Winter is coming
The seasons are fast busy moving from summer to autumn, and already some of the bigger trees in the neighborhood are starting to show their autumn colors. One of these days it will be time for jerseys and jackets and hot chocolate.
And, of course, it will be time to carry the fan to the store and bring out the heater, with all the electricity consumption that will imply. To save some money this winter, check out some tips on the Going Green board at http://www.sahometalk.com/index.php, where you can learn how to insulate your home and keep your electricity bill down. And remember of course to leave your tips there for others.
One of my favorite energy saving tips is to use a foot heating pad. These are pads that work like an electric blanket, but they are just big enough to put your feet on. With these pads, the heat comes up from below, and keeps you warm from the bottom up. Because heat rises they also warm the area that you are sitting in, so you will be comfortable without having to use a heater to warm the whole room.
Out in the garden it will soon be time to add all the fallen leaves to the compost heap, prune the trees that need pruning and have a relaxing cup of coffee on the patio while you give the lawnmower a well deserved break.
Well, we’d better enjoy the winter. Ours is a short and mild winter with barely enough time to get things in order before summer will be back, so make the most of it!
Home Improvement tips by a registered draughtsperson.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Selling your house – A world of new pitfalls
Selling your house – A world of new pitfalls
An estate agent, I won’t say right now which company she is with, gave me an interesting list yesterday. So according to new legislation in SA, a house cannot be sold “Voetstoots” anymore. Sellers must make everything known, and if a buyer finds fault with the house, he can get the seller to fix those faults. Some of the things that the seller has to acknowledge now include
• Are the building plans up to date? Do you possess copies of the building plans?
• Are there any electrical faults?
• Faults relating to drainage.
• Leaking taps or ruptured pipes.
• Are there keys for all the doors?
• Are there damp problems of any kind?
• Are there any roof leaks?
• Are there any structural problems?
These are just a few of the points on the list. The list goes on to mention the condition of many things in and outside the house, such as carpets, cupboards, pool and even the position of the boundary fence.
One of the most common answers I get when I tell clients that they need building plans for things like garden sheds and lapas is that they bought the house with these things already built. Many of them, in fact most of them, are not even aware that you need building plans for things like swimming pools, garden sheds and lapas. I’m not even sure if many of the estate agents out there realize that you need building plans for these things, and I can see it is only a matter of time before a building inspector from the council will have to inspect a house before it can be sold.
Now all of this is of course great news for the building industry, especially for us people doing building plans, as more and more owners will be forced to get building plans approved whereas in the past they would just add pools and lapas and stuff to their homes without plans.
For the buyers this will also (hopefully) be of benefit, and I can just imagine how the quality of homes on offer is going to pick up.
Remember there are many more tips to be found at http://www.sahometalk.com/index.php
An estate agent, I won’t say right now which company she is with, gave me an interesting list yesterday. So according to new legislation in SA, a house cannot be sold “Voetstoots” anymore. Sellers must make everything known, and if a buyer finds fault with the house, he can get the seller to fix those faults. Some of the things that the seller has to acknowledge now include
• Are the building plans up to date? Do you possess copies of the building plans?
• Are there any electrical faults?
• Faults relating to drainage.
• Leaking taps or ruptured pipes.
• Are there keys for all the doors?
• Are there damp problems of any kind?
• Are there any roof leaks?
• Are there any structural problems?
These are just a few of the points on the list. The list goes on to mention the condition of many things in and outside the house, such as carpets, cupboards, pool and even the position of the boundary fence.
One of the most common answers I get when I tell clients that they need building plans for things like garden sheds and lapas is that they bought the house with these things already built. Many of them, in fact most of them, are not even aware that you need building plans for things like swimming pools, garden sheds and lapas. I’m not even sure if many of the estate agents out there realize that you need building plans for these things, and I can see it is only a matter of time before a building inspector from the council will have to inspect a house before it can be sold.
Now all of this is of course great news for the building industry, especially for us people doing building plans, as more and more owners will be forced to get building plans approved whereas in the past they would just add pools and lapas and stuff to their homes without plans.
For the buyers this will also (hopefully) be of benefit, and I can just imagine how the quality of homes on offer is going to pick up.
Remember there are many more tips to be found at http://www.sahometalk.com/index.php
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Drilling – Pointers for the newbie
Drilling – A few pointers for the newbie
Not all of us are brought up around power tools, and some may need a few pointers on how to use certain tools. These power tools make our lives a pleasure, but use them wrong and they can turn around and bite you.
Here are a few tips on using the electric drill.
Two types of drilling
There are two types of drilling, and most electric drills will have these two settings. The slower setting is for drilling into concrete or masonry.
Masonry drilling requires special masonry drill bits. They have a larger and usually harder tip than normal drill bits, and are usually silver in color. When drilling into concrete, stone or brick, set your drill to the slower speed setting, and switch it to ‘Hammer’ action. Hammer action will cause the drill to punch the drill bit forward, as if hammering it into the wall.
For drilling wood or steel you will use the faster setting of your drill, and remember to make sure your drill is not on hammer action. Steel and wood uses the same drill bits, although there are specialized wood drill bits that should not be used on steel. Steel drill bits are usually black.
When drilling into steel, first mark the spot where you want to drill with a punch, this makes the drill bit less prone to skidding all over the place when you get going.
Drill bits tend to get hot, and this shortens their life span. Stop drilling from time to time to give your drill bits a while to cool off, and you will make them last a lot longer.
Remember to wear your safety gear, this should be, at the minimum, goggles and a sturdy pair of gloves. The drills rotate at an enormous speed, and when a drill bit breaks they tend to fly off in any direction, so a little protection is called for.
When drilling walls in your home, try to make sure that it is not a wall in which either water or electricity is embedded. If it is, make sure you are not drilling in line with the pipes. Having to open up a large part of your wall to fix a hole where you accidentally drilled into a water pipe is no fun at all.
Not all of us are brought up around power tools, and some may need a few pointers on how to use certain tools. These power tools make our lives a pleasure, but use them wrong and they can turn around and bite you.
Here are a few tips on using the electric drill.
Two types of drilling
There are two types of drilling, and most electric drills will have these two settings. The slower setting is for drilling into concrete or masonry.
Masonry drilling requires special masonry drill bits. They have a larger and usually harder tip than normal drill bits, and are usually silver in color. When drilling into concrete, stone or brick, set your drill to the slower speed setting, and switch it to ‘Hammer’ action. Hammer action will cause the drill to punch the drill bit forward, as if hammering it into the wall.
For drilling wood or steel you will use the faster setting of your drill, and remember to make sure your drill is not on hammer action. Steel and wood uses the same drill bits, although there are specialized wood drill bits that should not be used on steel. Steel drill bits are usually black.
When drilling into steel, first mark the spot where you want to drill with a punch, this makes the drill bit less prone to skidding all over the place when you get going.
Drill bits tend to get hot, and this shortens their life span. Stop drilling from time to time to give your drill bits a while to cool off, and you will make them last a lot longer.
Remember to wear your safety gear, this should be, at the minimum, goggles and a sturdy pair of gloves. The drills rotate at an enormous speed, and when a drill bit breaks they tend to fly off in any direction, so a little protection is called for.
When drilling walls in your home, try to make sure that it is not a wall in which either water or electricity is embedded. If it is, make sure you are not drilling in line with the pipes. Having to open up a large part of your wall to fix a hole where you accidentally drilled into a water pipe is no fun at all.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Drawing a house – Common mistakes owners make
Drawing a house – Common mistakes owners make
I often get calls from people who want to build on, and have drawn up plans for what they want. This helps a lot, since the owner can visually show me what he expects of a building plan. However, there are a lot of mistakes that these owners make, and often this impact hugely on their expectations.
Forgetting that walls have a thickness
As a first example, the owner will go into the yard and measure up how much space he has to work with. So let us say that there is ten meters of length to work with. When drawing, he will draw a line of 100 millimeters long, representing this length. Now he makes the crucial mistake of forgetting that walls have a thickness. In 10 meters, he sees that he can fit in a room of 3 meters long, another of 3 meters long and another of 4 meters long.
Allowing that the original house will probably just be extended and there is thus already one wall (of the original house) in place, it still means that he must build two interior walls and one exterior wall, and this can mean as much as 460 mm. That is almost half a meter of space that is going to go missing from his plan, a disaster if he thought he was going to have a large main bedroom.
Not taking stairs into consideration
Another common plan that owners have is to build up, especially if their garden is small and there is not much room to go sideways. Here I have seen elaborately concocted plans, often with the fatal flaw of not taking into consideration that you need stairs to get to the upper floor, and stairs take up a lot of space.
Depending on how high your ceiling is going to be, you will need about 18 stairs. With a stair tread of 340 mm and a width of 900 mm, that is a lot of space you need. (You can get stairs with less tread, but it makes for very uncomfortable walking – Beware!)
Roofing and rainwater
Whether your garden slopes or not, you are going to have to deal with rainwater, and it is all too easy to design a house with large areas where the rainwater has nowhere to go. This means the rainwater will either go through your house, or it will dam up somewhere and cause damp. Check the fall of your garden carefully, especially during rain storms, to see what the water does, before you build yourself an unwanted and expensive dam.
Toilets that are visible
This really is one of my pet peeves. I have been in a number of very new and very modern homes that looks fantastic right up to the point where I notice a door leading off the lounge and/or dining room, only to discover that on the other side of that door hides a toilet.
There is no amount of fancy interior decorating that is going to make an unsightly toilet go away, so if you are designing your own place, please remember that there should not be a line of sight from family gathering areas to a toilet.
Forgetting about the sewer system
I know that sewer systems are not something that people like thinking about, but it is and remains one of the most important features of your house. If your sewer system stops working, your whole house becomes a nightmare.
When planning your additions, take careful note of where your current sewer system runs. Ensure that you don’t plan on building over cleaning eyes, that there is enough space for the new system, and that any gulleys and vents are not closed over. If needs be, you might have to move some parts of the system completely.
Any other problems?
Walk around your existing house and yard, and try to imagine your new additions already in place, with an eye on seeing where the pitfalls might be. This will stop some frustration on your part when the draughts person gets to see your plans, and giving you some nasty surprises!
I often get calls from people who want to build on, and have drawn up plans for what they want. This helps a lot, since the owner can visually show me what he expects of a building plan. However, there are a lot of mistakes that these owners make, and often this impact hugely on their expectations.
Forgetting that walls have a thickness
As a first example, the owner will go into the yard and measure up how much space he has to work with. So let us say that there is ten meters of length to work with. When drawing, he will draw a line of 100 millimeters long, representing this length. Now he makes the crucial mistake of forgetting that walls have a thickness. In 10 meters, he sees that he can fit in a room of 3 meters long, another of 3 meters long and another of 4 meters long.
Allowing that the original house will probably just be extended and there is thus already one wall (of the original house) in place, it still means that he must build two interior walls and one exterior wall, and this can mean as much as 460 mm. That is almost half a meter of space that is going to go missing from his plan, a disaster if he thought he was going to have a large main bedroom.
Not taking stairs into consideration
Another common plan that owners have is to build up, especially if their garden is small and there is not much room to go sideways. Here I have seen elaborately concocted plans, often with the fatal flaw of not taking into consideration that you need stairs to get to the upper floor, and stairs take up a lot of space.
Depending on how high your ceiling is going to be, you will need about 18 stairs. With a stair tread of 340 mm and a width of 900 mm, that is a lot of space you need. (You can get stairs with less tread, but it makes for very uncomfortable walking – Beware!)
Roofing and rainwater
Whether your garden slopes or not, you are going to have to deal with rainwater, and it is all too easy to design a house with large areas where the rainwater has nowhere to go. This means the rainwater will either go through your house, or it will dam up somewhere and cause damp. Check the fall of your garden carefully, especially during rain storms, to see what the water does, before you build yourself an unwanted and expensive dam.
Toilets that are visible
This really is one of my pet peeves. I have been in a number of very new and very modern homes that looks fantastic right up to the point where I notice a door leading off the lounge and/or dining room, only to discover that on the other side of that door hides a toilet.
There is no amount of fancy interior decorating that is going to make an unsightly toilet go away, so if you are designing your own place, please remember that there should not be a line of sight from family gathering areas to a toilet.
Forgetting about the sewer system
I know that sewer systems are not something that people like thinking about, but it is and remains one of the most important features of your house. If your sewer system stops working, your whole house becomes a nightmare.
When planning your additions, take careful note of where your current sewer system runs. Ensure that you don’t plan on building over cleaning eyes, that there is enough space for the new system, and that any gulleys and vents are not closed over. If needs be, you might have to move some parts of the system completely.
Any other problems?
Walk around your existing house and yard, and try to imagine your new additions already in place, with an eye on seeing where the pitfalls might be. This will stop some frustration on your part when the draughts person gets to see your plans, and giving you some nasty surprises!
A Note On Color
With the newest mixing techniques being used by paint shops, you can choose from almost any color and tone that you can imagine, so it is little surprise that choosing a color is becoming more and more difficult.
When choosing a color, you should take into consideration that different colors mean different things to different people. Bright pink, for instance, is the perfect color to paint your one year old daughters’ bedroom. And of course blue is a good color to paint your sons’ bedroom.
Yet common sense and logic tells us that bright pink would probably not be the right color for your dining room. When choosing a color for your dining room, lounge or other areas that will be occupied from time to time by a wide range of people, try to pick a color and tone that will be neutral to most of these people.
As you move away from these areas where many different people will congregate, you can start applying personal tastes. Your kitchen can be more colorful, but remember that a kitchen must look clean and neat, and will sometimes still be visited by other people.
A guest bedroom will once again be visited by many people with diverse tastes, so you want to keep it neutral, whereas your own master bedroom and bathroom will be a very private space and can be subject to the fancies of you and your spouse.
Remember to log on to the forum and share your ideas at http://www.sahometalk.com/index.php
With the newest mixing techniques being used by paint shops, you can choose from almost any color and tone that you can imagine, so it is little surprise that choosing a color is becoming more and more difficult.
When choosing a color, you should take into consideration that different colors mean different things to different people. Bright pink, for instance, is the perfect color to paint your one year old daughters’ bedroom. And of course blue is a good color to paint your sons’ bedroom.
Yet common sense and logic tells us that bright pink would probably not be the right color for your dining room. When choosing a color for your dining room, lounge or other areas that will be occupied from time to time by a wide range of people, try to pick a color and tone that will be neutral to most of these people.
As you move away from these areas where many different people will congregate, you can start applying personal tastes. Your kitchen can be more colorful, but remember that a kitchen must look clean and neat, and will sometimes still be visited by other people.
A guest bedroom will once again be visited by many people with diverse tastes, so you want to keep it neutral, whereas your own master bedroom and bathroom will be a very private space and can be subject to the fancies of you and your spouse.
Remember to log on to the forum and share your ideas at http://www.sahometalk.com/index.php
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