a mile if you ask them to discuss and commit to their plans and costs at the beginning of the negotiations.

Mike Edwards, Brand Manager for DIY Doctor comments “The DIY Doctor Desired Outcome Contract has been developed by a team of builders and legal experts in consultation with our customer focus group, to be sure that it protects the interests of both parties in a fair and equitable way.”

See Mike explaining about the Contract and other ways to ensure you get a trusted tradesman for your build in the video below – there are also other explanatory videos and an interview between a builder and customer after using the Desired Outcome building contract on the DIY Doctor YouTube Channel.

May 10

We are sprucing up our newsletter to keep our regular users up to date with what is happening in our world in a more attractive way.

Our newsletters have proved very popular with our readers and we send them out once a month to highlight all the changes to the site, DIY and building news, and anything else we think you would like to know. We will also be starting to offer competitions (with prizes!) and quizzes.

So if you are not yet signed up and would like to receive our monthly news letter then please click through to sign up.

It is easy to subscribe and unsubscribe and we will not bombard you with spam, or share your information around to others.

Newsletter Newsletter redesign

These are some of the subjects we will be covering
Contract
Price Doctor
Tools
Books
Video reviews
Video tutorials
Advertising
AD Doctor
Guest blogs
Mikes Book – ‘Master Basic DIY’
Blog
Find a Tradesman
Forum
Gardening
Green Living
HIPS – Home Improvement Protection Solution
Home IMP
Newsletter
Price Doctor
Projects
Property
Shop
Videos
Home Improvement/DIY
Self-build
Renovation
Garden
Craft/upcycling
Trade Skills

Apr 28

Thank you to all of you who have used our YouTube Channel for your DIY fixes and Home improvement jobs.

We have loads of How To and instructional videos, as well as tutorials on such things as How to avoid cowboy builders, and a range of product reviews to help you get the best tool for the jobs you are planning.

As Mike is fond of saying “There is a tool for every job”.

As a celebration of his video style we have put together a quick Mash-Up of some of his best bits see below:

We have got lots of other helpful videos to help you with property maintenance, building task and buying the right tools. Visit the DIY Doctors YouTube channel.

Apr 25

Countdown to a Million You Tube Views – we can bust this wide open by the end of the month with your help. Visit the DIY Doctor You Tube channel for loads of useful and fun videos about DIY, building, and Home Improvement tasks, tips and tricks, ‘How to vids’ and tool reviews.

Please leave your comments here on our blog if you have any ideas for more videos to film.

Apr 24

The government are releasing up to 100 building plots in the 2012 Olympic village in Stratford, and some East Londoners are bidding to self-build on the site.

Stratford Olympic building site Would you want to build a house on the Olympic site?The London Legacy Development Corporation’s (LLDC) has called for expressions of interest for anyone wishing to build on the site, which was the former handball arena.

There is currently a group of twenty households who have expressed their interest in building their own homes on the site. The LLDC plans to allow some 8,000 homes on the former Olympic Site overall. While this is likely to

This is another indication of the Government’s policy to try to open up the idea of self-build to a wide range of budgets, and not just to affluent people. Their idea is to tackle the housing shortage by getting people to build the houses they want, and then presumably to settle in them long term, given that they are offering these tax breaks providing you stay for 7 years.

The news follows on from last month’s announcement by the Governments Housing Minister Mark Prisk, who plans to release £14million in grants over the next two year to bump start the self-build market along these lines. See the statement released by the Housing Department last month.

If you are planning a self-build project we have a section in our project pages with lots of information to do with building your own home, go to the DIY Doctor self build index page and browse through all the useful information including specialist mortgages, finding building plots, development processes, cheap materials, vat implications, planning costs, and how to design your own home.

You may also want to check out our blog about the new changes to VAT on Self Build Projects, by clicking on this link.