Mar 28
The DIY Doctor team have packed up and are on their way to The National Homebuilding and Renovating Show!
We’ve got everything including the kitchen sink (well, bathroom sink actually) for the Tricks of the Trade stage presentations for the next four days……we hope you will be able to come and see us there.
The show is being held at the NEC Birmingham and opens tomorrow (Thursday) and is open to the public until Sunday, everyday from 10am until 5pm.
You can still register for 2 free tickets by clicking here or on the banner below.
It promises to be a fantastic event with advice and inspiration for anyone looking at doing any home renovating or tackling a self build. DIY Doctor will be at the Tricks of the Trade stage with the following timetable of demonstrations and presentations:
11.00am - How to Skim Plaster a Wall
12.30pm – How to Avoid Cowboy Builders
2.00pm – How to Skim Plaster a Wall
3.30pm – How to Tile your Bathroom
We hope you’ll be able to make it to the show……..
Mar 02
Minehead in Somerset has seen a new hall built in just three weeks. The building is a new 165 seater Kingdom Hall for the local Jehovah’s Witness congregation, and has been built entirely by volunteers seeing around 200 fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses from across the region travelling to help.
What is more amazing is that the build has happened in just three weeks and most of that has been done at weekends. The congregation has been saving for the last 15 years to enable them to build the new hall and had raised over £300,000 but it has all been worthwhile and they have been pleased with the support they have received.
Allan Peppin, one of the local Jehovah’s Witnesses involved, said “We’ve all had such a happy time working together and we have been really encouraged by the positive observations and messages of support from passers-by and visitors to the site.”
Feb 17
It looks hopeful for a new housing project to get the go-ahead by Swindon Council. The scheme would see a partnership between the borough council and Buildstore Financial Services, who run the National Self Build Centre, to develop a site which would be used for self-build homes.
The proposed site is where Windmill Hill School used to be, before being demolished in 2011, and so is already owned by the council and it has been decided that this is the most preferable site. Councillor Peter Greenhalgh said “It’s a self-contained site within an area of existing housing. It’s difficult to think of any other type of scheme that would work in this specific location.”
The idea is that once planning permission was given, Buildstore would market the 12 building plots for an agreed priceand then once all plots were sold, the council would implement all access roads and paths and provide utilities for all the plots. Then Buildstore would step in to help the self builders with project management so they could all build their own homes.
It sounds like an excellent project to us, and we will be watching carefully to see how this proposed scheme progresses.
Jan 19
This month has seen a continuing slow rise in confidence in American homebuilders with The National Association of Homebuilders/Wells Fargo sentiment gauge reaching the highest it has been since June 2007.
Bob Nielson, chairman of The National Association of Home Builders in the US said that this was “yet another indication of the gradual but steady improvement that is beginning to take hold in an increasing number of housing markets nationwide”.
Jan 19
An article in this month’s Wired magazine has highlighted the new Wikihouse, which is a self-assembly house in kit form. It’s been called an ‘open source house design and construction kit’, which means that via online plans and downloads and with no building skills or tools, you can have your house.
Wikihouse is the idea of a London based design company called 00:/ and follows a basic process of downloading designs via a community library you can customise using Google Sketchup which will create the plans for cutting which you can then send to a company to cut the plywood sheets you require.
Construction is completely self-assembly with basic tools and according to the article the design company have looked into the concept of Wikihouse being used for ‘post-disaster recovery’ due to the lack of cost and speed of build.
Sounds like an amazing concept, and we will definately be watching out for more news on the Wikihouse!
