On Saturday at 6pm the DIY Doctor, aka Mike Edwards, will be making an appearance on radio station FromeFM on their ‘Our House’ programme with presenter Mags.
Mike will be talking to Mags about home improvements and all things DIY, including some of the do’s and don’ts of doing up your house.
FromeFM is an online radio station found at www.fromefm.co.uk, so get online at 6pm on Saturday 19th November and pick up some tips from the DIY Doctor himself!
Apparently property experts say that home owners should be spending 1% of their homes value on home improvements every year. This was discussed in a very interesting article by Sarah Edworthy who has found out in her own life, what happens if you don’t do the maintenance.
The article states that, according to Land Registry figures, an average house in the UK costs £162,109, therefore this would mean we should spend £1621 on home maintenance annually. But Sarah and her family learnt the hard way what happens if you don’t bother with the upkeep, as for ten years they concentrated on bringing up their children and didn’t put money into their house.
Recently, when they had a valuation done on their property they were told that the value could have been 15% highter if the condition of the house had been better maintained. And 15% equals quite a lot of money in anyone’s book!
The article goes on to quote Robert Barr from Kerr & Co as saying “Be vigilant to the need to keep your home in good condition — not in terms of what is in vogue, but good old-fashioned internal and external maintenance”.
“The longer-term cost of not keeping up a cyclical maintenance programme will be a lower property value and a higher bill when you do carry out repairs. Prevention is better than the cure”.
These are wise words, and we should all learn from Sarah Edworthy’s experience. Depending on the size of your house, if you can aim to refurb one room a year plus an extra ‘area’ such as front or back garden, or maybe a hallway or utility room, this will go some way to keeping on top of maintenance. But don’t forget the exterior of the property as well. Seemingly small problems can easily escalate into something a lot more costly.
Don’t forget, if you need to find a tradesman to help with your home maintenance, whether it be clearing gutters or tiling your bathroom, you can get up to 5 free quotes from insured, reliable tradesmen via our Find a Tradesman page.
The proposed government policy called ‘Green Deal’, designed to improve the energy efficiency of homes, will be consulted on by ministers later this month.
Under the scheme, apparently families will be offered ‘cashback’ of up to £150 as an incentive to get involved. Householders can then have their homes made more energy efficient by having loft and wall insulation fitted as well as double glazing, and pay for this in installments. This cost would of course be offset by lower energy bills.
The idea of ’cashback’ is under discussion as a form of incentive, although Labour’s climate change spokesperson Luciana Berger said that “it would be wrong to classify it as a true incentive given it would have to be paid back over time by consumers who took up the deal.”
So, watch this space……….
A very unusual house in Hackney, London has come onto the market recently. The guide price is £500,000 ono, and yet it has no roof and is derelict. But what it does have is a labyrinth of tunnels underground.
It’s previous owner, William Lyttle who died in June last year, had spent 40 years digging the tunnels and had become a ‘local legend’, although it was only in 2006 when the local council discovered the DIY tunnels that he was evicted as the area was deemed unsafe.
The tunnels and caverns are estimated to spread 20 metres in every direction from the house and the surveyors estimate that he had scooped 1000 cubic metres of earth from underground over the years. In 2006 Mr Lyttle denied he had been tunneling, instead admitting to ‘home improvements’!!
You can always ‘employ a handyman’ (!) by using our Find a Tradesman scheme which enables you to get free, no obligation quotes from reliable and insured tradesmen in your local area.
Mike Edwards (The DIY Doctor) in action at the Tricks of the Trade stage at The National Home Improvement Show 2011. Hundreds of people attended the fifteen talks and demonstrations over the three days of the show, and Mike was available to answer lots of queries and questions that people had regarding their own home projects.
Mike was also able to give lots of advice to visitors on how to avoid cowboy builders when employing a contractor, including using a contract such as our ‘Desired Outcome Building Contract’, getting references and using a service such as our ‘Find a Tradesman’ to ensure your tradesman is reliable and insured. We got some great feedback from the presentations and met some great people, hopefully giving them help and advice to make them feel more skilled and confident to tackle their own home improvements and also deal with contractors.
America will see a new DIY show on TV from October which will feature New York’s top builder Stephen Fanuka, who has done work for some of the world’s top designers and celebrities including Tony Bennett, Michael J Fox and Lindsay Lohan.
Fanuka will be the host of the new programme called ‘Million Dollar Contractor’ as he takes viewers on ‘a behind the scenes look at some of the most amazing spaces and construction of Manhattan’s high-end luxury homes’.
“I’ll give you the inside track on the fast pace world of high-end interior residential renovations,” said Fanuka. “With Million Dollar Contractor, I’ll show you the way the best designers, architects and vendors think outside the box while giving you the know-how to do-it-yourself or hire the right contractor. Your home is your castle, and I’ll show you how to treat it like one.”
Only a few days left before the start of The National Home Improvement Show – so not long left to get your FREE tickets!
The show starts on Friday (30th Sept) and goes on until Sunday (2nd Oct) at Earls Court, London. There will be loads to see and it is a great day out if you need inspiration or advice on a home improvement project.
Come and see DIY Doctor at the Tricks of the Trade stage where we will be showing you How to Skim Plaster a Wall, and How to Tile a Bathroom, as well as giving advice on How to avoid Cowboy Builders. The sessions are free but get there early as they are always really popular!
For your 2 FREE TICKETS just click on the banner below to register:
Following a long period where magnolia has been the number one paint choice of the nation, apparently we have changed our tastes! According to a survey by B&Q, our new favourite paint colour is red! And not only that, but its sales outstripped the paler shade two to one!
It would appear that after years of painting our interiors magnolia to appeal to potential buyers, we have decided that as the housing market is sluggish and many of us are choosing not to move, that we will put a more personal stamp on our homes.
So if the neutrals are out, look out as the nation takes more risks with other features in our rooms such as carpets, sofas, curtains etc. We could be in for a colourful time!
We may only be in the first half of September, but it would definately appear that summer is over, and so we should all be turning our minds to any autumn jobs that need attention before the weather turns more wintery.
Our project on Autumn Maintenance Checks gives some good pointers including attending to any external decorating, making sure you get your boiler or other heating serviced, do any loft insulating needed, check all windows and doors are draught proofed, make sure any extractor fans are working to avoid condensation, checking and clearing guttering, cleaning patios and paths and making sure any exterior lighting is working. There is also instruction on dry lining walls.
