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How To Insulate
Your Home
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This
guide covers insulating a loft, protecting pipes and
tanks and draught proofing windows and doors
They are each fairly simple jobs that don’t need any
particularly specialist DIY skills. You may be able to
get grants to help with the cost of some of these
projects - contact your gas or electric supplier or
local council for details.
1: Loft insulation
The biggest source of heat loss (up to 25%) in the home
is through the roof, so begin by making sure the loft is
properly insulated. This is a very cost effective DIY
job that can be completed in a couple of hours. Always
wear protective clothing when using insulating
materials, including gloves and a face mask .
Check the depth of your existing loft insulation.
Government research shows the recommended depth is
270mm.If you need to add more insulation, clear the roof
space of clutter first.
2: Measuring up for loft insulation
Lay down some chipboard loft panels to allow you to work
safely without having to balance on the ceiling joists.
Measure the gap between the ceiling joists - standard
joists are usually about 370mm apart.Rolls of glass
mineral wool insulation are usually sold in 370mm widths
to fit standard joist spacing.
Count how many spaces there are between your joists and
the length of your loft. You can then easily calculate
how many rolls of insulation you’ll need.For wider joist
widths of 600mm, use Combi Loft Roll which is
pre-perforated for either 400mm or 600mm widths
3: Laying the insulation
Wearing gloves and a face mask, lay the insulation to a
depth of 100mm at first.
Starting at the farthest corner, unroll the first length
so that it fits between the ceiling joists.Leave a
minimum 25mm gap between the insulation and the roof
covering at the eaves to provide ventilation to the roof
space.
Once you’ve completed one layer, lay further rolls until
you have the recommended minimum depth of at least
270mm.Insulation works by trapping air in the insulation
material. By squashing insulation down its effectiveness
is reduced, so try not to.
If you want to board part of the loft, do this above the
initial 100mm layer of insulation. Use an insulation
board such as a ‘Space Board’ in these areas.
4: Leaving space around electrics
For safety and access, electrical wiring should be laid
over the top of the insulation and not buried beneath
it.Always leave a minimum of 75mm of space around any
recessed ceiling lights so they don't overheat.
5: Insulating the loft hatch
Warm air can escape through an uninsulated loft hatch,
so cut a piece of insulation material to the size of
your hatch and tape or tack it to the back of the loft
hatch.
6: Lagging your pipes and tanks
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Once the floor of your loft is well-insulated it traps
cold air in the space above. Therefore, it’s important
that exposed water pipes are protected by wrapping them
in foam tube insulation – the tubes are ready-cut so
just need to be slipped over the pipes.
If your cold water tank is in the loft, leave the area
under it free of insulation to stop the water
freezing.Wrap insulation around and over the cold water
tank, fixing it with string or tape.
7: Draught proofing your home
External doors
Make sure your front door only has a 2mm or 3mm gap at
the top and sides and a 5mm gap at the
bottom.Self-adhesive foam or flexible vinyl strips can
be used to seal around the edges and top of the door
frame.
Use a draft excluder to seal the bottom of any external
doors. These plastic or metal strips have a rubber seal
or rows of nylon bristles to keep the cold out.Draft
excluders can be bought in wood or metal finishes to
match the door. The seal or bristles must overlap the
door frame.
Skirting boards
Squeeze clear flexible sealant between the floorboards
and the base of the skirting. Work along the board in a
smooth continuous motion.For larger gaps, over 5mm, pin
strips of quadrant-shaped moulding over the gap instead.
Floorboards
Suspended wooden floors in older homes need a flow of
air underneath them to stop problems of condensation and
rot. However, you can make the ground floor rooms warmer
and more energy efficient by filling gaps between boards
with a clear flexible sealant or by inserting thin
strips of wood into larger gaps.
8: Insulating under a new floor
If you’re planning to lay a new floor covering, take the
opportunity to lift your floorboards at the same time
and fit glass mineral wool insulation between the floor
joists.The cost for this could be recouped through lower
energy bills in just a couple of years.
To lift floorboards use a thin bladed cold chisel and
club hammer. Lever them up, working along the board to
prise away all the nail fixings.
To stop the insulation dropping through the joists,
simply staple plastic garden netting between the joists
at the bottom of each side. Alternatively, nail lengths
of roofing batten along the sides of each joist.
Lay rolls of loft insulation or rigid pieces of wall
insulation between the joists.Once the entire floor is
covered, relay the floorboards replacing any damaged
sections and nailing firmly to avoid any squeaking or
movement.
Avoid leaving any wide gaps between the boards.Use a
nail punch to push the nails below the surface of your
floorboards.
9: Insulating your windows
Double glazing is a big investment but has great
results, instantly halving heat loss through your
windows.
As a shorter-term DIY measure, secondary glazing can be
fitted to the inside of the window frame. These units
are sold as kits. Use a flexible sealant to fill any
gaps around the secondary glazing frame and your window
frame.
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September
Gardening
Jobs
Tidy your borders
Many summer bedding plants will be past their
best now so clear them away and add them to your
compost heap.
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If your perennials are looking scruffy, pull off
any dead leaves and flowers. Lift and divide any
plants that are too large or overgrown – prise
the plants apart with two forks, then chop into
sections with a spade.
Replant healthy pieces
that have good roots and leaves, firm them in
and water well.
Plant bulbs for spring colour
Garden centres are full of spring-flowering
bulbs such as daffodil, crocus and iris. Snap up
the healthiest ones now, making sure they’re
firm and a good size, with no signs of rotting
or damage.
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Plant them as soon as you can – this will give
them more time to develop good roots and
therefore a better display.Add some coarse grit to the soil before planting
to improve the drainage.
Choose a sunny site and
plant the bulbs at two to three times their own
depth with the growing point upwards.
Borders
- what to prune now
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Trim shrubby honeysuckle.Trim summer-flowering heathers. Use shears on
larger plants but take care not to cut into old
wood and take off the faded flowers.
Cut back overgrown climbers. Trim Boston ivy,
Virginia creeper and Chinese Virginia creeper as
necessary once the leaves have fallen. Trim soft growth of ivy.
Prune away from walls,
windows and doors. More severe ivy pruning is
best done early next year in the spring.
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Sixtyplusurfers Competition
Win an Adventurer
Bird Feeder
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Sixtyplusurfers
has teamed up with CJ Wildlife
to offer three lucky readers the
chance to win an
Adventurer Bird Feeder
together with a bag of
Feeder Seed to
help you attract beautiful birds
into your garden this Autumn.
Each set is worth over £35.
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The changing of
the seasons is generally a
rather languid affair but the
move from Summer into Autumn can
sometimes seem quite abrupt.
Within just a few days fields of
mature crops become bare
stubbles or newly drilled
fields; a sudden high pressure
system and northerly winds sees
wires suddenly swept clean of
the chattering flocks of
swallows and martins; the
rapidly darkening evenings and
an early mist or bonfire can be
enough to make us turn up our
collars and fancy a warming bowl
of soup.
Autumn feeding
As the amount of fruit and seed
available locally increases, it's normal
for there to be fewer visitors to the
bird feeders, but it's important to
maintain a reliable supply of good
quality, high energy food.
This is particularly true for the young,
inexperienced birds which will make up
much of the breeding population next
year. The slight relaxing of pressure
makes this an excellent time to replace
feeders and tables or reorganise the
feeding station in readiness for the
rush that usually accompanies the first
frosts in late October or early
November.
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An important
seasonal task is to give feeders
and feeding areas a good “autumn
clean” to minimise the chance of
infection spreading. Feeders
should ideally be taken apart
and given a good scrub in hot
soapy water and, once dry,
sprayed with a specialist
product like
Ark-Klens
(available from CJ Wildlife) or
at least a mild disinfectant
suitable for human food
preparation areas.
This month
also sees an increase in
squirrel pressure at the bird
feeders as the youngsters born
in July join the existing
population. If yours is one of
the many gardens where grey
squirrels can be a nuisance you
may need to consider deterrents
such as
squirrel guards
or
feeder
guardians
to keep them at bay.
Preparing for hibernation
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Other
garden wildlife such as frogs
and toads, bats and hedgehogs
will all be laying down as much
fat as they can, making the most
of autumn’s bounty. You can
help hedgehogs to prepare for
hibernation by providing them
with some specialist
hedgehog food
or even cat
food, but please don’t give them
milk.
A
hedgehog nesting box
sited in a quiet part of the
garden with some weather
protection – against a wall or
under an outbuilding – may be
also be used as a hibernation
refuge. You can add dry leaves
to make it more inviting.
Frog
and toad bunkers
are also available to give our
amphibians a safe place to over
Winter.
Don’t forget insects
If you have
ivy in your garden the flowers
are an important and slightly
intoxicating source of late
nectar for many beneficial
insects, including the mated
queens of bumblebees that will
start next year's colonies.
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Ladybirds
will also hibernate within the
cover afforded by ivy, or can
you go one stage further and put
up a
ladybird house
or two to make sure that you
have some natural pest
controllers on hand in the
spring.
Nest boxes in Autumn?
It may seem
strange to be thinking about
putting up
nest
boxes
at this time of year, but it
gives the birds a chance to
discover them and incorporate
them into their territories in
good time and they also make for
excellent winter roost sites,
with reports of ten, twenty or
even more Wrens using them
during long icy nights.
A nest box
with a 32 or 34mm hole and sited
facing north, east or south-east
to protect it from the worst of
the wind and the rain, can be a
big help. Birds such as Blue
Tits and Great Tits use holes in
rotting tree trunks as nest
sites, but these are
understandably rare in gardens,
so a nest box will often be
taken up quite readily.
A wall or
tree covered with an evergreen
climber makes a good site for an
open fronted nest box. These
work best when the box is well
hidden by an evergreen such as
ivy or, better still, a shrub
like
pyracantha
which has thorns for extra
protection, and will typically
be used by Robins, although
Wrens and Pied Wagtails are also
fairly regular users.
Do your bit to help a declining species
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House
Sparrows have lived alongside us
for generations but as more and
more of us replace our wooden
fascias with long-lasting uPVC
the availability of traditional
nesting sites has declined
dramatically.
By putting
up a nest box or two or, better
still, a
House
Sparrow “terrace”
that will accommodate three
pairs, we can do our bit to help
a charming bird that is on the
“Red List” of declining species
alongside birds like the Bittern
and the Song Thrush.
All products referenced are available from CJ Wildlife.
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For further information and advice, please visit
www.birdfood.co.uk or call
0800 731
2820.
FREE PRIZE DRAW!
To help you start attracting birds into
your garden this autumn, CJs have 3 sets
of feeders and seeds to give away! Each
set, worth over £35 (RRP), contains an Adventurer
Feeder and
a 2.5kg bag of Feeder
Seed.
Simply
click here
and enter your
details for a chance to win!
Terms & Conditions
-
Promoter of the competition
is CJ WildBird Foods Ltd (Reg
no. 2101581), The Rea, Upton
Magna, Shrewsbury,
Shropshire, SY4 4UR
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Closing date is 23:59 GMT on
30th September
2010
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3 prize winners will be
randomly selected
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No purchase necessary
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The giveaway is not
transferable
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No cash alternative is given
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Open to UK residents
(including the Channel
Islands)
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Only one entry per household
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Subject to the law of
England & Wales and the
exclusive jurisdiction of
the English Courts
-
All applicants will be sent
a copy of our current
catalogue and added to our
mailing list to receive
future CJ WildBird Foods Ltd
catalogues and special
offers. We respect your
privacy and do not share,
sell or pass your details to
any other companies for
their own use.
-
If after receiving a copy of
our current catalogue you
wish to be removed from our
mailing list, please call
0800 731 2080 or e-mail
sales@birdfood.co.uk
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September
DIY Project
Restore
Your
Old Metal Garden
Furniture
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And enjoy eating in the warm
September sunshine
Restore your old metal garden
furniture and enjoy outdoor eating in the warm
September sunshine …
At the Summer's end, while it's still warm
enough to eat outside, make sure that your old
cast iron garden seats and table are still
looking their best. Restoring them is easy and a
new lick of paint gives you a whole new set of
garden furniture to enjoy meals outside during
the last of the Summer and early Autumn weather.
All you have to do is to check out the items
listed below and then follow our instructions.
It's sure to stretch out your Summer eating for
an extra couple of months!
Step One
Brush over the entire surface of
the chairs (and table) using a coarse hand wire
brush in order to give the new paint a proper
key. Alternatively, if you have a big power tool
with large abrasive brush head to do this, it
will make the job much faster. This will also
help to cause loose paint to flake off, identify
any areas of rust around bolts, for example, and
allow you to brush away any green moss or mould
that has been growing.
Step Two
Next, take the cordless Dremel
8200 multi-tool and attach the SpeedClic mandrel
- plus either the fine/medium/coarse Abrasive
Buffs (for sanding across a flat surface) or the
Detail Abrasive Brushes (which glide over a
carved or patterned surface sanding gently).
Carefully sand down the surrounding edges of the
little chipped areas where paint has flaked
off.
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Check for rust, then smooth and
clear it using the multi-tool and the aluminium
oxide grinding wheel. This will give you a
perfectly smooth surface to paint over.
Step Three
Prime the affected areas using a
metal paint primer.
Step Four
Paint or spray-paint in a lovely
colour - we've chosen a gorgeous teal blue to
fit in with the new 'bright' colours trend in
the garden this year.
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Lo and behold, you have a 'new' set of garden chairs
and table for your long weekend meals in the
mellow Autumn sunshine.
Materials we
used
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The new Dremel 8200 is the best
and most advanced cordless rotary tool on the
market.
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Dremel 8200 cordless multi-tool
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SpeedClic mandrel (SC402)
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SpeedClic Detail Abrasive Brushes (471S, 472S,
473S) (or SpeedClic fine/medium/coarse Abrasive
Buffs)
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Aluminium oxide grinding wheel (541)
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Wire brush - or wire brush attachment for drill
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Metal paint primer
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Metal paint topcoat
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Paint brush - or spray paint gun,
if you have one
For more
information, visit the Dremel website at:
www.dremel.co.uk
Dremel tools can be purchased
from DIY stores such as B&Q or online from the
website at:
www.dremel-direct.com
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Tidy Up Your Garden
Now’s the
time to tidy flowering tender herbs such as
marjoram and oregano. Cut back the stems to just
above ground level. T
Divide overgrown herbs
Divide
clumps of overgrown herbs such as chives,
marjoram, mint and lemon balm. This will
rejuvenate them and stop them – particularly
rampant spreaders like mint – from taking over
the rest of your herb garden. Replant the
divided sections elsewhere in the garden or grow
them in pots.
Potting up and taking cuttings
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Pot up herbs
such as mint, chives, parsley and thyme to bring
indoors or under cover so that you can make use
of them over winter – they will die back if left
outside.
Take
cuttings of woody herbs such as rosemary, bay,
sage and lavender. These can all be quite
short-lived and so taking cuttings will give you
more plants to replace any that are past their
best.
Pests
Roses
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Look out for
black spot on roses – dark spots with yellow
edges or dark blotches. Pick off any affected
leaves and collect those that have fallen onto
the ground. Throw away or burn the leaves to
prevent the disease spreading.
Powdery mildew
This is a
powdery white deposit on leaves, stems, flowers
and fruit – it can be a real problem in
September. As well as looking unsightly, it can
lead to poor growth, dropping leaves and
discolouration.
It’s often
worse if plants are overcrowded or short of
water. Keep plants well watered and try to avoid
wetting the leaves. Remove the worst-affected
parts of plants.
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Never Mind the Teenties; We’re Stuck in the Past
When it Comes to Garden Design!
85% of the nation’s gardens are stuck in the
last century
Gnomes, Crazy Paving and Wind Chimes
New research released by leading
woodcare manufacturer, Ronseal, reveals we’re
shamefully un-cool when it comes to our gardens,
with a staggering lack of investment in our
outdoor areas and past-it features dominating
the landscape.
Now Ronseal has
paired up with one of the UK’s
foremost garden design talents, Michelle Wake,
to launch a campaign to bring the nation’s
outdoor areas firmly into the 21st
Century – as well as revealing the must-have
trends of 2020.
Of the 2,000 people questioned in
the study,
42% of homeowners spend less than
£100 a year – that’s equivalent to a single cup
of coffee a week – on keeping their garden up to
date, despite splurging on average £982 annually
on redecorating and updating their home’s
interiors.
One in five (20%) don’t do
anything to refresh their outdoor space more
frequently than once every five years and on
average, a homeowner only dabbles in any garden
maintenance more strenuous than cutting the lawn
or planting seasonal bulbs once every three
years.
A shocking one in 10 (10%) admit
their outdoor space is straight from the 70s
with gravel and crazy paving the prominent
features while a further one in ten (10%) say
they’re stuck in the 90s with over-the-top water
features.
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September
2010