Will you want to hire your building contractor after speaking to their clients?Over the last few weeks we've looked at a number of serious building defects which have left home owners distressed, out of pocket, and sometimes without a home. Many home owners face the prospect of lengthy legal battles to recover money spent on fixing building problems. This included the horror story of a major UK builder who delivered hundreds of substandard homes. Another article on an Australian apartment that cost $1.7 million which isn't fit to live in a year after completion, and more. In other articles I've discussed how you can ensure you are hiring the right building contractor. These articles include Read this before selecting you home building and renovation contractor and Before employing a building contractor ask these questions. To ensure you employ a reputable building contractor it's important to ask your contractors for a list of references of past clients and projects. What building projects have they worked on? Are these similar to the work you are asking them to execute? Were these projects completed successfully - finished on time, without fuss and of good quality? But don't just take the contractor's word for it, rather talk to these past clients and ask them these important questions:
This is an extract from my new book 'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses: Volume 1 Hiring Contractors, Managing Construction and Finishing Your Home' which also contains lots more valuable information to save you money and ensure that your home build or renovation project is a success. Click on the image to read a preview on Amazon. The book is available in paper or ebook form from Amazon and other online stores, or ask your local bookstore to order a copy for you. For tips on designing your new house as well as renovation ideas read Volume 2 - Finding Your Ideal Property and Designing Your Dream Home © 2019 This article is not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission from the author.
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Are you always tired, perhaps you have a rash or breathing problems - it could be caused by your homeThe air we breathe could have a severe impact on your health and the health of your family. Some homes have poor air quality. This could be caused by a variety of problems including:
Ensure your home is safeThere are many fumes from everyday building and household products which can cause breathing difficulties, allergies, and even some products that are linked to cancer, learning difficulties, sleep disorders, Alzheimer, and dementia. Your health is important, don't take risks with it. Understand the products you are using and ensure all rooms in your house are well ventilated. For more on the impacts of poor air quality read this BBC article Why Indoor Air Quality Matters to our Bodies and our Brains. Design your home so that it's safe for you and your family. For more home design tips and insights read An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses Volume 2 - Finding Your Ideal Property and Designing Your Dream Home © 2019 This article is not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission from the author. In a previous article Finding contractors for your home building and renovation project we discussed how you should go about looking for the right building contractor for your home building project. In another article Read This Before Selecting Your Home Renovation and Building Contractor we discussed what you should consider when you employ a contractor. In this article I present a few simple questions you should ask potential contractors before employing them for your home building project.
This is an extract from my new book 'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses: Volume 1 Hiring Contractors, Managing Construction and Finishing Your Home' which also contains lots more valuable information to save you money and ensure that your home build or renovation project is a success. Click on the image to read a preview on Amazon. The book is available in paper or ebook form from Amazon and other online stores, or ask your local bookstore to order a copy for you. For tips on designing your new house as well as renovation ideas read Volume 2 - Finding Your Ideal Property and Designing Your Dream Home © 2019 This article is not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission from the author. $1.7m apartment deemed unliveable, owner takes construction firm to courtThe media is filled with stories like this one in the ABC News where owners are left out of pocket and sometimes even without a home because of shoddy construction work. What a nightmare to pay $1.7 million for a new apartment that you can't live in. Of course not every new home build or renovation project ends like this. There are many reputable builders that deliver quality building projects on time and with minimal fuss. There are many happy home owners who are satisfied with their new home. How can you ensure that your new home building project is a success? Sometimes it's just luck. But being educated you can ensure that you choose the right builder. It's important to not be swayed by price alone. Selecting the cheapest builder often ends in a very expensive project. In a previous post 'Read this before selecting your home renovation and building contractor' I discussed important things to consider when selecting your building contractor. In a future article I'll discuss important questions to ask your contractor and their references before you employ them. But even the best contractors make mistakes and they should be checked. I'll discuss what to look for in a future article so bookmark this website. Indeed as in the lead story above water is the single greatest problem with new builds according to this report. What are your rights when there is a problem with your new home? Believe me there are always some problems so it's important to understand what your builder is responsible for fixing. Again another topic for a future article when I'll discuss building defects and warranties, what you need to know and what you should do when you uncover a defect in your new home. To help you navigate the construction process and avoid the traps and pitfalls when building or renovating your home read 'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses - Volume 1 Hiring Contractors, Managing Construction and Finishing Your Home' Faced with the high cost of building some people are building tiny housesNorthern Ireland's tiny house movement - a small move to the future? Downsizing. De-cluttering. Alternative housing - these terms are becoming increasing well-known as people try to find and improve their perfect living space. But how would you feel about living in a 'tiny house' on wheels? That's what Michael Rauch, 25, and his girlfriend Alex Connolly are building on the back of a flatbed trailer in County Down. When finished, he'll become one of a very small handful of 'tiny house' owners in Northern Ireland and part of the global tiny house movement, which has its roots in the United States in the 1990s. Read more on this story in this BBC article. Thinking of buying a property and building your dream home? Don't be a victim of a poor decision. Educate yourself and know what to look for when purchasing a property. Read 'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses - Volume 2 Finding Your Ideal Property and Designing Your Dream Home' Why it's important to research your property before buying or buildingIt was supposed to be their slice of the “sweet life” but the owners of new Sydney apartments have only tasted bitterness after being locked out of their homes for a year. The construction of the Sugarcube apartments and Honeycomb terraces in Erskineville were reportedly finished about 12 months ago but the new homes remain empty due to concerns about whether the developer Golden Rain Development properly cleaned up toxic land on the site. It’s the fourth apartment block in Sydney to sit empty thanks to problems with construction and building. Buyers paid up to a $1 million for a two-bedroom apartment in the development of 109 units and 18 three-bedroom terraces, but have been prevented from moving in. A City of Sydney spokeswoman said the developer was required to remediate the site where there was contaminated groundwater and detection of heavy metals, hydrocarbons and asbestos. Continue Reading News.com.au Thinking of buying a property and building your dream home? Don't be a victim of a poor decision. Educate yourself and know what to look for when purchasing a property. Read 'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses - Volume 2 Finding Your Ideal Property and Designing Your Dream Home' The building industry is beset by poor quality, non-compliant and unsafe buildingsCraig Fitch's apartment building is so highly flammable that residents were ordered to remove wood-chip mulch and trees because of fears any fire in the garden could quickly engulf the block. "It's extremely dangerous," Mr Fitch said. Large parts of the complex, located in Frankston in Melbourne's south-east, is wrapped in non-compliant polystyrene, painted to look like concrete. But this isn't the only problem! Read more Don't fall victim to greedy developers, poor building contractors and a lack of compliance inspections by the authorities. Before building or renovating your home get educated. You must protect your valuable new asset and your family - you must ensure that your home is safe, compliant and of good quality. You cannot rely on the authorities or building contractors alone. My new books 'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses, Volumes 1 and 2' will provide tips, advice and knowledge so that you can ensure your home isn't like one of these in this story. Energy-efficient tips to keep your house cool this summerIt’s getting hot in here, and by here, we mean the entire planet. Every summer seems to be warmer than the one before. Lucky for us, we have air conditioning to help keep us cool all summer long. However, we can only expect higher energy bills with all the action our air conditioning system is going to see this summer. Then again, we can still ensure a cool summer for everyone in our home without breaking the bank. Here are some of the ways we can do that. Get your air conditioner a tuneup before the onset of summer. You already know that your AC system will be subjected to heavy use in the summer, so you have to get it ready for some heavy work. A tuneup will do wonders for your AC. Get a licensed, bonded, and insured air conditioning professional to do it, and you’ll have a fully-serviced AC by the time the summer gets here. You’ll also have peace of mind knowing your air conditioner will be less likely to break down in the middle of the sweltering heat. Check and clean the filter a month later. Because you had a tuneup performed, your air conditioner's air filter may be clean on the first day of summer. A month of continuous use, however, could mean a dirty air filter at the end of that period. So check the air filter after a month to make sure it’s clean, and airflow is still optimal. You don’t want a dirty air filter clogging things up and causing inefficient operation and higher energy bills. And if the air filter is indeed dirty, take it out and clean it yourself since it’s easy enough to do. Don’t let the sun shine on your AC unit. If your air conditioner unit is exposed to the direct rays of the sun, then it’s bound to work harder—and therefore consume more power—and lead to higher energy bills. Things will be really different if only your outdoor unit is shielded from the sun. Planting trees near the unit can give it more shade. You can also opt to build an actual shade for your unit to help it regain its efficiency. Keep your thermostat away from the sun. Your thermostat reads the temperature in the room and signals the central air conditioner unit to continue or stop running depending on whether the temperature is cool enough or a tad too hot. If the room is sufficiently cool, but your thermostat is getting hit by direct sunlight, it will think the room is not adequately cooled and will tell the AC unit to run longer than necessary. Aside from direct sunlight, other sources of heat that could mess with the thermostat include LED lamps, TVs, and refrigerators, so place your thermostat away from them. Get that ceiling fan running. If you have ceiling fans, turn them on and adjust your thermostat accordingly. Doing this will improve the distribution of cool air in your home without setting the thermostat to freezing just so every nook and cranny of your home will feel cool. Cook outside your house. Cooking inside your home on a sweltering summer day can only make everything hotter indoors and your AC unit work doubly hard. To avoid the energy inefficiency that comes with that temperature, we can always cook outside on a grill or a fire pit, if you have one. But if that isn’t an option, then you might want to cook your food on a microwave oven, which doesn’t produce heat like regular ovens and stoves. Plug your home’s gaps, cracks, and holes. It’s such a waste of money if you just let all that cool air escape from your home through its numerous gaps, cracks, and holes. That loss also leads to higher energy bills, as the AC unit will continue running to compensate for it. Identify where those exit points are and plug them. Improve the insulation in your windows and doors, too. If you have the budget to insulate your entire house better, then figure out its insulation requirements by having a professional do an energy audit on your home. Conclusion These are just some of the things you can do to keep cool this summer with the help of your AC system. Follow them to ensure that your summer will be fun, cool, and energy-efficient! About The Author
Rebecca Anderson is the Content Marketing Strategist of FH Air Conditioning, a heating and air conditioning repair and service company that has been serving the Phoenix Valley since 1974. On her spare time, she enjoys reading books and mountaineering with her family and friends Housing giant Persimmon is forced to apologise after TV probe reveals hundreds of problems with its homes including a faulty fire door and unsealed showers
Read the full story in the Daily Mail Devastating and expensive problems for new home owners. Don't let your new home construction turn into a disaster. Read 'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses - Volume 1 Hiring Contractors, Managing Construction and Finishing Your Home'. Valuable tips to ensure your home build project is a success. Learn what to look for to ensure your house is handed to you free of defects. Ensure your new home is structurally sound3 apartment buildings in Sydney over a period of 6 months developed major structural cracks resulting in residents being evacuated - read the story Consider the cost and the inconvenience of having to move out of your home. But also your new home is suddenly worthless. Why it's vital to select your builder and designer carefully. For tips and advice on selecting contractors and what to look for during construction of your new home read 'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses: Volume 1 Hiring Contractors, Managing Construction and Finishing Your Home' which also contains lots more valuable information to save you money and ensure that your home build or renovation project is a success. Click on the image to read a preview on Amazon. The book is available in paper or ebook form from Amazon and other online stores, or ask your local bookstore to order a copy for you. For tips on designing your new house as well as renovation ideas read Volume 2 - Finding Your Ideal Property and Designing Your Dream Home |
AuthorI’m a construction professional, author of several successful construction management books, and a home owner. I’ve made mistakes in construction management, I’ve seen others make mistakes, but importantly I’ve had multiple successful construction projects and I’ve learned from the mistakes. I want to share these lessons and my knowledge with you. Also available from:
Amazon Au, Amazon DE, Amazon ES, Amazon CA, Amazon IT, Amazon FR, Amazon NL, Amazon India and 'An Introduction to Building Houses - Volume 2 Finding Your Ideal Property and Designing Your Dream Home'
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