Homepoint Plumber

Archive for the ‘Furnishings’ Category

If you’ve been meaning to lose those extra 15 to 20 pounds of fat no doubt this will be on your new year’s resolution once again. The problem is that you didn’t get it done last year; what’s going to be different now? Perhaps it’s time to take a serious look at how to shed those extra pounds. Quite often we find various excuses to start the diet or exercise program then give up.

We may start the program and literally walk away from it within three months. Don’t worry, you’re not alone; part of the problem is a basic misunderstanding of what it takes to get the weight off. In order to lose fat instead of muscle, you need an effective fat burning system. Your body naturally burns sugars during normal activity. Depending on your level of fitness, you may be burning sugar all day long and never touch an ounce of fat.

Those who decide to go on diets will generally lose a lot more muscle mass than fat because they’ve never managed to reach the point of triggering their fat burning mechanism. So how do you do that? There are various ways to ignite your fat burning furnace; quite often we try to follow the fitness gurus but totally misunderstand their technique.

From the vantage point of simple fat burning mechanics, there are three ways to push yourself into the fat burning zone through activity. You can do it the fast and intense way, the slow and leisurely way or the high pressure muscle building way. Regardless of your method, the process is the same. Your activity starts to build up and your body uses up its carbohydrate supply. At some point in your activity level you run out of carbohydrates and due to the adaptive nature of your metabolic system, it will reach for its fat stores and begin to burn fat as fuel.

Mop, mop, as fast as you can. You can’t catch me - I’m the water damage man!

While the above is a silly little rhyme, keep it in mind the next time your house springs a leak or gets flooded. The urgency is real! Whether it’s a slow, seeping leak or a full blown water emergency, the sooner you get that water mopped up the less damage you will have to contend with later. Let’s take a look at a couple of scenarios.

Scenario #1: Dishwasher Overflow
The dishwater has overflowed and you are already late for work. You manage to turn off the water and power, but don’t have time to deal with mopping up the water until after work. No worries, right? It’s just water - and it’s clean water. Wrong. As the water sits in a puddle on your kitchen floor, it’s causing damage. It’s seeping into your hardwood floors or through the tile grout. It’s lapping against the bases of your kitchen cabinets, damaging them slowly but surely. It may even get to your drywall or seep into nearby drapes or carpets causing stains at best or, if undetected, future mildew growth.

Scenario #2: Leaking Roof
Your roof springs a leak and water is pouring in. Despite your best efforts, pots and pans did not fully catch and contain the water and you didn’t notice the water that collected at the bottom of one of the interior walls. A few days later, the roof has been patched and the pots and pans put away. But a lingering smell permeates the house: mildew.

The pre budget report has brought good news for homes around the UK as Alistair Darling announced that the long awaited boiler scrappage scheme will come into action in 2010. Currently a huge amount of homes around the UK are using inefficient boilers that are wasting massive amounts of energy and the government is keen to stop this. According to boiler scrappage scheme the upgrade will save up to £230 per household on energy bills and will cover around 125,00 households who will be provided with more energy efficient heating controls.

This, of course, means there will be a lot of work out there for local plumbers in the coming year, just make sure you do all the right checks if you’re hiring one yourself as there are some unreliable ones out there. However, the upgrade is certainly something we recommend, particularly if you are upgrading your home and trying to sell it on, as a new, well functioning boiler will certainly add value to your home.

Bravo Darling we say, it’s about time!

I recently have been shopping for new bathroom vanity furniture. I have gone to the big chain stores and have also done the specialty bathroom shops. There are many choices ranging from RTA bathroom vanities (RTA= Ready to Assemble) to the highest end luxury bathroom fixtures that are found in these expensive bathroom design studios. I also found that the internet sold many types of bathroom vanity furniture, from EBay to Craigslist and one hundred bathroom and kitchen websites in-between sold all types of bathroom vanities. I have learned many new pros and cons about all aspects of bathroom vanity furniture; here are a few of the highlights.

The first thing was that I became familiar with RTA products. As stated previously RTA bathroom vanities are the do-it-yourself type products that everyone is probably accustomed to, even if you’re not aware of it. I say this because if you look around your house, you will probably see something that was pre-assembled and that was eventually assembled by you, hence the name ready to assemble. These products are everywhere – from the internet (look just do a search for RTA bathroom vanities) to the super hardware chain stores. There is nothing wrong with these products and I endorse them if your going the “renovate your self” type of route. The product is quality, as long as you stay away from the particle board RTA products; just remember to look for the solid wood fronts and more importantly, the paneled wood sides, no particle board.

However I wanted a unique piece of bathroom furniture, a bathroom vanity that stood out and was a center piece of my bathroom. This lead to my second finding; the high end bathroom vanity on the internet; it was almost by accident but it was a true find. I did an internet search and typed in the key words – bathroom vanity furniture (because I consider the best bathroom vanities to actually be pieces of furniture) and I came across some amazing stuff.