15 / 05 / 2012
How To Install Laminate Flooring-Video
Installing laminate flooring is not difficult and as you can see in the video below the results can look absolutely amazing.
9 / 02 / 2012
How to tile a kitchen floor -videos
Below are two good videos on the preparation and the laying of floor tiles. Correctly laid tiles look fantastic so it is worth doing your homework before actually laying the tiles. As with everything, it`s all in the preparation.
12 / 01 / 2012
Joining Kitchen worktops, video
Joining kitchen worktops can be a bit tricky if you`re doing it for the first time, yet nothing will give you more satisfaction than seeing a nice clean snug fitting join.Incorrectly done, badly joined worktops, will offend the eye forever so it is essential to adhere to good practice guidelines.
The two videos below give a very good overview on the correct procedure for cutting all the joints you might come across when fitting a worktop.Correct fitting and joining of your worktops is essential to the overall appearance of your kitchen so this is something that should not be rushed. It is a good idea to practice on some old pieces of worktop first before trying out your hand on brand new stuff.After a little bit of practice you`ll soon wonder what all the fuss was about 
23 / 12 / 2011
How to Choose a Good Builder
“Rogue builders” although in the minority definitely give the construction industry a bad name and hardly a week goes by without there being yet another TV program about the so called “Builders from Hell”. With the help of hidden cameras these “Rogue Builders” are exposed in front of millions of viewers when they blatantly try to cheat customers out of their hard earned cash.
So how can you protect yourself from these unsavory characters who unscrupulously rip off unsuspecting members of the public? The following are some helpful suggestions to consider before hiring a builder.
1. Always ask for references and details of previous jobs. Go to see these jobs wherever possible. A good builder will be only too pleased to show you evidence of his expertise.
2. Be wary if they offer ‘cheap deals’ for “cash-in hand” jobs or suggest you can avoid paying VAT for cash.
3. If they do not want to commit themselves to a written contract they should be avoided like the plague.
4. If they say they can start immediately be wary, as a good builder is usually busy.
5. If they give you a surprisingly low quote you should treat this with suspicion.
6. If they seem reluctant to look at plans or to discuss the details this should also set off alarm bells.
7. If they can only be reached by mobile phone and are reluctant to divulge where they live then this should be seen as a red flag.
8. If they try to baffle you with complicated explanations when asked seemingly simple questions they may be graduates of the “If you can’t convince em confuse em” school of builders and you know that it may not be in your best interests to employ them.
9. If they say they are a member of a trade association, make sure to check it out as anybody can say they are a member when in fact they are not.
10. Get at least three written quotations from various builders and be very specific about what you want done. Leave very little room for misunderstanding and this will pay dividends further down the line.
11. Now is the time to clarify everything and make sure
that no grey areas exist especially regarding payments and when they should be made.
12. If any problems arise during the building work sort it out with your builder straight away and make sure he fully understands your instructions.
If the above guidelines are adhered to then there is no reason why your building project should not be painless and trouble free.
8 / 12 / 2011
Brick pointing- the easy way
I always like to look for easier and quicker ways of doing things and this tool certainly looks to do just that. It may take a little while to get used to it but it is well worth it as it is a great little time saver. It claims to cover an area of 10 sq.m.in an hour. Now thats gotta be impressive and for a cost of 20 quid it can make life a helluva lot easier. One thing that I have always found to be a bit of a nose bleed (not to mention a back break) is pointing paving slabs. I don`t mind laying them, but pointing them has always prompted me to wander off to the comfort of the local public house for several hours and rest my weary back and hope that the job was completed by some well meaning soul when I returned .This tool seems to be the answer to a builder`s prayers. Staining of the brickwork has always been a problem with the traditional method and it could become a bit messy if you didn`t know what you were doing.This tool reduces this quite considerably and eliminates the need for constant sponging of the surface. Ah well…I`ll just have to think up another excuse to go down the pub now.
To find out more about this and other brick pointing tools Click Here
30 / 11 / 2011
Fiddler On The Roof
A neighbour of mine came to me last week and said somebody knocked on his door all suited up and said that a tile had fallen off his roof and barely missed a passing child. He said that he was the owner of a building company himself and that he could have someone come and look at the roof with a view to fixing it at a hugely discounted price.When my neighbour said that he wanted to discuss the matter with his son this man became quite insistent and started rambling on about the fact that if the roof was not seen to immediately somebody could get seriously injured. My neighbour, being elderly felt somewhat intimidated by this fellow, but nevertheless did not allow him to go any further with the matter.
I went to have a look at the roof and found that there was nothing wrong with it and there was no tiles loose or in danger of falling. Wherever the tile came from that supposedly fell off, it certainly was not from the roof!
Obviously this was a scam artist who was using a clever variation of an old theme, of preying on the old and vulnerable and frightening people into parting with their hard earned cash under the pretext that extensive repairs were neccessary on their roof. Presenting himself as a business man in a nice suit gave him a greater semblance of respectability whereby he would be more likely to succeed with the client
The thing to remember here is that if anybody comes knocking on your door offering a great deal on roof repairs (or any other repairs for that matter) make sure you are not rushed into having uneccessary work carried out or you might just live to regret it. If you do need to have work done on your property recommendation is always the best way of finding reliable tradesmen, and if this is not possible get at least three quotations.
27 / 11 / 2011
Gallows brackets Videos-Right and Wrong Way.
This video shows how NOT to hold up a chimney stack. Should you have this sort of set up in your loft you may find that when you come to sell your house your prospective buyers surveyor will pick up on it and it may put them off buying it or at the very least use it as a means of getting a hefty price reduction.
The video below shows the correct way of holding up a chimney stack with gallows brackets and bridged over with pre-stressed concrete lintels.
20 / 11 / 2011
Tuck Pointing Video
According to Wikipedia this method was developed in England in the late eighteenth century to imitate brickwork constructed using rubbed bricks (also rubbers or gauged bricks): bricks of fine red finish which were made slightly oversize and then individually abraded or cut, often by hand, to a precise size after firing. When laid with white lime mortar a neat finish of red brick contrasting with very fine white joints was obtained. Tuckpointing was a way of achieving a similar effect using cheap, unrubbed bricks: these were laid in a mortar of a matching colour (initially red, but later blue-black bricks and mortar were occasionally used) and a fine fillet of white material, usually pipeclay or putty, pushed into the joints before the mortar set. The name derives from an earlier, less sophisticated technique used with very uneven bricks: a thin line, called a tuck, was drawn in the flush-faced mortar but left unfilled, to give the impression of well-formed brickwork.
Tuckpointing makes the brickwork more pleasing to the eye and when done correctly can enhance the beauty of any building. Below is a very brief tutorial on tuckpointing and how to do it correctly.
10 / 11 / 2011
Rising Damp-Fact or Fiction
For many years now the British have been victim to a nice little earner. They have been told their homes suffer from a mysterious ailment called rising damp, which will cause untold damage unless the walls are injected with chemicals and the plaster is hacked off and replaced. Since this problem usually comes to light when a property is being sold and bought, and since its rectification will be a condition of the mortgage, the pressure on the buyers to go along with the rising damp prognosis is immense.
So they pay up – anything between pounds 600 and pounds 6,000, depending upon the direction of the wind – and the new home is hacked about, drilled, injected and replastered. And so it goes on, day after day and house after house – the damp-proofing fraud spreads to every street across the country.
Some people in the construction industry have always complained that the damp-proofing game was a con, but their voices were drowned out by the marketing hype of the damp-proofers, and overruled by the mortgage lenders, insurers, estate agents and surveyors, who looked on and fiddled while the plot developed. These sharp-suited professionals, and their associations, now find themselves up to their elbows in it. You think the mis-selling of private pensions was a scandal? The mis-selling of chemical damp-proofing probably outstrips it by a factor of 20; at least five million British homes have been subjected to this wasteful charade. So who is to blame?
The damp-proofing train is usually set rolling by the surveyor who inspects a property when it is being bought. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors always tells the public that the normal mortgage valuation survey should not be relied upon as a guide to the condition of the place, and recommends the more detailed “homebuyer survey and valuation”. Unfortunately this type of survey requires the surveyor to check the walls for evidence of “dampness”, and this is where the trouble starts.
For what happens is that the surveyor prods the walls with a small battery- powered instrument which measures, not moisture, but the ability to conduct electricity. And since wallpaper and plaster are often electrically conductive, this means that the meter can register a reading, even when the wall is dry.
What follows next will be familiar to practically anyone who has ever bought a home: the surveyor recommends further investigation of the suspected “dampness” by a firm which makes its money by selling, er, chemical damp- proofing.
The damp-proofers’ trade association has long insisted that its members are highly trained experts, who use electrical moisture meters as but one tool in a catalogue of investigative techniques, and that they diagnose rising damp only after carefully plotting a pattern of meter readings over the whole surface of a wall
Source;The Independent
Lets see what that veritable encyclopedia of knowledge Stephen Fry has to say about Rising Damp.
If you can make sure that the outside ground is is about 150mm lower than your DPC (Damp Proof Course) you should not have any problems with rising damp.A lot of problems are caused when the outside ground is higher than the damp proof course.
For other damp problems make sure your gutters and downpipes are in good condition as an enormous amount of damp can be traced to leaky downpipes and guttering.If you just take care of the above you will have very few problems with damp.
7 / 11 / 2011
Spalling Bricks and how they got that way
Spalling bricks are not very attractive on the front of a building or indeed anywhere else for that matter and they can be quite costly to repair or replace.The video below shows the effects of using a strong mix of portland cement in the pointing,trapping moisture and causing the bricks to spall because the drying out process takes place through the bricks rather than the joints. (where it should take place) In the winter time these bricks soak up the water like a sponge and when the frost causes the water in the bricks to freeze and expand, the faces get damaged and frequently get blown off completely over time.
