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Posts Tagged ‘home improvement’

Many people who need more space in their current residence but do not want to go through the home selling and buying process consider home additions as their next viable option. Home additions are expensive and time-consuming projects, however, and are not entirely practical for people under tight financial restraints. If adding on to your home is your only idea on how to add space, you’re missing a very big opportunity for improvement, especially if you have a basement.

Most people overlook basements as a prime opportunity for added storage and living space, since many are considered dark and dank. Most people are looking to add a play room, a guest space, an exercise room or even a home office, when most people consider adding space to their home. All of these things would fit perfectly into a basement. They remain at a generally constant temperature throughout the rest of the year, since most basements are underground and surrounded by earth, making them nice and cool in the summer, even without the need for excessive air conditioning. They are also quieter than the rest of your house as a result of this same feature.

Adding any window space you’re able to fit in should be one of your first considerations. All you need is just a few free feet of above-ground space to make this possible. It is essential to have a safe exit route if an emergency occurs, and daylight sun will brighten up the entire space quite a lot, as an added bonus. You should also use light liberally, in addition. Most people cite the cave-like feeling as a reason they dislike their basement space. You can never have enough lighting.

Create access to an outdoor area from your basement next, if possible. This may not be possible if your basement is too far underground. Consider replacing your old wooden door with French of sliding glass doors, if it is possible, though. They’re wonderful ways to let in even more light, as well as being great design features. If your basement is just made of concrete, another great option is to consider adding some form of flooring material. Tiling is actually a better choice that requires less maintenance, even though many people choose carpet. With tiles as opposed to carpet, you’ll also have less chance of mold problems in the future.

There you have it. Your basement doesn’t have to be mere space for extra storage. If you implement tips such as those listed above, you’ll have additional living space in an airy, light, and pleasant environment in no time.

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What does it take to make a home green? For some people, the answer is simple. Using recycled materials and finding ways to lower your energy bill are all ways people assume get their house the green label.

It might not be that simple, though. The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) governs different sustainable practices and consists of the nation’s leaders in a variety of different industries. Its main goal is to encourage environmentally friendly building projects in which people can live and work. According to USGBC, performing a few sustainable practices in your home is just the beginning to getting your home considered green.

Instead, the nationally accepted benchmark for buildings that are considered green is LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It originally launched in 1998 and is a home rating system that encourages the design and construction of green homes. There are eight different categories used in its rating system. Each category has a certain number of credits which, in turn, are worth one or more points. United States homes are given a certification rating by LEED based on the number of points they scored.

What are some of these categories, then? Points can be awarded for innovation and design process. They can also be awarded for the home’s location and its relation to the larger community. In addition, there are points for sites that are sustainable and being fully used. So too are there points for water efficiency, materials and resources and energy and atmosphere. Points are awarded for the latter based on how energy efficient a particular home is. Lastly, points can also be awarded for relevant education to the homeowner or any other resident living in the building.

When someone now declares their house to be green, you’ve got some background information to know how accurate their statements may be. You have to do more than simply perform practices that are sustainable to ensure your home is considered green. Ensuring just that, the USGGC and LEED ratings are a particularly good set of standards that are both impartial and balanced in that regard.

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It’s likely you’ve seen it on cars. A popular method of maintaining privacy while driving around town is window tinting, to be sure. What is a little less known is that you can also tint the windows on your home. Opting to tint your home’s windows brings with it a few advantages, actually.

First, while it certainly does protect your privacy from nosy neighbors and passersby, it’s also a healthy option. Excessive exposure to the sun’s rays is not good for you. It’s why health professionals advise you to apply sunscreen before going outside. Along the same line of reasoning, those harmful rays can reach you and your family within your home. All you need to do is sit and watch television near a window on a particularly sunny day to be affected. By tinting your home’s windows, you can block harmful ultraviolet rays and add to the comfort of your family during times of relaxation.

A second advantage is that you can protect the interior of your home by tinting your house’s windows. Sunlight fades all colored objects. Wallpaper, carpet, drapes and furniture are just some examples of things that can be faded. Wooden furniture can also warp, and sunlight can negatively affect your electronics. Not only does this happy from direct sunlight, but it can also occur as a result of the heat the sun generates. The harmful effects of the sun’s of the sun’s rays on your favorite household items can be reduced at the same time as its heat by home window tinting.

Lastly, it is an environmentally friendly option to choose. Tinted windows decrease the need to turn on your air conditioner on a hot summer day. That, in turn, will end up reducing your monthly heating and cooling costs. In time, what you save on air conditioning even might just pay for the window tinting itself.

Home window tinting is thus a superb option to choose for a number of different reasons. You can decrease your family’s discomfort. You can also protect your home’s interior. Plus, it will save you money in an environmentally friendly way. It is also important to note that home window tinting may void any window warranty you had with the original installer. Read through your contract and make sure you understand the consequences as well as the benefits before making your ultimate decision.

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Bed bugs used to be a part of eveyone’s daily life before the Second World War – or should that be ‘a part of everyone’s nocturnal life’? For hundreds of years, people merely grinned and bore it; they had to because there were no effectual methods of getting rid of them.

They lived in the stored clothing, the furniture, the bedding and the houses of the rich and poor alike and because houses were located so close together, families were larger and individuals were in and out of each others houses, you could not eradicate a bed bug infestation for long.

Then came the bombing of European cities in the Second World War 1939-1945 and numerous inner cities were unsafe, so the authorities decided to take the opportunity to flatten the inner city slums and begin again. A similar programme was began in America, but not because of bombing.

The authorities pulled down hundreds of millions of houses and made billions of rats, mice, bed bugs, fleas and other nasties homeless. In fact, rat poison and a new miracle pesticide, DDT, were used widely in the clean up. By the end of the Forties or during the Fifties, bed bugs were just about eradicated from the Western World.

The Baby Boomer generation was the first one never to have been bothered by bed bugs. This happy situation lasted until the mid-Nineties, when increased long haul travel and increased immigration permitted bed bugs to hitch lifts back to the West. These unwelcome hitch hikers mostly returned on garments that had been packed away in suitcases.

And so here we are today, in a state of affairs where the West’s major inner cities have a bed bug issue of epidemic proportions. Bed bugs are being passed around from person to person on all forms of public transport but especially buses, trains and taxis and anywhere where individuals gather together, but especially hotels, cinemas and waiting rooms.

So, here are a few tips on how to avoid infesting your home with bed bugs. If you stay in hotels a few nights or one night at a time, merely unpack what you need to at any one time. In other words, live out of your suitcase.

If you are on a longer vacation, by all means, unpack everything, but keep your suitcase closed and have all your clothes boil washed, dry cleaned or tumble-dried on ‘HOT’ before you repack them to go home.

If this cannot be done because of the sort of cloth, examine all the seams, hems, pockets, cuffs and collars and blow them with the hair-dryer on ‘HOT’. The hair-dryer is not anywhere near as effective, but all stages of a bed bug’s life cycle are killed by seven minutes exposure to temperatures above 45C or 115F.

If you cannot heat-treat your clothing before you leave the hotel, seal them up in plastic bags and treat them when you get home – preferably in a laundrette or dry cleaners.

What do you do about your overcoat, if you mix with people each day on the bus or at work? This is a tough one. Bed bugs are resistant to all types of insect killer, which is why we are having this epidemic, so you will literally have to examine your overcoat every time you come home or get one that you can put in the tumble-dryer every night.

One bed bug can lay 300 eggs and go for a year without feeding, so you cannot know that you have not got bed bugs, you can merely say that you have not seen any – yet.

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Lately, advertisements for energy efficient appliances have been coming out a lot lately in commercials. A lot of these appliances have a hefty price tag, despite how much they talk about the money you can save from them. It’s prudent to start at the beginning of understanding what energy efficient appliances really are at all, if you’re interest in purchasing one.

If you’ve done any research on energy efficient appliances thus far at all, Energy Star is a name you’re probably familiar with. Used to rate consumer products that claim to be energy efficient, it is an international standard. As a joint program of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the U.S. Department of Energy, it originated in the United States. Many other countries have subsequently adopted its standards for use in their own energy programs, although it was first created in the United States in the early 1990s.

In general, federal standards require appliances to use about 20-30% more energy than what appliances listed with the Energy Star logo actually use. Without sacrificing other features that have been deemed important to Americans like the style of the product itself, this can save families in the United States about one-third off their energy bill.

All Energy Star-approved appliances have to meet the strict guidelines set forth by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy. When you purchase an appliance with an Energy Star logo, you can be assured that it has gone through rigorous testing and has met these standards before being placed on the market for sale. Appliances come in the form of stoves, dishwashers, refrigerators, microwaves and more.

Quite a lot of energy was saved by Americans in 2009 alone, equating to 30 million cars’ greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly $17 billion was additionally the amount Americans saved on their utility bills. You can probably see how these statistics make a good case for purchasing energy efficient appliances. Even if you note that your individual savings might take awhile to add up and make the cost of purchasing a more expensive but energy efficient product worthwhile, the overall savings of United States consumers in general, coupled with the eco-friendly statistics listed above, should be enough to convince you the purchase is a good idea.

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