Member Advice > Member Advice on House & Garden

Advantages: A real fire with dancing flames
Disadvantages: Gradual smoke discolouration of walls

We have an open fireplace in our living room and I love it. The cosy satisfaction of watching the flames on a winter's evening is very satisfying. However, during an internal move round of furniture, and especially wall fittings, we found the room to be in great need of a repaint job caused by the smoke from the fire over the years. We investigated gas inset fires for the fireplace. The prices we obtained were vastly differing for the same product ...
...B&Q so we purchased one. The next task was to find a registered gas fitter - not as easy as one thinks. Once again prices varied vastly - from £150 to £36 - but they all indicated a similar response when asked about the efficiency of the item. About ninety percent (YES 90%) of the heat generated goes up the chimney! After due consideration we took the gas fire back to B&Q for a refund - completed with no hassle whatsoever - and stayed with an ... Read review

Advantages: See text.
Disadvantages: See text.

I would just like to write a review on recycling, something that I am sure almost every single person has heard something about and has got their own thoughts or views on it. Whereas I see that other people also have their own opinions (for which they are in fact freely entitled to), I would just like to offer my own in such a way that I hope you see where I come from. We are encouraged to recycle as much as we can from our households; work places, ...
...reused in some form or another. Because of the dramatic increase in recent years of the amouont of waste that has been sent to our landfill sites, we have been urged to make use of things in a different way. Recycling Most if not all councils now provide a recycling service of some degree, whereby bins and/ or other such containers are provided for households; businesses, etc can all place their recyclable materials. Councils usually proviide information ... Read review

Advantages: What can more advantageous than more money?
Disadvantages: You may end up being visited by the ghosts of Christmas, past, present, and future.

In the current economical climate we are all trying to cut back and save money where possible, so here is a collection of different money saving ideas and tips for you to use in your everyday life. I'm sure most of these ideas are already used by most, but you never know you may find something helpful here. ~Saving the planet while saving the pounds~ Unplug unused electrical equipment before you go to bed, as this saves electricity. Don't leave ...
...Turn off lights when leaving a room, unless you plan on going in and out of the room several times in a short space of time. Don't over fill your kettle when you only need a small amount of water, only boil the amount of water that you need. Use natural cleaning products - that can be found in your food cupboard, most common household foods will have cleaning properties. This will save a lot of money on cleaning products, not only is this better ... Read review

Advantages: Free for over 60's, frendly service, great and easy to use website
Disadvantages: were so busy i had to wait 2 weeks for a survey

Wow this really is worth while an if you find a company that do home insulation grants the jobs could be done for free, my parents had a company in www.homeinsulationgrants.com as they offer grants and because they were over 60 they said they were entitled to it completely free. My parents were apprehensive at first as they could believe it was free, but they came did an amazing job an it was completely free. They are so pleased! it has really cut ... Read review

Advantages: Colour all year round
Disadvantages: Where to put them all when winter is over

I've always tried to keep my garden interesting all year round and one way to do it is have a mixture of evergreens along with your deciduous plants. Last year I decided to really make an interesting display and planted up winter baskets and tubs and placed them all over the garden. For the baskets I inserted an 8ft stob in the garden to add height to my display, painted it black then I put four brackets, one on each side. I put another 5 brackets ...
...a start. Around October, I visited various garden centres and bought a selection of colourful plants............................. 1 Various ornimental grasses, don't ask me to name them but the assistant assured me that they would all come through the winter. All the variated grasses came through well but reddish ones didn't. Perhaps they will come up again this summer. 2. Baby Azaelias and baby Rhododendrons. I chose ones with colourful foliage ... Read review