Why double glazing?

It is the procedure of taking out the traditional windows in your home and putting in a window which is formed by two panes of glass with several millimeters of space in between them. This space is air tight, and the air trapped within it acts as an insulator. This helps control the heat range in your house, either keeping heat in or keeping the heat out. By double glazing your windows you can not only add more value to your home, but you’ll also enjoy reduced utility expenses as well.

Why add a conservatory?

Conservatories are also referred to as sunrooms, patio rooms, or solariums. These are commonly fully or partially constructed from glass. A conservatory is installed on the side of a house, it will create additional living space, to relax, dine, work or entertain. A smartly placed conservatory can offer a idyllic view of the surroundings, great for plants because they are predominantly glass, which lets the natural light in. It could be a high priced improvement to your property but the benefit that it adds can mean that it is well worth the cost.

Why chose soffits?

Soffits give a nice delicate improvement to a home, but a valuer is going to be all too aware of the benefit. Soffits protect the areas susceptible to water damage when they are unprotected. Along with them making a roofline more aesthetically pleasing, additionally, they give you a ventilation system in your home.

The above are just three easy ways to enhance your home, turning it into a nicer place to live, and add more value for when you do look to sell. While this economic recession lasts, it might be wiser to invest money into decorating and enhancing your current home by double glazing your windows, adding on a conservatory and installing soffits to your roof line.

This guest post was written on behalf of Storm Clad Home Improvements, experts in home improvement. For more information on Double Glazing Nottingham or Conservatories Nottingham please visit www.stormclad.co.uk

Country: Nationwide this is by far the most popular style. Characteristics include a large, usually covered front porch or a wraparound porch, and a steeply pitched gabled roofline that runs lengthwise. The roofline is often punctuated by dormer windows and gabled wings, creating casual, informal living. The farmhouse style home is typically a rectangular or L-shaped home, often with two-stories. Horizontal siding is the typical material for county and farmhouse designs, although masonry or stucco is possible.

Traditional: This describes a multitude of classic designs including Colonial, Georgian, Federal, Cape Cod, Saltbox and Ranch designs each distinctly regional. Simplicity is a common characteristic of all traditional designs usually with small-paned or mullioned windows that are usually spaced symmetrically.

Victorian: This particular traditional-style home has strong historical origins with very intricate rooflines and the use of turrets, dormers, towers, bays and eyebrow windows. Ornate porches are a prevalent feature along with shingles or narrow-lap wood siding. This style is more appropriate for two-story homes, although one-story designs with Victorian features are available.

Mediterranean: Some view this style as traditional, others say it is contemporary, regardless, it’s popular in the Sunbelt states, particularly in California, the southwest and Florida. The exterior is traditionally stucco and includes tile roofs, broad overhangs, lower pitched roof lines and open-air verandas, courtyards and covered porches or lanais.

Contemporary: This broad category embodies many different styles and shapes of homes. Typically contemporary homes have bold geometric shapes, large expanses of glass, and windows that are not framed by shutters or other decorative trim, and rooflines that can be anywhere from flat to low-pitched to dramatically steep. Siding can be vertical or horizontal wood siding, stucco or masonry. There are really no rules with contemporary styles.

Other styles: although the above are the most prevalent choices there are a multitude of other styles many homeowners opt to adopt. These include Craftsman, European, Italianette, French or French Country, Tudor, etc. Also certain locations or uses can often produce a particular “style”; narrow lots, beach, mountain or vacation houses are examples.

Here is a look at some of the most popular and affordable materials for exterior siding:

Solid Wood

The first choice for most homeowners is wood, because it stands unmatched for beauty and durability. Wood is available in boards, shingles or shakes. These products are typically made from red or white cedar but they are also available in pine, spruce, redwood, cypress and Douglas fir. The benefits to going with wood is it offers some insulation value, is easy to repair and install, and is available pre-stained, primed or unfinished in many styles. Some products even come with fire-retarding treatments. The drawback to solid wood siding is that it must be painted or stained, which will add several thousand dollars to the cost of the job and to maintenance expenses in the future. For example, wood shingles cost between $3 and $4 per square foot before staining or painting.

Cedar Shingles

Homes sided in cedar shingles (also called “shakes”) are made of natural cedar and are usually stained in shades of brown, gray, or other earthen colors. Shakes are very popular on traditional, ranch, historical and vacation homes that want to blend in with its natural or rustic surroundings.

Engineered or Composite Wood

If solid wood is too much of a strain on your pocketbook you might want to consider engineered or composite wood products like plywood, oriented strand board (OSB) and hardboard ($1.50 to $2.70 per square foot), but even the best of these products won’t give you the look of real wood. Of the group, plywood (often sold in a reverse board-and-batten design) is the least expensive, easiest to install and has the longest track record. It works best on contemporary-styled homes. OSB and hardboard products are sold as 4 x 8 sheets or are molded to look like clapboard. They are available preprimed or prefinished in a wide variety of colors, which keeps the cost down.

Fiber Cement

If you want the appearance of wood, stucco or masonry, but can’t afford it, fiber cement siding offers a strong and attractive alternative. This durable, natural-looking material is best known by the brand names HardiPlank® and HardiPanel®. A real selling point is the fact that it’s fireproof, resistant to rot, fungus and termites (a great perk if you live in an area that is hot and humid), and may have a warranty of up to 50 years.

The installed costs of fiber-cement are reported to be less than traditional masonry or synthetic stucco, equal to or less than hardboard siding, and more than vinyl siding. As always, size matters when it comes to your exterior.

Stucco

You can’t get any more sturdy than stucco. Simply put, you’re covering your home with a layer or rock. Cement stucco is made up of a small quantity of lime, Portland cement, and water. This fine grained concrete is attached to your house using waterproof barrier paper, galvanized wire mesh, and metal flashings (handy devices that channel water to the exterior wall). While the strength of stucco remains unchallenged among sidings (it has a track record of say over a thousand years), it does have it drawbacks because of its rigid makeup. If the wood framing beneath it shrinks or if the house foundation moves, the cement stucco could crack. To avoid this happening to your new home, be sure the contractor frames your house with wood sheathing and allows the lumber to dry for about 60 days before installing the stucco. If you hire a talented plasterer, you have unlimited surface texture possibilities. If you want to add color to your stucco be sure to spend the extra money on a m!

asonry penetrating stain, because other paints may peel after time. Traditional stucco has a low material cost, but is expensive to install ($12 to $16 per square foot).

Aluminum and Metal Siding

Aluminum and steel siding, may be considered a step up from vinyl in durability, but it’s plagued with its own limitations. Like vinyl, metal siding comes in limited colors, is a worse insulator than vinyl, dents easily and is very difficult to repair. So if you live in an area where you get a lot of hail or your house is surrounded by acorn trees, you might want to reconsider using metal.

Vinyl

Thanks to new technology in the vinyl industry, the common stereotype of a “plastic” home has all but faded. New product offerings wood-like textures, shingles and shakes, deeper colors and more trim options are making vinyl a popular alternative to its high priced rivals. Vinyl is made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which makes it immune to rotting and flaking, but even the best vinyl siding will crack, split and look dingy after awhile. The fact that it requires low maintenance – it can be washed with a garden hose – and that it is cheap – $1.50 to $2 per square foot, makes it very appealing. Not so appealing is the fact that it has limited color choices, provides virtually no insulation, is not easy to repair, can fade over time and doesn’t stand up well against Mother Nature.

EIFS (Exterior Insulation and Finish Stucco)

Synthetic stucco, also called EIFS (exterior insulated finish system) consist of a a polymer-and-cement mixture, which is applied in two coats over rigid foam insulation and a fiberglass mesh. You might want to double think using this product, because since it came on the scene two decades or so ago it has been unable to successfully keep the water out. Water gets behind many EIFS systems and can’t get out. What that means for you, is that your home will likely suffer some serious structural wood rot. Synthetic manufacturers are working on rectifying this problem by using special water management systems which collect the water and divert it back to the exterior of the home before it suffers water damage. Being a new homeowner, this may be one worry you’ll want skip. Synthetic stucco materials cost more than the real thing, but because it’s easier to apply it costs less.

The biggest trends in exteriors are vibrant colors and a wood look

Interior design has always been the big “in” when building a home, but now homeowners are starting to look outside. Let’s face it – first impressions go a long way, so your exterior home should really stand out. People are looking for something different and unique, but at the same time want low maintenance – in walks vinyl. Vinyl manufacturers are hard at work to meet the demands of homeowners who want a higher quality and more stylish vinyl siding. The big change to vinyl is that it’s coming out bright and colorful, now that it’s adding acrylics into its mix. Most color palettes for vinyl used to be very similar and pale, but now homeowners can find deep rich colors like forest green and barn red.

Another new look by vinyl is dressing up as cedar shingles. These cedar shingles come very close to looking like the real cedar. The real beauty to these shingles is that they won’t split, rot, flake, peel or chip like the real thing. Over the last several years, almost every vinyl manufacturer has come out with some sort of replica cedar product.

With everyone trying to simulate wood products, it would only make sense that someone would market a real wood siding product. That’s what Georgia-Pacific, who makes vinyl and fiber cement, has done with its Catawba hardboard siding. Catawba is 100 percent hard wood made out of pulp-grade wood chips pressed and bonded at very high temperatures. This process makes the wood very weather resistant. If you use two coats of paint you won’t have to paint it again for 10 years – double the time of traditional wood products.

For instance, in Asia, huts were made of bamboo and grass; even the window coverings were bamboo. The use of bamboo in Asia was to keep out inclement weather. So yes, our world has changed to where we find bamboo a signature of the tropical worlds such as Japan and Asia and we find we want to create that atmosphere in our backyard.

Exterior bamboo blinds are great for your backyard, not only because they offer you more shade on your porch and are the envy of friends for decorating your home in a new fashion, but because they hold up during any type of weather. The bamboo does need to be treated for weather resistance every year, and you will want to switch the side that is exposed to the sun every once in a while, but you will be protected.

You will be able to have those indoor barbeques on your porch during a rainstorm and be protected. The bamboo treatment allows for the reduction of mildew not only on the blinds, but also in the area you are protecting.

Not only can you switch, which side is exposed to the sun whenever you need to, but also the installation of these blinds is extremely easy. You do not have to hire a contractor to help you. The instructions are very easy to follow and you just need an electrical screwdriver.

There are two styles of exterior bamboo blinds, the venation and the roll up. The roll up bamboo blind is easier to deal with because you simply roll it up and secure it to the straps on the ceiling. The venation works off the rope system typical of most mini blinds so they tend to get tangled.

When you seek out bamboo porch blinds you will need to go to a specialty blinds shop or order from a catalog. Most local hardware stores do not carry these types of blinds unless you live in the tropics. A low demand for tropical blinds in the other part of the states shows that it is more cost effective to order them for a person. So be aware you will have to wait a few weeks before you can install the blinds. It is a good idea to start looking at the end of winter before the hot weather returns.