Category - Home Decor

According to research by the BBC there are over 15 million rats in the UK, other studies believe there’s an average of 1 rat for every 4 humans. In London there is a great likelihood that there are as many rats as people.
This news may make your skin crawl, but a better response is to ascertain how you can prevent them becoming a pest in your property and therefore hinder their search for a suitable nesting spot to procreate at their alarming rate.

They’re like us. Rats want a safe, warm environment which is close to food and water. These pests are noted opportunists so if there is a tiny hole in the fascia, a gap between timbers or a roof tile that’s hanging loose, they don’t need much room or time to wriggle in. An open window is simple to negotiate.

Your property repairs shouldn’t be neglected, postponed or ineffectually dealt with or you may discover some unwanted residents and gnawing damage as they sharpen their teeth and create nests with the items you leave for them to utilise. 

A Small Rat Infestation Won’t Remain That Way

Their breeding rate is astounding, if not worrying, for a property owner. A mother rat today can be a great grandmother within months.

Their pregnancies last for around 3 weeks and the litters are normally between 6-10. Weaning takes another 3 weeks and maturity is reached at around 10-12 weeks. This means that procreation via this litter can start. Repeat this cycle a few times and you’ll have a big problem. 

Which Rats Are You Likely to Encounter?

The Brown Rat. Rattus Norvegicus.

Also known as the Common Rat and Norway Rat, it’s the most common rat found in the UK.

The Black Rat, Rattus Rattus, also called the Ship Rat, is becoming rare in the UK. 

Brown Rats are:

• 20-25cm without the tail.
• Can weigh half a kilo.
• The tail is shorter than the body.
• They have hair covered ears.
• Their noses are flat.

Health Risks of Rat Infestations

Rats are not only troublesome but pose health risks and they are intelligent enough not to fall for crude methods of rat pest control. As they’ve evolved many rats have become immune to over the counter pest control treatments and so a rat infestation will simply continue to expand without professional, license only treatments administered by qualified rodent control services specialists.

Rats hearing, touch and taste are outstanding, as is their loyalty. When they discover a risk, they alert their fellow rats and avoid it. 

Some Diseases Associated with brown Rats:

• Salmonella.
• Weil’s disease.
• Tuberculosis.
• Cryptosporidiosis.
• E-Coli.
• The Black Death was brought by Black Rats so there is a minute risk of a breakout in the UK.

Rats can still pass on a virus or parasites after death so please don’t handle them.

Don’t take any “cost cutting, time saving” risks with your own safety; that’s why rat pest control has qualifications attached. Call a trusted company like Pest Control Berkshire for peace of mind and comprehensive rodent control services.

It’s almost that time of year again when the sun shines the hottest. For sure, you’ll drop lots of sweat because of it. If there’s something that you need during this season to beat the heat, it’s your air-conditioning unit. While you sweat the hardest, your aircon also works the hardest to keep you cool.

But did you know that you can make it a little easier for your air-con and save money if you know of the various ways how to run it efficiently? For a little help, here are some tips to keep your air-con unit with efficiency and save money on your summer electricity bill.

Take A Check Of The Filters

It’s essential that you examine the air filters of your aircon unit once a month, and have a replacement if there’s any problem with it. As you’ll know, dust and allergens proliferate during the hot season. If there’s a clog in the air filters because of this, your aircon won’t produce the required amount of cool air in your house.

Since your aircon unit will now run efficiently after the filter replacement, you’ll save energy as well as money because of it. Filter replacement is also an effective way to prolong the life of your air conditioning unit.

Keep Your Thermostat Away from Heat

Another way to make your air conditioning unit run with efficiency, keep your thermostat away from your heat-producing appliances like your TV and radio. It’s because there’s a heat sensor in the thermostat, and if it keeps on sensing heat, it will operate longer than the required time in your home.

Consider Buying A Smart Thermostat

There are times when you forget to tweak the thermostat before you leave your house. As such, your air-con unit will run longer than necessary to cool the house, and it will have a significant increase in your power bills. Thus, for you to prevent it from happening, you should consider buying a timer or a smart thermostat for your A/C unit.

Seal The Leaks

For sure, you don’t want the cold air from your air-con to go out of your house. Aside from the fact that it will not produce the required air inside, you will also increase your power consumption.  

Thus, it’s essential that you take some weatherization steps to prevent cool air from getting out of your house. You can consider weather-stripping or caulking for that purpose. Or insulate the ducts of your air conditioning unit.

Provide The A/C Unit With Proper Shading

If you want you air conditioning unit to function with efficiency, it’s high time that you provide it with shading. An air-con unit with shade will produce cooler air around your house. Due to this fact, you’ll not waste running power on it.

Don’t Set The Thermostat Too Low

Studies show that we have the capacity of adapting to cool or hot temperatures at a fast rate like within a week or two. Thus, if you want to reduce energy from using your A/C unit, you need to increase a little bit the temperature.

After a week or more, your body will get used to it. Not only that you can save money from this step, but you’ll also contribute to preserving the environment.

Think About Replacing Your A/C Unit

Perhaps, the solution to a lousy air conditioning unit is to replace it with a modern one. You can find a lot of energy-efficient A/C unit on the market nowadays that can help you have an excellent air conditioning while saving you from exorbitant energy expenses. Plus, with your energy-efficient A/C unit, you can avail of federal tax credits and incentives.

Takeaway

It’s essential that your air conditioning unit can provide you the right amount of cool air this summer. You need to know the various tips how to make your A/C unit run with efficiency. You can take some cues from the tips above, or you can consult Classic AC Services for it.

Having a dream house is on almost every single human’s bucket list who is still breathing. You spend days and nights working hard and putting together enough money for that house of your dreams where you envision yourself living the rest of your life with your kids and grandkids. And finally, the day arrives when you break open your piggy bank and invest your savings for that house you fell in love at first sight.  However, when you finally get there, you are hit by a new reality of life because moving to your dream house is certainly a huge milestone. After unlocking this achievement, you wonder what is next.

More often than not people are unprepared for this phase of the move. Micro-focusing on just getting there makes us forget that we need to have a plan for later too. During this time, you should know what steps to take because getting it right the first time is the only option for that peaceful life you always imagined in your new house.

House fixing can be exciting and stressful simultaneously. And this is why jotting out a blueprint of your plan can be immensely profitable for you. Here are some things you should keep in mind while dealing with your new house.

 Safety First: Change Your Locks

The very first thing you need to absolutely do when the house is handed over to you and before you bring your family home, is to change the lock and passcode (if the house comes with an alarm system). Make sure every door has locks including the garage. When the house is up for grabs in the market, there are a lot of people who have access to the place including selling agents, maintenance workers, and the listing agents. The previous owners may also have many people in their circle who would have had access to it.

Know the Essentials: Circuit Breaker Box

In case of short circuits, you should know where the breaker is placed and exactly which corner you need to dash to in your house. It is best to invest some time in labeling the plugs and switches (if they aren’t already). It takes two to tango and two to label the board. It will be a game of a lot of hollering back and forth while you figure out which switch belongs to which room so it is best to be prepared by fully charging your cell phones or walkie-talkies.

Replace cooling and heating filters

You can save an arm and a leg by foreseeing required replacements especially the filters. Changing a disposable filter costs 4 dollars whereas changing a system (due to bad maintenance) would cost you 5k!

Closet System Installation

Make sure you know how much space your stuff is going to need and whether or not the existing closet system is good enough. It is best to redesign the closets according to your custom needs before moving in to avoid any unpleasant hassles later. You can install hanging rods, drawers or shelves so everything you own has a place in your new closet. If you are moving to New York City, then you’ve got a lot of options for reliable NYC Movers that would move your items safely.

Paint the House

Painting the house in advance before moving in can save you from all the arm days you will have to go through in moving and covering your furniture. Also, you will get some time to let that painful odor of fresh paint out of the house before shifting. If you are worried you do not know enough about the lighting in your new rooms that could affect the color of your paint, you can always apply swatches to test the shades and see if they work out with your walls.

Bonus: Deep Clean the Carpets

Experts recommend an annual appointment with the pros to deep clean carpets. What better day than the first day in your new house to begin the annual tenure? Spending a couple of hundred dollars to hire professional cleaning services to give your carpet a spa day is going to be worth it. Pros are equipped with better technology like steam-powered machines that can kill dust mites and germs. Make the most of your empty house and call them now.

It is a good idea to have mini fridges in your home, because they are convenient and can save a lot of space in your house. There are ideal both in your office and home. One big advantage of mini fridge is that the appliance is small, starting from 1 cubic foot to 4 cubic feet of internal volume. You may choose different designs, such as tall or square. Even if mini fridge is small, you should make sure that you measure the available area in your house correctly. There should be at least 3 inches of empty space between the fridge and the surrounding wall. This will ensure that the refrigerator is properly ventilated. After you are sure that you have the correct available space, then you can determine the proper dimension for your fridge.

Another thing to consider is whether you should have a freezer in your mini fridge. This is an important feature that you should think of, if you want to freeze or only cool something down. Because mini fridges are small, the freezer compartment would be small too. In fact, you may only have enough room for an ice tray. It is important to know that freezer will increase the overall power consumption. So, if you want to reduce the carbon footprint of your house, it is a good idea to choose a mini fridge that doesn’t have a freezer inside. You will use less electricity, which will be a great thing in reducing the overall energy bills. Just like when choosing other appliances in your home, it is a good idea to use your own common sense.

Doors are also essential considerations when you are looking for a mini fridge. In general, your mini fridge should have door that offers strong insulation, because it will ensure that your fridge will consume less power. Without a good insulation, it is possible that some heat will enter the fridge slowly, especially if the surrounding temperature is relatively high. There are fewer shelves inside the mini fridge, but they are still quite essential for your requirements. Transparent plastic shelves are better, especially compared to wired ones. You will be able to prevent spill and you will be able to see any kind of stain. Because shelves are removable, you should be able to maximize the overall space of the mini fridge. You should be able to arrange food in the most efficient manner.

Ebergy consumption is also essential if you want to ensure that choosing a mini fridge is really an efficient thing to do. If you choose things improperly, it is actually possible that the mini fridge consumes equal or more energy compared to regular refrigerator. A standard fridge has a fan and condenser to dissipate excess heat, but mini fridge often only has its exterior to dissipate heat. It means that there’s a good chance that mini fridge doesn’t insulate itself well enough and will become less efficient.

Many houses are affected by mold problem. Fortunately, you can fight back with a number of possible methods. Mold spread into many houses due to the presence of spores. This will have an effect on your immune level and it is possible that you will be inflicted with different kinds of diseases. Spores could exist in higher concentration and the stagnant indoor air can easily disperse spores throughout the house. Direct sunlight is often considered as a normal cleansing mechanism to remove bad particles in our indoor environment. The presence of UV light will produce small amount of ozone, which can neutralize small organic matter.

Water problems could make the mold problem becomes even worse. The high degree of humidity will cause spores to germinate and mold itself, may float on the water. You should know whether there are potential mold foods in your area, such as old newspaper, wood that loses its finish layer, cotton clothing and others. Mold could thrive well in normal room temperature and you also need enough water in the area. Mold can start to germinate when the humidity level is above 55 percent. There are various potential problems that can happen, as an example, water could leak into the basement floor from the upper floor.

You should be aware that mold can be seen as a pathogen. In fact, it can grow on our skin and inside out body. Dermatological problems could happen on people who live inside a house with some type of mold infestation. You should check whether you have rashes and blotches, when there are mold problems in the area. Even the typically non toxic mold should be considered as opportunistic, because it may cause problem with your health, when your immune system is significantly weak. As an example, people who are recovering from surgery can be affected by mold more easily.

Fortunately, it is easy to fight back, as an example by using an ozone machine. It is proven to be a powerful tool to kill mold in your house. Investing on such as device is a good thing, if you have a large basement or other enclosed spaces in your property that are easily infected by mold infestation. Ozone is 3000 times more toxic to mold, compared to chlorine bleach. The gas is strong enough to penetrate the strong shell of the spore and kill the seeds inside. It’s a highly reactive oxygen molecule that can punch a hole in the mold spores. Ozone is also be able to break down toxic chemicals into harmless, simpler substances.

You should check whether you should get mold inspection with the help from a professional. You should know that professional mold clean up can be expensive, if you need to do this regularly. You should have a permanent solution and the ozone generator device should help you to achieve that. Ozone is also able to breakdown mycotoxins, which are the toxic substances produced by molds.

It can be quite a challenge to restore your house and make it aesthetically pleasing. You should also consider how to reclaim the original functionality of your house and this should be among the top requirements of house renovation. Bricks, mortar and wood will degrade. You should also make sure that your house is ripe for rehab; because, if your house is still relatively new and in a good condition, a rehab project may be a waste of time and money. If you are sure that you should proceed with the project, you need to be selective with what you want to restore and repair in your house, so you can gain profit for the effort, money and time you invest. As an example, electrical, heating, plumbing and insulation may lose much of the functionality and it’s time to repair or replace them.

When you perform renovation project on our house, it is important that you will create more values upon resale. Unfortunately, homeowners can’t always determine the best type of renovation project that they need to perform. There could be essential components that are buried somewhere inside your structure. They are essential and need to be replaced. It is important for you to fill out the disclosure form, so you can be sure that all defects will be covered by the warranty. If you want to ensure that you repair the most appropriate components of the house, it is essential to check the structural integrity, foundation and roof. If you want to resell the house, it is also important to quickly gauge the house based on its appearance.

When you want to check your house, you should only stand from across the street. You should be able to find faults of your house that can be repaired. In fact, you can find out more serious damages, such as the sagged roof in the middle. Another way to determine whether your house needs repairing is to see its condition during rainy days. Check all the flat areas and make sure that water is drained quickly. Dampness and rot are equivalent to cancer in your house. You may need to consult the contractor to know about things that need to replaced or repaired. In many cases, you can solve many problems by repairing with the shingles. You should be aware that some contractors may use the old roof as the bargaining chip.

If you renovate the house quickly enough, it is possible for you to significantly reduce the overall costs. As an example, it’s only the plywood that becomes rotted and you need to fully repair all the spots where water seeps into the roof structure. You should not quickly trust the contactor if they say that your roof needs to be ripped off and completely rebuilt. Problems like rotten fascia, wavy roof structure and sagging eves don’t require complete roof rebuild. It is true that you need to correct all the underlying deficiency, but it doesn’t mean that you should make major repair.

After some inspections, it can be quite clear that your coatings and shingles need to be replaced. Things can become even more serious when there are further damages underneath. When it happens, you need to have at least basic skills on negotiating for lower costs. Often, this is something that you need to dwell on, because roofs are essential to protect everything inside your house. In fact, the water leakage could seep into the foundation, making it crumble more easily. You should check whether seams of your house are coming apart, which could be the reason why water leaks into the interior of your roof. With proper inspection, you can also tell relatively quickly whether the overall roof is stressed out by the element, such as heavy accumulated snow, strong winds and intense rainfall.

The best way to reduce the costs of roof repair is to repair it as soon as possible. A small crack could develop into something very serious after 5 to 10 years. Steady drips of water could lead to the spread of mildew, mold and rot inside the roofing structure, causing widespread damage. Instead of spending much money and time on intense repair, you should get used to entering the dark and restrictive area inside your roof. If you are not comfortable, ask a contractor to check the roof and if possible accompany him. You will know how to enter the roof area in a safe and convenient way. If your roof area hasn’t been cleared for years, you can find that it’s infested by all sorts of animals and insects, such as rat, squirrel, wasps, ants, spiders, bees and others.

These animals could contribute in degrading the condition of your roof. You will become more prepared. You may need to invest on the service of exterminator to remove and prevent animal infestation inside the roofing structure. Professional home inspectors in the area should be able to protect your roof and you will be able to reduce the overall costs. With a strong flashlight and a professional who accompanies you, you should be able to become more convenient in inspecting your roof regularly. The contractor or inspector will check where the wall meets the roofing structure to see any fault or damage. A good time to check the roof is when the sun is directly above the house. At this time, it is more likely for you to see small streaks of light that indicate the roof leakage.

You need to ensure that the contractor check the roofing structure for water damage, separation, cracks, misalignment and rot. The roof must be structurally sound and find out more about possible discrepancy that could warrant further investigation. In fact, a unusual smell is enough to indicate that is something wrong with your roofing structure. When checking for the general condition of the house, you need to use common sense. You should ensure that nothing serious about your roofing structure has passed your keen eyes.