Gadgets - Tile Dimmer

So you want to set the mood for a relaxing bath experience. You have the sented candles, the exotic spices in the bath and the classical music humming in the back ground. But your down spots are still burning at 1000w which kills the mood.

No more. Sensor have designed a dimmer switch that can be installed behind your tiles. No more unsightly pull cords and no more bright lighting. Safe and sexy I believe the saying should be.

More info at www.sensor.co.uk

Bathroom Gadgets Uncategorized

Tips - Kitchen and Bathrooms

Kitchens and bathrooms require similar expertise for checking and installation of plumbing, hot-water systems and electrics. In both rooms, plan space for opening cupboards and appliances and, in kitchens, allow for comfortable movement when using sinks or preparing food.

We recommend you design your kitchen around a compact working triangle that links your fridge, cooker and sink (see ‘Planning a kitchen‘). Changing the position of taps, showers, power points and waste pipes can be complicated and increase cost, so it’s important to plan your space carefully.

You can’t afford to be without a kitchen or bathroom for long, so plan ahead and remember that the best tradespeople are often booked months in advance.

Regulations

Radiators, underfloor heating or hot-water systems should be installed by a Corgi-registered plumber, and a Part-P registered electrician should be used for all electrical work in these rooms.

You’ll also need building regulations approval for a new waste pipe as well as for ventilation, drainage, structural stability and fire safety.

However, you won’t need planning permission if you’re just taking out old kitchen units or bathroom suites and replacing them.

Cost and timings

Expect to pay between £11,000 and £120,000 for a built-in kitchen or, if you have experience and time, use a budget self-assembly kit within your remodelled space to keep costs down. These cost from around £600.

Bathrooms can cost between £4,000 and £40,000, including removal of old suites and installation of new units, fittings, flooring, tiling and decoration. Costs for both will vary greatly depending on materials and style.

A complete kitchen refurbishment can take two to three weeks and upwards, depending on size and complexity, while a bathroom should take two to eight weeks.

Insider tips

Mike Lawrence, author of the Which? Book of Home Improvements:

• Always get at least three quotes and insist on paying against specific jobs completed to your satisfaction.
• Always check past workmanship. Cheapest isn’t always best; enthusiasm and commitment to a project are important.
• Doing some of the finishing work yourself can save a lot of money, but make sure you can do it to a professional standard.
• Work on sloping sites can mean unexpectedly costly groundwork and extra work to match existing floor levels.

Home-improvement expert Alison Cork:

• Always get the detail in writing. It’s not enough to rely on the ‘goodwill’ that may exist between you and the contractor.
• Trusting a single-line quote is a recipe for disaster. Quotes should be detailed. Break the job into logical components.
• Anything to do with foundations has potential for complications. Allow a 20 per cent margin of error in your budget for this.

source: Which

Bathroom Kitchen Tips

Tips - Bathroom Planning

As with kitchen planning, keep in mind where the existing service points (water, electricity, etc) are. Also think about how you’ll use your new bathroom and whether it will be easy to keep clean.

Keep enough free space to dry yourself next to the bath and enough elbow and head room at the washbasin.

You can get help with planning a bathroom from many showrooms.

source: Which

Bathroom planning Tips

Bathroom - showers

1. First things first. Is your water pressure high enough for you to successfully run one of these luxury showers? Certain models will only work with high-pressure systems, so check with the manufacturer.

2. Before buying a shower, check what kind of system you have. Traditionally in Britain, water has been supplied via a storage system, whereas elsewhere it is supplied directly from the mains and so is under mains pressure. With this system, known as a gravity fed system, the hot water feed comes from either a hot water cylinder or a combination boiler. For a shower to work, the cold water tank should be positioned at least one metre above the shower head, although three to four metres is necessary for a really good shower. If the distance is any less than this, then water pressure and flow will be distinctly underwhelming.

3. Thankfully, many of us are now able to wave goodbye to feeble showers either by installing a pump or converting to a direct mains supply. If you are hoping to fit a pump to your shower but have a combination boiler and no hot water cylinder, then you are likely to be disappointed, as this will not work. Power showers generally use more hot water than a combination boiler alone can produce.

4. The term power shower is used quite loosely these days and few people actually really understand the term. A power shower is in fact exactly the same as a gravity-fed shower but has an electric pump concealed within, which gives the pressure going to the shower head a big boost and results in a more invigorating spray.

5. Although relatively unpopular these days, electric showers still  have their part to play. They can be fitted wherever you like in the house no matter where your header tank is. Plus, they are cheap and easier to install. They are fed by high-pressure mains water through a pipe from a copper cylinder located in the wall unit. When turned on, the electric heater, located in the cylinder, is activated to heat the water, the temperature of which is regulated by controls on the front. The main downside of these showers is that they generally lack power and no pump can be fitted to rectify the problem.

6. Temperature control is key to your enjoyment of your new shower one that consistently switches between scalding hot and freezing cold will certainly not do. Thermostatic shower mixers regulate the temperature of the water, so that if another tap is used elsewhere in the house, the thermostatic mixer adjusts the water flow so that the temperature remains constant. They are a little more expensive than other mixers but well worth it.

7. Once you have determined the type of shower that will be  compatible with your plumbing system, the fun bit begins choosing the model of shower. Shower heads come in all sizes, shapes and finishes: from enormous rose heads designed to give the showerer a thorough drenching, to smaller heads offering a selection of spray options. Shower heads can be either fixed or flexible. Fixed heads are either secured to the wall at a set height or, as is often the case with many contemporary designs, fixed to the ceiling above in some way some rain showers are designed to be set into the ceiling for a seamless effect. The pipework is generally concealed within the wall with this style of shower, with just the head and controls on view.

8. Flexible showers are fitted to a flexible hose and come with a  riser rail: a sliding bar on which the most convenient height for the shower head can be selected by the user. Flexible shower heads often have a variety of sprays to choose from, ranging from frothy champagne sprays to invigorating jet sprays. They are the best choice for family bathrooms.

9. At the very top end of the luxury shower market are models which combine both fixed and flexible heads, featuring both within one showering unit, often complete with your choice of enclosure. It is not unusual for these showers to also be available with a selection of rain bars — poles located at the side of the shower emitting powerful sprays of water — mood lighting and sound systems some even double up as steam cabins.

10. Although showering is often thought of as a means of saving water when compared to bathing, bear in mind that a power shower uses much more water than a conventional model. In households where power showers are used several times a day, the water used could well exceed several bathfuls.

Source: Homebuilding&renovation

Bathroom Plumbing

Gadgets - waterproof TV

The likelihood that I would be able to have this installed in my shower room is slim to none. I would firstly use up all the hot water so that my wife would have to suffer the ‘freshness’ of a cold shower and secondly, my monitor addition would get right out of hand. But this gadget is too cool to leave off the site.

When installed, the 5″ TV is watertight and suitable for use in a bathroom, shower, kitchen, hot tub area, etc. It is designed to fit into a wall space approximately the size of a tile. The unit then sits flush against the tiles, all leads being fed into the cavity wall space behind.

It’ll set you back £200

More information can be found at www.techvision.co.uk

Bathroom Gadgets