Insulating your home is a fairly simple job that doesn’t require any special DIY skills. It is cost effective and could save you a fortune in electricity and central heating bills by reducing the amount of heat lost from your home. The better your insulation in your home is, the less you will have to use heaters. Having your central heating on all the time is both expensive and also results in a bigger carbon foot print.
Insulating pipes and water tanks is very important especially in the winter. It only takes a couple of hours to protect your plumbing and can prove to be worth the time in the end if it prevents pipework problems. If these freeze, they could burst and that is the last thing that anyone wants to happen; an emergency plumber call out can be expensive.
Read more…
A report launched today by Experian for the ‘Cut the VAT’ coalition, an alliance of 21 organisations including the Federation of Master Builders, the Modern Masonry Alliance, the Clay Roof Tile Council and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, has unveiled that as many as 55,000 new jobs in the building sector and construction industry could be created if VAT on labour for building work and home improvements was cut to 5%.
Creating Building Jobs
The Cut the VAT coalition believes that by cutting the percentage of VAT paid on labour for renovation and property maintenance work from the current 12.5% to 5% would help the current economic situation of high numbers of unemployed people, and would also have a number of social and economic benefits for the UK as a whole, including helping the Government reach its carbon emission reduction targets.
The report anticipates an additional 24,000 construction jobs could be created in 2010 alone, with this rising to nearly 35,000 building sector jobs by 2019. In addition, the report explains that the additional demand for tradespeople to carry out work in domestic properties will have a knock on effect for companies who supply materials to the trades as people decide to upgrade central heating systems, repair roofs, build extensions and rewire homes. As a result of making building work and renovation of properties more affordable for homeowners, this will in turn help people make their homes more energy efficient, reducing energy consumption and saving them money.
Taking place from 2nd-4th March 2010, the Ecobuild exhibition in Earls Court, London, will provide the biggest event for green building, sustainable housing design and construction and should appeal to both tradespeople and companies looking to upskill in microgeneration installation and renewable energy technology. The exhibition should also appeal to home owners wanting to integrate green technologies or products into their home or those looking to self build and create a sustainable low carbon home.
The exhibition first launched in 2005 and has seen visitor numbers double each year, and with the increased popularity of green building and eco retrofitting, the attractiveness of this event could be even greater this year.
Across the three day event, there will be a range of activities for visitors to engage with, including conferences covering topics such as:
- zero carbon buildings
- can the building sector go green
- sustainable construction
- green renovation
- renewable energy generation
- the effect of Copenhagen on development in the UK
Read more…
The World Plumbing Council, an organisation which aims to promote the importance of plumbing in public health and in preventing damage to the environment while at the same time bringing together the world’s plumbing organisations and industry bodies, have launched World Plumbing Day which will be held for the first time on 11th March 2010.
World Plumbing Day will become an annual diary date which will help raise public awareness of the health and safety aspects of the plumbing industry in reducing diseases carried by water, ensuring safe and clean water supplies and the disposal of waste water and sewage, as well as the ways in which the plumbing industry can help reduce different countries’ carbon footprints. In addition, the World Plumbing Council hopes to increase people’s knowledge and understanding of the important roles many people play in the plumbing industry, including plumbing engineers and inspectors, plumbing equipment manufacturers and academics with industry expertise.
The World Plumbing Council has also launched a website to promote World Plumbing Day and help both plumbing organisations from around the world, and other interested organisations who want to help promote the importance of plumbing for health and safety reasons or because of its role in protecting the environment and natural resources such as water supplies, to find information about the day and advise on the sorts of activities that people could organise for the day.
Read more…
Painting your home can be a long and laborious task, often putting rooms out of action while furniture is piled up under dust sheets and relocated to different rooms of the house to give space to paint. Applying multiple coats of paint can often be a pain too, because the job takes even longer, but if an even paint finish is desired, or if a bright coloured paint was used for a previous coat, you can’t always avoid second or even third coats of paint.
Read more…
There is a lot of scope when renovating or redecorating your property to introduce environmentally friendly materials into your home, reducing the carbon footprint of both your home and the renovation project itself. As being green becomes ever more popular, options such as environmentally friendly flooring from sustainable sources is not only a good option for a healthy living environment for your family, but could also be a great selling point for your home if you’re modernising or developing for property rental or resale.
Read more…
