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Essential guide to DIY preparation
Avoid a home improvement nightmare by following our essential guide to DIY preparation. Follow our tips to ensure you achieve real improvements, while saving time and money ....more
DIY claims go through the roof over Easter
With Easter around the corner, many Brits will be arming themselves with hammers, drills and paintbrushes for the year’s first major DIY onslaught ....more
Danger lurks in “Hell’s Kitchen”
Egg timers and ladles are poised ready for the start of a new series of “Hell’s Kitchen” ....more
Food For Thought: Brits Have Spent £76bn On Their Kitchens
Brits are honing their culinary skills in style as new research out today* reveals they have spent £76 billion creating the perfect kitchen ....more
Essential guide to DIY preparation
Avoid a home improvement nightmare by following our essential guide to DIY preparation. Follow our tips to ensure you achieve real improvements, while saving time and money.
Planning your decorating - Planning sounds boring but it does save time in the long run. It helps you think the job through, make all those difficult decisions about colour-scheming, and get together everything you need before you start work.
Budget - If you're going to redecorate a room, begin by deciding how far you're going to go. Will you just repaint the walls, ceiling and woodwork? Will you be papering the walls for the first time, or do you want to replace the paper you already have? And how about changing the carpet and curtains, even the upholstery and the lighting? These decisions will often depend on the size of your budget.
You can probably do a quick room repaint for £50, but add some new wallpaper and you'll at least double the spend. More extensive changes than this will definitely have you dipping deep into your savings. The choice is yours, of course, but be sure you know what you're in for before you start.
Start a file - Unless you like white rooms, you'll need paint colour charts, wallpaper and even fabric samples to help you decide which products to use. Buy a cardboard pocket file or a scrapbook from a stationer's to keep them all in.
Pick up free colour charts from the DIY stores
Ask for samples of unwrapped rolls of wallpaper and borders on display. For fabric samples, try the curtain shops and department stores in your local high street. Local markets can be an excellent source of cheap fabrics. Tear pages out of monthly home magazines for colour-scheme ideas. Many magazines have separate stockists lists at the back for all the relevant product details
Plan your time - Your time is the free ingredient of any project, but you still have to work out how much of it is needed for the job. Don't underestimate how long things can take. Just preparing a room for redecorating - clearing the furniture, taking everything off the walls, washing down surfaces, patching up any damage, covering up the carpet or stripping it and so on - could take a day at least.
Allow a whole weekend for a simple repaint, and two if you're paper-hanging, tiling or laying new flooring as well. This might sound a lot, but you'll feel much better if you set yourself a realistic timetable and are able to keep to it as you go along. Everyone hates a job that drags on and on when you thought you could be done in a day.
Get organised - Last but not least, make sure you know exactly what you're up against by reading through the appropriate DIY project in our guide.
For example, a bathroom makeover could involve replacing all the old wall tiles (or tiling over them), painting the ceiling and the woodwork and putting down some new cork tiles. You could even fix that annoying dripping tap while you're at it.
By doing this now, you'll be able to work out what order to do things in and then organise your shopping and work time accordingly. For this particular job, you should do tiling (the messiest bit) first, then painting and finally flooring. But before you can begin work, you have to estimate how much of everything you need.
DIY claims go through the roof over Easter
With Easter around the corner, many Brits will be arming themselves with hammers, drills and paintbrushes for the year’s first major DIY onslaught. However, research from Churchill Home Insurance proves they might do better to get the pros in instead, as DIY claims double during the Easter holiday.*
Britons spend a total of £11 billion a year, or £257 per head, on DIY, with some spending up to as much as £1800.** With that amount of spend as well as potential damage to the home, there is plenty of scope for costly DIY disasters. Churchill’s home insurance database of around 10,000 accidental damage claims shows the average DIY-related home claim at £401.40.
According to Churchill’s research, Easter Monday is the worst day for DIY disasters, closely followed by Easter Sunday. Good Friday is the quietest day over the period for claims.
Churchill’s Home Insurance spokesman, Greg Dawson said: “There is a very clear trend with DIY related home claims. They tend to rise over national holidays, where homeowners begin to get creative. Claims tend to be lower on the first day of the holidays as it is often the purchasing day. The claims often follow the next day when the purchases are erected or installed.”
Churchill has compiled a ‘DIY Disaster’ list which breaks down the types of DIY claim made over the Easter period:
- Painting / decorating (72%)
- Drilling / hammering / putting up shelves (14%)
- Ladder related accidents (8%)
- Tiling (3%) – broken tiles, tiles cracking bathroom suites
- Glue / adhesive (1.25%)
- Other – saws, chisels, etc
Some of the worst DIY disasters Churchill has paid out for include:
- A policyholder who was installing a wooden floor and nailed through a pipe, causing £1583.09 damage
- An excitable two year old helper who put a hammer through a TV screen, causing £1398.82 damage
- A policyholder who damaged a sewage pipe while trying to remove concrete steps, resulting in a claim for £744.17
- A policyholder who fell off a ladder and onto his dining room table, resulting in a claim for £339.99
As the DIY and home moving season gets into full swing, Churchill is offering new customers a 30% discount on home buildings and/or contents insurance. This includes a 20% new customer discount plus an extra 10% if they purchase cover online.
Danger lurks in “Hell’s Kitchen”
Egg timers and ladles are poised ready for the start of a new series of “Hell’s Kitchen”. This year Gary Rhodes and Jean-Christophe Novelli will attempt to instill some culinary expertise into 10 raw contestants. Meanwhile, millions of wanabe chefs, all over the country, will take to the kitchen and attempt to flambé the crêpes Suzettes with expensive consequences.
Churchill Home Insurance analysed over 11,000 home insurance claims and found that one in five household accidents happen in the kitchen, with the average cost of a cooking related claim being £4,910.
Additionally, more than one in ten household fires can be blamed on kitchen antics, with the humble saucepan being responsible for the majority of kitchen disasters.
Churchill’s top five accident claims in the kitchen are:
- Saucepans and frying pans – chip pans, pans being left and forgotten, putting a hot pan on the kitchen work surface
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Cooker – blowing up the cooker, breaking the glass in the cooker door
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Hob – leaving the hob on and melting appliances
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Oven – oven catching on fire , using oven cleaner on the elements
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Grill – leaving something under the grill, fat catching on the element, dropping grill pan onto the work surface or carpet
Churchill’s Head of Home Insurance Martin Scott says: “While things hot up in Hell’s Kitchen we advise all budding chefs to ensure that they pay attention at all times in their own kitchen in order to avoid any unnecessary microwave explosions or blender-related disasters.”
To prevent the worst from happening in the kitchen, Churchill advises the following cook’s tips:
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Do not leave pans unattended; if you must leave the kitchen briefly, turn down the heat on appliances and return to the kitchen quickly.
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Keep anything that can catch fire, such as dishtowels, paper or plastic bags, curtains, etc., at least three feet away from the range top.
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When cooking, avoid wearing loose-fitting clothing such as long open sleeves, they can be ignited by hot burners. If clothes do catch fire, "Stop, Drop and Roll" by dropping immediately to the ground and rolling over and over or back and forth to put out the flames.
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Cool the burned area with cool water and seek medical attention for serious burns.
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Take extra care if there are small children around; always turn pot handles inward, beware children do not pull on tablecloths or placements and keep hot items away from the counter edge.
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Food cooked in a microwave can be dangerously hot. Remove the lids or other coverings from microwaved food carefully to prevent steam burns.
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Store knives and other sharp objects out of the reach of children.
Martin Scott added: “We deal with many kitchen related claims, but don’t be put off entering the most dangerous room in the house, it can be great fun – just remember to pay as much attention to your surroundings as you do to the recipe!”
Hell’s Kitchen returns to ITV1 on Monday 18th April.
Food For Thought: Brits Have Spent £76bn On Their Kitchens
Brits are honing their culinary skills in style as new research out today* reveals they have spent £76 billion creating the perfect kitchen.
Research by Churchill Home Insurance shows that ‘café culture’ has spread into our homes as each household admits they have spent £3,113 on their kitchen. As well as the everyday electrical appliances such as washing machines and microwaves, Brits are also obsessed with buying specialist accessories such as popcorn makers, hi-tech food processors and pasta makers.
The research shows that an average home has around £1,539 worth of electrical goods at any one time ranging from freezers and cookers to electric pepper mills and grilling machines.
Furthermore, house-holders will update their electrical appliances almost every four years – which over a lifetime equates to £19,237. The main reasons for buying new appliances are general wear and tear (39%) or mechanical breakdown (32%) but it is possible that kitchen accessories can be accidentally damaged too. The research also reveals that over a fifth of house-holders bought a new appliance simply because they wanted an upgrade (22%).
House-holders are also filling their kitchens with £486-worth of kitchen utensils including the basics such as kitchen scissors and chopping boards as well as olive oil decanters and citrus fruit juicers for those that are more kitchen-savvy. Nearly a quarter of households (24%) like to keep up with current trends in utensils and one in ten will even visit specialist kitchen stores to ensure they get the very best equipment.
The research uncovers the reasons why Brits are content to invest a small fortune keeping their kitchen in tip-top shape. For almost one in ten people (9%) the kitchen is the most important room in the home. Furthermore, kitchens can actually sell homes -nearly a quarter of people (22%) admit they were influenced into buying their current home because of the kitchen.
A third of house-holders say they love cooking (32%). Additionally, nearly a fifth of men (19%) and nearly a third of women (32%) admit they even love baking.
Martin Scott, Head of Churchill Home Insurance, says:
“The research shows there is a clear trend towards higher specification equipment in the kitchen as changing fashions become more important to home-owners, and kitchen equipment is becoming a lifestyle accessory. Hence it’s easy to see how the value accumulates.”
The research also shows that over a fifth (21%) of house-holders get culinary inspiration from family and friends suggesting that it is important to keep up with the Jones’. A further fifth (19%) are motivated by cookery books. A quarter of households now have a TV in the kitchen and one in twenty (5%) get their culinary and style tips from celebrity chefs in the media.
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