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Moving house doesn’t have to be a strenuous tasks. Follow up the guidelines I have compiled containing the ultimate moving guide featuring 12 tips to successfully move house, the main do's and don'ts to remember, and a room by room packing guide are simply below;

1. Declutter Your Belongings

Tidying is an essential task every now and then while considering moving house. Before even attempting to pack, you should decide what to sell, donate or throw out. By decluttering, you'll also keep your house removal costs down as there’ll be fewer boxes to move.

2. Book a Removal Company

Once you’ve tidy your physical possessions, you should book your removals company. You could attempt DIY if moving fewer belongings or moving within town but it would be a lot of added stress and time.

3. Create an Inventory

Creating an inventory helps to keep an eye on all your belongings to make sure nothing is lost throughout the process of packing.

4. Pack as Early as Possible

Once you compare surveyors, get conveyancing quotes, and set your moving date, then it's time to start packing.

5. Start By Packing Least Used Rooms

A good starting point will be rooms that are least used.The spare bedroom, garage  are usually easy places to start.

6. Arrange Your Utilities Early

It’s important to set up your utilities such as council tax, gas and home insurance early when moving house. Not only will this save you a lot of stress once you’re moved in, but you will have more time to settle in and relax in your new home.

7. Label Properly

You should label on boxes going to a particular room and a brief summary of what’s inside so there’s no confusion when you’re unpacking. If you don’t want to write a short novella on the boxes you can as well use tag to differentiate each boxes and where it belongs to.

8. Pack a Survival Box

Pack the things you need most every day and night in a separate bag and keep this with you at all times. Items such as medicine, face cream, toothbrush, toilet roll, change of clothes, phone chargers etc will all come in handy.

9. Visit Your New Area

You'll know your new home inside and out after you have carefully survey round the new environment, but what about the neighbourhood? Once the removal company is booked and you’ve started packing, go and spend the weekend in your new area, checking out the local pubs and shops.

10. Update Your Address

It’s a good idea to change your address with companies or organisations like the bank, the doctor’s surgery, car insurance company, local authority and post office 2 weeks before you move.

11. Check Council Tax Band

Many people will forget about taking care of their council tax when moving house. If you’re moving to a new area, there will be a need to set up new address. Check with your local authority for more details about your council tax band.

12. Register to Vote

Another important factor when moving house is staying on the electoral register. You will have to update your address and ensure you’re still able to vote. Luckily, it’s a fairly simple process and can be done through the government website.

A boiler is simply the most important part of a central heating system as it generates the heat that warms up the home or property. Basically, the appliance or small furnace makes use of gas, LPG or oil in order to fuel its operation. However in the UK, most boilers are usually fuelled by natural gas which is supplied automatically from the national gas grid. And depending on how it operates, there are various types of boilers.

Typically, a gas central heating boiler will have multiple pipes entering from underneath. While one pipe supplies the boiler with gas from the mains gas supply, another pipe allows cold water to enter the boiler to be heated, the last pipe then enables hot water to exit the boiler so it can be distributed around the home.

✓ There are fuel jets and heat exchangers inside the boiler. When the heating is turned on, a valve is opened to allow the mains supply gas to enter a sealed combustion chamber in the boiler. There are multiple little valves which permit the entry of the gas before being ignited by an electric ignition switch. These jets heat a metal component in the boiler known as a heat exchanger which works to transfer the heat to the cold water pipe and heat up the water.

✓ Once the water has been heated to the target temperature, it’s then pumped through a circuit of pipe which runs around your home by an electric pump.

✓ The heated water enter each radiator, is then transmitted via a closed loop and radiates heat into each room.

✓ Once done travelling through all radiators, the water then returns to the boiler at which it must have been cooled. Therefore, the boiler will have to reheat following the same process before circulating. The water can only be drained by a professional Gas Safe engineer

How Much Should I Pay A Handyman Per Hour?

Are you about to hire the services of a handyman and probably wondering how much their services cost per hour is? Well, you’re at the right place! The price to be charged by a handyman typically depends on the type of work being carried out, but it’s usually within the range of £20 to £30 per hour. Another typical handyman pricing is project pricing rather than charging of a hourly rate. So when you’re being charged based on the project, you can also ensure to ask for possible discounts as there are often discounts available for larger quantities of jobs or tasks that can be completed one after the other. For smaller, one-off jobs there’s a likely possibility for a minimum charge to surface. As a result, you can expect to pay a premium for the first hour of a handyman’s professional service but a smaller charge for subsequent hours after the first. This is mainly due to the fact that a handyman will need to travel to deliver a service and it’s generally going to be a lot more economical to arrive on the site and take on a couple of tasks sequentially.

There’s a couple of varying handyman’s pricing strategies which is important to be aware of before moving forward. These includes hourly rate, charging by project as well as regular discount or bulk discount. However, if you’re loyal and stick to one handyman, they’ll generally reward your loyalty by looking at your best interest when it comes to the pricing of your projects. This showcases the obvious economy in dealing with one handyman over time and as you build a solid relationship, they’ll also get to know more about you and your projects which will enable them finish the tasks more effectively and efficiently.

Did you just purchase a double glazed window and confused about how to have it installed? Fitting the window yourself can be quite easy with the help of this step by step guide. However, if you lack proper training or experience, we’d recommend you reach out to a trustworthy professional who can guarantee the best results for help. That said, now let’s take a look at the process.

• Remove the old windows by detaching the old beading and glass window safely. Then make some interval cuts using a hand saw before using a crowbar to pry it out.

• Cut the external double glazed window seal. Once done, take a measurement of the window area’s width once empty. Then transfer the measurement to the window sil to face outside and cut using a handsaw.

• Seal the window sil. Add a bead of clear silicone along both inside lip as well as the centre to seal the sil.

• Screw the double glazed window to the sil. Position the window on the top of the lipped section that was siliconed. Then pre-drill them together and screw in three places. You should make sure the screws do not go totally to the sil’s bottom.

• Install the double glazed window. After successfully screwing the double glazed window to the sil, you can now fit in the double glazing. Make use of packers to make sure it’s even in the slot.

• Screw the uPVC window to the wall. If you’re happy and satisfied with the position of the window, you can then pre-drill through the frame of the window and the brick wall. Once done, simply screw it in place using masonry screws or Spax screw as they do not require crawl plugs in bricks.

• Seal around the window. To do this, simply fill any gaps with expanding foam, wipe out the excess and seal with silicone.

It can be a huge headache, but cleaning of gutters is a task that needs to be done and even more so when it’s a stained white gutter. Nobody want to do it, but everybody has to. If you happen to lack the required confidence to pull this off as it has to do with working at heights, then we’d strongly recommend that you get in touch with a reliable professional who can guarantee the best results for help and also save you some time and money from potential costly errors. In this post, we’re going to show you some of effective way in which you can tackle stained white gutters effectively.

Firstly, you’ll have to take out the ladder with a pair of rubber gloves. Simply position the ladder safely, climb up the roof and start removing the leaves and other debris clogging up the gutters. You can also make use of a garden trowel to remove the very thick debris. Once done, spray the gutter using a garden hose to flush out the dirt as this will make the stains visible. Then prior to cleaning, ensure to cover the plants or landscape underneath with tarp or plastic sheet since the cleaning solution may negatively impact the vegetation.

Start to clean by spraying an all-purpose cleaner on the stains and srub them off using a scrub brush. You can also try a mixture of 1/4 of water with 1 cup of bleach and 1 teaspoon of dish soap. Dip your scrub brush in this solution to scrub off the stains. The bleach mixture is guaranteed to eliminate any mold or mildew that growing on your gutters with ease.

As you would have guessed, the British Gas is one of the leading home assistant companies located in the United Kingdom which delivers a large variety of services to customers and boilers. Basically, they offer four (4) service packages. The first package is an annual boiler service and boiler as well as controls repair. Meanwhile the fourth package (also the largest) combines boiler services with central heating, plumbing, drains as well as home electrics.

Apart from the monthly payment package offerings, customers are allowed to pay on a yearly basis with a large lump sum. If you opt to pay annually, this will help you save some amount of money. There’s also the option of paying an extra £60 to further lower either monthly or annual costs. What’s more? Customers are also allowed to pay an extra of £99 to get either £2.50 for boiler repairs a month or £5.50 for both repairs on boiler and its controls as well as central heating system repairs.

After placing a claim, the repairs required by your boiler would be made within 24 hours. However, in certain cases, there may be some delays as British Gas tend to rate vulnerable customers ( such as elderly persons and families with little kids) higher than the usual ones. All products will include a 24/7 customer support, unlimited call outs as well as a 14 day cooling off period if you choose to remove any service.

In conclusion, British Gas is an affordable and hassle free company offering customers top notch services. Their gas boiler cover include so many juicy benefits you simply can’t afford to miss out on if you have a gas boiler in your home or property.

Can You Lay Block Paving On Top Of Concrete?

The replacement or improvement of your driveway is unarguably one of the most expensive projects you can undertake in the exterior of your home. When done by a true professional the results can be impressive and visually appealing, however you’d have to pay huge bucks to have this done. This is exactly the situation with block paving as it is not only time consuming, but also a lot more expensive when compared to other types of driveway.

A large chuck of this cost is associated with the removal of the existing driveway. So assuming your old driveway is concrete, can you simply pave over the existing concrete? If yes, will it save you money? The simple and short answer is yes. It’s in fact advisable to pave over concrete as this will not only add around 20% to your home’s value, but also make it look a lot more attractive and pleasing to the eye.

However, there are some problems associated with block paving over concrete. It may be better to remove the concrete in situations whereby the base is substandard. For instance, if the ground underneath the concrete is failing, there’ll most definitely be problems.

Also, there’ll be some issues with settling (not even the cracks). If your concrete is dropping little amounts every year, these can affect the blocks and ultimately lead to dropping of some sections of the block paving in such a way that they’ll no longer be on the same level as the other blocks. Giving a rise to the possibility of drainage issues, tripping hazard and lots more.

Other issues that may crop up can be triggered as a result of using the wrong size block height as well as totally ignoring or overlooking the undulations of the concrete.

Resin bound driveways are known to last a long time without the need for repairs, but sometimes accidents happen. You also need to make sure you regularly maintain your driveway by sweeping and power washing it to prevent damage. But if it does get damaged, how do you repair your resin bound driveway?

If you notice a crack in your resin bound driveway, it’s important to repair it as soon as possible. If you leave it to erode, you could end up with a difficult repair that will cost much more money.

To repair a crack, you’ll need to carefully chisel it open slightly so you can apply a primer then fill in the crack with a matching-coloured resin and aggregate mix. While there are variations in colour and size with all stone mixes, usually it’s easy to find a batch that matches almost perfectly. And once the crack has been repaired for a while, it will blend in seamlessly with the rest of your driveway.

To prevent cracking in your resin bound driveway, it’s best to tackle the issue at initial installation. Speak to your installer about whether it’s possible to add fibreglass mesh to the base. You should also ask your installer to add expansion trims as these will significantly reduce the risks of cracks.

So the best way to repair resin bound driveways is to prise open the crack and fill it in. It might seem simple, but getting the right colour match is something that should be left to the professionals, so get a few quotes to ensure you get the best finish.