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.
DIY retailer Wickes has opened a new smaller high street store in Tunbridge Wells.
At only 700 sq ft it is much smaller than their other 200 plus stores which average 25-30,000 sq ft. It is a trial to see how sales go and they will be stocking 2,500 items in store, with another 2,500 available for next day pick up.
The company plans to roll out more trial stores next year, so watch this space……
Neweys Online, the online store for Newey & Eyre, a leading UK Electrical wholesaler have launched a UK wide survey questionnaire to gain key market knowledge on how the Solar PV boom will affect local electricians.
The research carried out by Neweys Online is due to be released in early 2012. Anyone can take part either by completing the online solar survey or asking in the nearest Newey and Eyre branch.
“The branch and online solar survey is a quick, very user friendly questionnaire which aims to generate a better understanding of what requirements really face smaller business to capitalise on the growing trends in domestic renewable energy installations.” Emma Gilbert from the Web team commented.
“There has been lots of focus on what opportunities the Solar PV market will bring for the UK economy as a whole but little research has been completed on how the smaller business are preparing for this growing segment of their market. It is also important that more information is given to the customer so they are fully informed when picking a Solar PV installer.”
The survey can be found on the following page http://bit.ly/onlinesolarsurvey along with full terms and conditions.
To thank people for their time Neweys Online are offering 5 £100 Next gift cards for all participates during the period of the 1st November 2011 to the 2nd December 2011.
An article in The Telegraph has highlighted the charges local councils are hitting householders with for collecting garden rubbish or for taking it to the nearest tip and have labelled it a ‘stealth tax’.
Charges differ across the country but apparently more than a third of councils in England are charging up to £90 per year to collect garden rubbish from residents homes on top of council taxes. Statistics from The Sunday Telegraph show that out of 326 local authorities 111 of them now charge for collecting garden rubbish. This charge is usually around £30 to £50 to use the service but Harlow District Council charge £90 for a fortnightly garden waste collection. There are often additional costs such as the cost of a special wheelie bin or you have to pay ‘per bag’ for single use garden waste bags.
Shockingly, the article also says that some councils are charging between 60p and £1.50 for garden waste bags, but then these are just being collected and dumped into landfill with all the other household rubbish collected.
A spokesman for Local Authority Recycling Advice Committee defended the use of charging for collecting garden waste, saying “A charge can often support the promotion of home composting which remains the preferable means of treating garden and some food wastes.”
DIY Doctor strongly believes it is better to recycle whenever possible, so if you have the outside space, you can save on all these costs by recycling your garden (and kitchen) waste and using a simple compost container.
Our project on building a compost container gives step by step instruction on building a wooden compost bin. Or you can always buy one like the one pictured above.
Once set up, maintenance is low and you get great compost for your garden!! A no-brainer if you ask us!!
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……….
High street electrical retailer Comet has been sold by their owner Kesa Electricals for £2. Kesa have also had to pay a £50m lump sum to the buyers, private equity firm OpCapita, for Hailey Holdings Ltd, but Kesa will be continuing responsibility for Comet’s pension scheme.
The majority of Kesa’s business is in Europe with their electrical retailer Darty, but Comet’s losses, which were £9m last year on top of their annual renatl bill of £90m, have reached the point of risking the future of the whole group.
Comet has 248 stores in the UK and 10,000 employees, but has struggled within the tough electrical retailing sector for quite some time. The sector is suffering considerably with the reduction in consumer spending, particularly on major electrical goods.
Thailand has been facing the worst flooding it’s seen in 50 years, and people there are coming up with some great DIY ideas to help in the most dire of situations.
A folding portable toilet has been developed by the Faculty of Engineering at the Prince of Songkla University. The toilet consists of a folding wooden seat and a plastic curtain hooked onto a steel frame. The frame can also be adapted to create a mobile shower unit if a water tank is connected.
Other practical help has included the automatic sandbag loading machine which has been created by the Faculty of Engineering at the Rajamangala University of Technology in Thanyaburi.
Plastic bottles have also been collected and used as buoyancy aids when water levels are high, as well as being made into life saving jackets and rafts.
Permaroof UK have just launched their new product range of Permaroof In A Box®. The first range is for shed roofs and the benefits are that it comes with a lifetime membrane guaranatee, and the kit contains everything you need to water proof your shed roof, all packaged neatly into one box.
The system comprises of a one piece epdm rubber membrane that is adhered to a timber surface using a safe water based adhesive. No joints to fail, and totally UV stable.
They come in 5 different sizes that should cater for most popular sheds but they also offer bespoke orders for larger sizes.
Also coming soon is a range of Permaroof In A Box® for domestic flat roofs, again in 5 different sizes – single garage, double garage, kitchen extensions etc and all packaged up so there is no working out what materials are needed.
All kits come with full easy fitting instructions. For more information, take a look at our Building a Shed project which includes Roof in a Box fitting instructions, and you can click through to purchase from Permaroof UK.
A health and safety instructor narrowly avoided serious injury whilst giving a demonstration on ladder safety, when he came crashing to the ground. The instructor, Paul Cavanagh, who works for a company in Tyne and Wear, was demonstrating how to work safely up a ladder by tethering yourself to it.
Unfortunately, he firstly forgets to put on his hard hat so has to be thrown it whilst up the ladder – not recommended!. Then as he is demonstrating how the safety harness holds him as he steps off a rung of the ladder, the ladder falls to the side and both ladder and Mr Cavanagh come down over a garden fence.
For more information and advice on how to use a ladder safely please see our project page.
