Tips for dealing with damp

Rising damp can present homeowners with a multitude of problems, from salty tidemarks to peeling wallpaper, wet plaster and heat loss. There’s also the health problems brought on by mould, a particular issue if you suffer from a bad chest.


Ensure your damp course provider is approved by the Property Care Association (PWA)
Choose a supplier that offers a 25 or 30 year guarantee for the work
Make sure your home is adequately ventilated before calling in a damp proof specialist

Of late there has been some debate around whether rising damp actually exists. This is largely because of the activities of unscrupulous ‘specialists’ offering a quick fix DPC (damp proof course) when the real problem lies with condensation or inadequate ventilation.

This article examines symptoms, treatments and prevention of rising damp.

What is rising damp?

Rising damp comes about where a DPC is faulty or damaged (or in certain instances missing) or where the ground level around the house has been elevated, perhaps by a new path, flowerbed, patio or driveway.

Water from the ground spreads throughout brick, stone and mortar - all naturally porous materials - and travels up the walls, rather like oil travelling up the wick of a lamp. The ground water consists of soluble salts which can be deposited on the surfaces of the wall as they dry out, bringing in more moisture making the walls feel permanently damp. Rising damp typically affects the lower one metre of the wall but left unchecked it can seep as high as five metres.

In addition to looking unsightly, leading to heat loss and timber decay, it’s also potentially unhealthy as it encourages mould and mites to grow.

How do I tell if I have rising damp?

Rising damp can happen in modern houses but it’s more widespread in older houses. Since 1875 all new properties have been built with a DPC, however the English House Condition Survey conducted in 1996 shows that 13% of pre-1850 and 11% of properties built between 1900-1918 are afflicted by rising damp. 1% of homes built after 1956 are affected but if the damp protection is “bridged”, ie the exterior ground level raises above the interior level, troubles are more likely.

Fortunately it’s easier than you think to spot signs of rising damp:

 Curling or discoloured wallpaper
 Wet or rotting skirting board or timber
 Damp stained walls
 Wet plasterwork or brickwork
 Discolouration or staining of exterior brick or stonework

Beware of incorrect diagnosis

Rising damp is generally misdiagnosed or sold in as an essential by unscrupulous damp proofing companies. The real problem could be:

 Condensation, the most prevalent kind of dampness.
 Malfunctioning plumbing
 Dripping guttering
 Blocked air bricks
 Defective ground and surface drainage

Before you decide to commence any remedial work check all of the above extensively or if in doubt call in several experts for their advice.
How is rising damp treated?

The initial step is a survey to discover the magnitude of the damage. Treatment usually necessitates the installation of a chemical or osmotic DPC which is injected into holes in the masonry to repel water. Alternatively a new damp membrane can be fitted to work as a physical barrier to moisture. Plaster normally needs to be replaced with new salt-retardant plaster and a new skirting board fitted.

How much time/expense is needed to treat damp?

Clearly this depends on the square meterage of affected wall, but as a general guide expect to pay between Ј70-100 per linear metre for the damp proofing. The cost of plastering and reinstating skirting boards and electricity sockets will be extra. For a typical three bedroom house the standard cost of damp proofing is between Ј3-4,000.

For more information about Damp proofing surveys please visit the website 

Small businesses live and die by their cash flow and accountability.

Accurate recordings of transactions, in addition to proper assessment and processing, give small businesses a firm base on which to make decisions and create plans for growth.

Recording and understanding the sales, expenses and other basic business data should be easy enough for small companies. But understanding the accounting needs of a business is not always so simple. What type of activity is considered bookkeeping, and when do you need an accountant alternatively? Is there even a difference between the two?

There is, and it is a simple but important one: Bookkeepers record a firm's day-to-day transactions, while accounting firms verify and analyze that information.

Bookkeeping versus accounting

A bookkeeper's terrain is every day financial transactions, that include purchases, receipts, sales and payments. Recording these items is often done through a general ledger or journal. Many smaller businesses use software such as QuickBooks or Peachtree to keep track of their entries, debits and credits. Their efforts end in a trial balance, meaning the final total of debits and credits match.

"Bookkeeping is designed to generate data about the activities of an organization," said D'Arcy Becker, CPA and chairwoman of the Department of Accounting and Finance at the University of Wisconsin. "Accounting is designed to turn data into information."

The role of an accountant, therefore, is to verify the info entered, and then use that data to crank out reports, analyze the account, perform audits and prepare financial reporting records, like tax returns, income statements and balance sheets. An accountant's analysis of the financial information can supply information for forecasts, business trends, potential for growth and when to restrict spending to manage cash flow.

"Accountants evaluate the big picture," wrote John Tracy in his book, "Accounting for Dummies" (For Dummies, 5th edition, 2013). "[They] step and back and say, 'We handle a lot of rebates, we handle a lot of coupons - how should we record these transactions? Do I record just the net amount of the sale or do I record the gross sale amount, too?' Once the accountant decides how to handle these transactions, the bookkeeper carries them out."
Hiring a financial professional

Regardless of size of your enterprise, it is crucial for ongoing success to ensure the financial accuracy of daily transactions and use that data to make decisions for future years of your business. If you believe your business is growing too quickly for a "do-it-yourself" method of finances, you should look into hiring someone to help you keep a record and make sense of your business transactions. Business News Daily has published a guide to deciding on a business accountant if you're not sure where to start.

While many small businesses hire an accountant outside the company, bookkeeping is a bit more diverse. Some small business owners do their own bookkeeping on software recommended or used by their accountant, providing it to him or her on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis for action. Other small businesses are large enough to employ a bookkeeper, or have a small accounting department with data- entry clerks reporting to the bookkeeper.

For more information about wirral bookkeeping services please visit the website 

Landscaping North Vancouver

Vancouver's Winter Olympic Games are only a year away now so this time is very special for Vancouver residents and for neighbouring communities such as Whistler and Squamish. Hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world will converge on Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler and will discover why this is perhaps the best vacation spot in Canada.

The Olympic Games is resulting in many new construction projects and a boom in housing in the region. This new housing and new tourist attractions will make Vancouver an even better place to visit.

The fall season for Vancouver is not like other parts of Canada which can be chilly. Instead the Vancouver area enjoys very moderate temperatures right into winter. When temperatures fall in the great Canadian northwest, many see Vancouver as a nice place to get away for a break. Calgarians and those living in the British Columbia interior will drive to Vancouver for a short vacation. And when they arrive, there is plenty to do.

The fall season in Vancouver brings out the wonderful colours of nature. If you want to see them all, you can drive north on Highway 99, also known as the sea to sky highway. The views of the water with multicoloured mountain landscapes in the background is stunning. The quietness of the area is also something that will appeal to many people including seniors. However, you won't be alone here. The North Vancouver area all the way to Whistler is well travelled by tourists. You'll find a lot of Japanese tourists who never seem to tire of visiting Vancouver and the coastal mountains.

Vancouver Hotel Deals

Many of the hotels in the greater Vancouver area will offer hotel discounts. If you're a US resident, you'll enjoy the extra benefit of Canada's weak dollar. The difference will amount to a 10 to 15% discount. Add to that deals where you get 3 nights for two, and you're getting almost a 50% discount for your Vancouver hotel rooms. Major airlines haven't cut their flight prices but on just about everything else including car rental, you should be able to find some bargains.

After you've arrived you'll be looking to see the sites downtown. Your first venture should be to Canada place where the cruise ships dock. You'll know you've found when you see the high sails that line the roof of the building. The long pier is a great walk with great views of the unique buildings in Vancouver's business area and of English Bay. Float planes are fun to watch as they come into land and take off. There are restaurants and an Imax movie theatre.

You can wander up hill to the Gas Town area, which is Vancouver's oldest neighbourhood where you'll find more shops and boutiques than you'll have time to walk through. The Pacific Centre is a huge downtown mall offering every kind of Canadian product you might want and the Robson Street area has quite a few shops. The Public Market area of Granville Island is just to the northwest of downtown Vancouver. Here you can find some interesting products and lots of local food including seafood. Granville Island itself is a large park. You can walk completely around the island park along a path on the waterfront. It is a very popular walk and you'll see plenty of local people strolling and roller skating here.

The Vancouver Art Gallery offers a huge collection of art including native Canadian art and artefacts along with numerous noted contemporary and historic Canadian artist's work. There are plenty of downtown Vancouver hotels but you'd be wise to stay on the north side of
Vancouver in the Fall - A Great Time to Visit Canada's Most Exciting City


North Vancouver

If you have access to a car, you need to drive to North Vancouver, on the others side of English Bay. The narrow high bridges will give you quite a view of the water surrounding hill sides. Cruise ships, freighters, and tug boats are frequently spotted. Up toward Grouse Mountain, you'll discover the Kitsilano suspension bridge. It was one of the longest suspension bridges in the world at 340 feet, and you'll be looking down hundreds of feet to the valley floor. On the other side of the canyon it leads to, you can walk the trails. It's a great way experience British Columbia's beautiful nature in the fall.

The Grouse Mountain Sky Ride is a large Gondola ride that takes you from the bottom of Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver up 6,000 feet where you'll enjoy incredible views of the lower BC coastal region. In late fall and winter, there is a sky resort in full operation.

North Vancouver offers some excellent restaurants and this village has great views of the City of Vancouver. This is where many professional photographers take their photos and you've probably already seen many photos of Vancouver from this location. If you're an active person, the area known as North Shore is reputed for its mountain biking trails. You'll need a trail map which can be obtained at the Cove Bike Shop.

There's more to Vancouver than can be covered here, but fall is an excellent time to visit Vancouver BC. Book your flight and rooms and enjoy a fall vacation in Vancouver.

For more information about Landscaping North Vancouver please visit the website 

Health benefits of Turmeric

Stay healthy with Curcumin

Where to buy natural Turmeric?
Turmeric is also known as a spice and one of the main components of curry. But, it is now more often used to treat many diseases.
Health benefits
The curcumin contained in the turmeric can significantly help reduce inflammation. According to some recent research, it eases osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis symptoms like pain and inflammation.
Another important discovery some lab tests showed is the ability of turmeric to stop the growth of particular forms of tumors. In some cases, the curcumin could block the colorectal cancer that other treatments could not. Of course, more research is still needed.
Turmeric has been used by people in India and Asia for thousands of years as both a spice and a medication. Due to the fact that it contains curcuminoids, it is used as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory medicinal herb.
Inflammation plays a very important role in our body. It helps us fight pathogens and bacteria. But, when acute, inflammation can become chronic and affect the body’s tissues. Chronic inflammation is one of the main causes of heart diseases, metabolic issues, cancer and many degenerative health conditions.
Therefore, being a natural anti-inflammatory compound, a turmeric supplement is able to treat it at the molecular level.
When it comes to aging, the oxidative damage is the cause of many related diseases. Here we speak about free radicals that react with DNA, fatty acids or proteins. Therefore, antioxidants are crucial when we want to protect our body from free radicals. It is its chemical structure that helps curcumin neutralize free radicals.
As we all know, neurons can form new connections in some brain areas. This happens thanks to the Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor -  a type of growth hormone located in the brain. When its level decreases, that is a perfect moment for a mental disorder to start developing. And it is very interesting that curcumin showed to help increase the level of BDNF. If not completely stop, at least curcumin supplements can delay many brain diseases.
In order to keep the body and mind healthy, it is recommended that people take some supplements at defined periods of time. There is no cure against aging and the diseases related to it, but at least we can live longer happily and thus enjoying each day.

Growing up as a kid you eat what you are given.

 And although my surroudings were not the most unhealthy, I still ate mostly junk food as a kid. Because of this I was chubby, weak, and never really happy with the way I looked and how I would feel.
So one day(in my late teens) I decided to look up some information on this topic and I got myself a few magazines on the topic. This made me realize that I could get great results too if only I just kept working at it. I then followed the things the article said. The problem was that the articles were written for bodybuilders, and the routines did not work well for people that were not taking steroids. You had the classic chest day, back day, leg day etc. but that did not work for me at all.
I then found out this was a common occurrence. I mean, just looking around in the gym you see that most people look like they have just started working out, yet they have been at it for years. This is when I realized there was a lot of misinformation out there that really hold people back from getting results. I had some good results, but nothing really great.
I  still wanted to get my dream body, and I started buying many books and online programs on the subject, and each one gave me a piece of the puzzle. In a way they all work if you follow every detail. Now since I had been working out at least 3 days a week(usually more) for years at this point and had a good structure to my diet, whenever I experimented with a new program it was easy for me to make the switch. This was because I had the habits of a healthy lifestyle already built up. And through this I managed to follow every new program instantly, and pick up any new bit of information.
At this point I had my dream body, and my friends and family always asked me for help when it came down to working out and dieting. I would tell them everything they needed to know and what they should focus on but it never really worked. I was kind of like setting a new year's resolution that you stop following after a few weeks. The reason was of course vey obvious. I had been working out for more than a decade, and even though in the beginning I did not know what I was doing, I still built those healthy habits from when I was a teenager. At the same time I was reading a lot about the human psychology, mostly out of curiosity. New studies came out regularly, and I started to understand why the people around me could not get it together when it came to their health. It was due to their psychology.

I found out that if they were to start slowly and build up the 'habits of health' they would have success every single time. And that is when I decided to create my own product to help people that are serious about helping themselves.
I then realized that I had just created the only fitness product out there that takes the human psychology into consideration. So next to the fact that it has the best information on your physical body(even getting into what makes your body attractive from a scientific perspective), it also makes it easy to follow psychologically by starting off slowly. This is what makes this program so unique, it is the only program that works with both the body and the brain.

For more information about Get Perfect Body please visit the website

Compare Energy Prices Using the Internet

In these modern and difficult times, where everyone is trying to save a little money, any solution for doing this is appreciable. Saving on utility bills is one way of saving a few of your bank notes. The best way to save money on utility bills, both gas and electricity, is to compare energy prices provided by different suppliers and companies.

The one way in which you can compare energy prices is by manually checking with each and every company's management. Calling the help desk can also help you to compare prices. But the easiest and quickest way is to compare prices on the internet. Like so many other aspects of life that have been made easier for us by the worldwide web, to compare energy prices online has also become a matter of ease and comfort. You also get to save your time during the process.

Different websites provide you with an option to compare the prices of various companies simultaneously. You can also compare energy prices by giving additional information like your current utility bills. This will allow you to see the how much money exactly you are saving with what you are paying now.

Suppliers and companies are always in a competition to get more and more customers and users. Incentives and offers are always part of the promotion policy. Websites to compare energy prices will also give you details about these offers and promotions so that you can see which offer suits your budget and your living style the best.

The open market in the UK has made sure that suppliers of utilities have to compete with each other for getting customers. Users will not only want to compare energy prices but also want to get hold of a supplier or company that is reliable as well. There are many reliable suppliers available in the UK market like British Gas, E.ON power, Scottish Power, EDF Energy etc. All these companies have their own official websites for you to compare energy prices and offers. But the best way to compare prices is to search for a site that can compare all the prices at the same time.

One more thing that is important to keep in mind while you compare prices is that you go for a company that offers capped energy rates. Capped energy rates mean that the rates of the utilities will remain unchanged for a certain period of time even when outside factors change. This is a good idea when you are signing up with a supplier for a long period of time as energy prices are always getting higher instead of coming down.

But if someone is planning to sign up for a short period of time with a company, purchasing un-capped rates would be a preferable choice as the supplier might provide you with some offers or deals afterwards.

How a Simple Sleeve Surgery Can Mean Big Weight Loss

While most people are familiar with weight loss surgeries such as lapbands and bypasses, the sleeve surgery is a relatively newcomer to the weight loss surgery arena. The reason this new development is quickly surpassing many other forms of medical weight loss plans is that it is safer, easier and often more successful than the others.

The Sleeve Surgery Process

The sleeve surgery is a two part process where initially, the patient is put under a general anesthesia and a couple of small incisions are made. In one incision a laparoscopic scope is place inside the abdominal cavity so the surgeon can see the site, and in the other incision tools are used to staple the stomach along its length, reducing it by up to 85%, and turning it into a tube or "sleeve" rather than a full pouch.

How the Sleeve Surgery Works

Technically the sleeve surgery works the same way a lapband or stomach stapling laterally works: It cuts down the amount of food a patient can consume, thereby creating rapid weight loss. Many of the same risks of the other weight loss surgeries are shared with the this surgery however, sleeve surgeries are more successful because as a second step, about 18 months after the first surgery, patients often undergo a second laparoscopic surgery to create a bypass or duodenal surgery. This procedure makes the second stage of the sleeve surgery much more successful because a great amount of weight is already lost, so the bypass works better than when it is done as a first step on its own.

Preparing for Sleeve Surgery

How a Simple Sleeve Surgery Can Mean Big Weight Loss


Like most weight loss surgeries, patients who want such surgeries must quit smoking for at least one month prior to the surgery, and continue to not smoke for up to one month afterwards. This helps prevent many of the higher risks of infection and leaking that can accompany abdominal surgery.

Post-Op Weight Loss Surgery

Following the rapid weight loss of the sleeve surgery, patients may end up with a great deal of excess skin that may require plastic surgery to get rid of for aesthetic reasons. Because this is a purely aesthetic situation, most insurance companies will not pay for this type of surgery.

Sleeve surgeries also share some other aspects with common weight loss surgery processes. Since very little food can be eaten, and the smaller absorption area remains, patients will need to take vitamins for the rest of their lives to compensate for the lack in food they can eat, and lower absorption ability of the remaining stomach.

The Biggest Benefit of Sleeve Surgery

Sleeve surgery shares many of the same ideas as old-fashioned stomach stapling, but this more modern surgery has a couple of improvements to the older version. The biggest improvement in this method is that the portion of the stomach that is removed via the stapling is the part that produces Ghrelin-the hormone that triggers hunger.

Things to Consider Before Opting for the Weight Loss Surgery

The sleeve surgery, like most other obesity surgeries, is only available to those patients who are extremely overweight. Men must be at least 100 pounds overweight, and women 80 pounds. The sleeve surgery, unlike lapband surgery is irreversible. The permanent condition of this type of surgery makes it a very serious consideration. There's no going back once you take the first step and go through the initial surgery. It is possible to forego the second surgery if you are satisfied with the results, but once again, if a patient decides to go ahead with the bypass it is a permanent decision and not one to make lightly.

So is it the right decision for you?

I know how hard it can be to make such a huge and possibly life altering decision, and before committing one way or another you really should make yourself as informed as possible.

For more information about weight loss sleeve  please visit the website