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Should I fix my roof – DIY or professional tips

roof DIY professional

In this article “Should I fix my roof – DIY or professional tips” we consider should I bother fixing my roof in a DIY or professional manner. If you’re in the market for a new roof or repairs, here are some installation benefits.

Benefits of New Roofing and Maintenance

While a new roof or even maintenance can be an expensive up-front cost, the pros can significantly outweigh the cons. Some signs you could need a new roof include water leakage in the roof space after rain or wet conditions. Often this could result in mildew or mould on ceilings and interior walls. Sometimes exterior paint, siding and sheathing; and missing or damaged tiles could be the cause.

The Return on Investment (ROI) for repairs or replacement can be extremely high, especially if you are trying to sell your home. Often buyers will undertake a professional building inspection before they purchase a home. A damaged roof, or subsequent damage caused by one, will be a quick detractor from potential buyers. A new roof installed by a licensed contractor will carry a warranty, attractive for anyone looking to settle, avoiding on-going maintenance concerns.

With new materials and changes in installation methods, a new roof will help keep your home energy efficient. Your home will be active in keeping the outside and inside environments separated. The cost of your utility bills will decrease. The risk of mould, mildew and other damage will drop, leaving you and everyone in your house healthier. In addition to improving the internal health of your home, a new roof can exponentially improve the external appearance of your home. The result is your home will have better street appeal. If you’re trying to sell a home, this can be the initial attractor. Remember getting buyers past the front door is key!

The Basic tips of Roof Installation and Repairs

  1. To begin with, make sure you have a clean, well-organised working space. Be mindful of dangerous areas, such as power lines. Ensure that you have the right tools for the job. Working on elevated roofs always has its dangers, so make sure you’re operating safely, and minimise the risk of any fall.
  2. Tear off the existing roofing (such as tiles, nails, metal and more) and prepare the surface.
  3. Repair any damaged structural members now that it’s visible before any new installation of roofing material.
  4. Install roof deck protection, leak barriers, starter strips and tiles.
  5. Be sure to use the correct nails for your roofing project to prevent problems down the line, such as tiles blowing off the roof.
  6. After the tiles are installed install ridge vents, valleys, flashing or ridge-cap tiles. Also adding ventilation (such as attic fans) will help to ventilate the roof spaces in your home.

Replacing or repairing my roof – DIY or professional?

Even if you have a working knowledge of how to install a new roof, you need a plan. Just trying to repair it will need careful consideration and planning. Even then it could still be too dangerous a job to undertake as a DIY project. Not to mention it always takes longer than you think. One recommendation is not to leave your roof space unprotected for any extended period. Exposing the insides of your roof will leave you vulnerable to the elements. The weather should be monitored. Any rain, snow or adverse weather can result in internal damage to your home. Hiring a contractor could be a more efficient and safer way to install a new roof or make necessary repairs since the project will go quicker without as many potential hiccups.

Author: Avid Handyman
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Alternative Travel Means – Safety For Women

travel women

Uber started a revolution in offering alternative travel means for those that want to look outside of traditional taxi services; this alone has said to improve safety for women. This has been taken a few steps further by some new exciting startup transportation network companies offering alternatives such as women only drivers and pre-arranged co-sharing ride options.

Uber

What Uber successfully created was a communication platform (APP) that put the onus on being able to ensure travellers know who you are being picked up by, what they are going to be travelling in, and most importantly offer reviews from other previous passengers. In addition to this, both the traveller and the driver do not have to exchange cash as the payment system automatically deducts the money from the passenger’s pre-authorised credit card. Pretty hard to do a runner, when your details are already in the system. The passenger is also protected, as the fair is approximated before the journey.

Women drivers

While some have described this as sexist or discriminatory, the sad fact is that many women feel unsafe using taxis. Some women that have travelled in a taxi can tell a story of such instances that involve inappropriate comments, drivers that ask personal questions and in some rare incidences a driver trying to initiate physical contact. Many women would rather walk than call a taxi. Imagine preferring a 40-minute walk, rather than spend 10 minutes in a car dealing with the severe anxiety of travelling with a male stranger. That’s where the likes of newly operating Go Buggy provides the Go Girl service. The intention is they offer female drivers to make their female riders feel safer while travelling.

Rating Systems

The inclusion of a driver rating systems has made drivers more accountable. Both rider and driver are invited to leave feedback for the other. This way everyone is accountable. In addition to this, Uber put in place what it calls safety time. They go through the information left in reviews and handle any necessary investigations. Additionally, every trip is tracked in real time by GPS. The rider can see the license plate number, driver rating, as well as their name and photo before taking their trip.

Ride Sharing

Alternative companies have popped up for ride-sharing options or to hook up with other travellers embarking on a journey. Services are available from Share Ur Ride and Co Seats. Co Seats operates much the same way as Uber, with passengers able to view profiles before booking a ride.
Share Ur Ride describes themselves as prearranged hitchhiking, with the passenger contributing petrol money. Both parties can make contact before travel to arrange the pickup and drop-off points, as well as agreeing on the cost contribution.

Still, some women aren’t comfortable with co- sharing options provided by these operators. That’s where the likes of GoGirl, and Shebah come into play. Like Go-girl, Shebah is an all-female network of drivers and passengers. They employ only women drivers to ensure that women feel safe choosing them for their travel needs.

Summary

According to an Ipsos survey public transport can be terrifying for women, and most people don’t understand just how harrowing it can be. The truth is that 1 in 3 Australian women aged 15-19 are afraid to be out after dark. 25% of those surveyed believe young women should avoid public transport when they are alone. 33% don’t feel safe at night when out in public space.

Any service that helps people travel without fear of danger or violence and get home safely is a win. Some of these alternative transportation network companies bring rating systems, trackable journeys, no cash handling and women drivers. There is definitely nothing wrong with taking a taxi; however, some people want alternatives, and there are some good options mentioned here to consider.

Do your homework, and enjoy your travels.

Written by: A frequent traveller

 

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Green and Healthy Lawn Essentials

green and healthy lawn

A green and healthy lawn is the ultimate goal for any land owner, but getting there isn’t always easy. You water, you fertilise, you weed, but you still think your lawn could look better. However, you don’t want to spend every free moment or a huge sum of money caring for your lawn. Fortunately, you don’t have to. By following these essential lawn care practices, you’re sure to get the lush green lawn of your dreams.

When to Weed

The best time to weed your lawn is whenever weeds first pop up. You can use chemical weed killers to rid your lawn of unsightly plants, but they may damage your grass. Your best bet is to remove any weeds you find including the roots and discarding them away from your lawn. Resist the urge to mow them down with your grass, as this will often spread seeds and leaves the root system behind, giving new weeds the opportunity to pop up. A few moments of weeding here and there will keep your lawn looking its best and save you time, as the job will only get worse the longer you put it off. Regularly weed your lawn in the early spring and summer to stay ahead of the game.

However, we know that sometimes these weeds will get ahead of you and spot weeding is just not possible. That’s when applying a weed killer to your lawn may be the best approach. Weed killer will only work when weeds are actively growing. Good seasons to use weedkiller are autumn and late winter. You need to get to the weeds early before they flower. So if it gets hot in spring, they tend to flower quickly and set seed.

Other Tips:

  • Never apply weedkiller straight after mowing as the weed killer needs leaf to attach to
  • The lawn needs to have moisture in it before applying weed killer, so a day or two after rain is ideal
  • Only apply when your lawn looks green and healthy, not when you going through a drought
  • Check the forecast, and never apply weedkiller before any rain as the chemical will be washed away.

When to Fertilise

The best time to fertilise your lawn is in the early spring when the ground is moist. Fertilising at this time of year helps stimulates root growth, giving your lawn the ability to grow thicker and healthier. A thicker lawn means that weeds will have less of a chance to grow in the first place. The thicker grass will use the bulk of the sunlight, water, nutrients, and space the weeds need to grow and proliferate.

When and How to Water

Rather than watering your lawn a little bit every day, try giving it a good soak as needed instead. Soaking your lawn promotes deeper root development, which creates stronger, healthier grass. Simply sprinkling your lawn means that only the surface soil and root systems are getting watered, which promotes the growth of weeds and sickly looking grass. This could also cause dead spots in your lawn, which is prime real estate for weeds. Also, resist the urge to water your grass at night. Night watering could cause fungi or bacteria that are harmful to grass to grow in the soil. This is because the ground won’t have a chance to dry out properly overnight.

Other Tricks for a Green and Healthy Lawn

To keep your lawn looking green year-round, cut it to a height of one and a half inches for the first and last mows of the season. As the weather warms, raise the blade height to two inches. A sharp mower blade will result in a straighter cut, making your lawn appear decidedly green. Finally, mow your lawn regularly so you only cut the top third of the blades, which should be left on your lawn. Leaving large piles of clippings on your lawn can cause damage, so you’ll want to rake those up. However, the top third of a blade of grass, which will decompose quickly, adds essential nutrients such as nitrogen to the soil. By leaving these clippings, you’re giving it the opportunity to grow greener, healthier, and thicker than ever before.

Written by: outdoor garden lover

 

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Body Language and Facial Expressions: Do they Matter?

Coworking

Our early ancestors lived in an incredibly dangerous world for many years. Without any real language, they needed to have other ways to communicate. Communication was necessary to express their emotions, needs, anxieties, and desires with each other. They managed to do this through using nonverbal communications including physical changes, gestures, sounds, and facial or body responses. Our biological heritage meant that for so long that we communicated nonverbally. Let’s take a closer look at body language, including how it has evolved to where it is today. Between things like facial expressions and even how we fold our arms, our body gives us away.

Evolution of Body Language

We evolved; learning to verbally communicate with each other as well as bettering our skills of understanding body language. The result is that it has made such a vast difference in our lives and allowed our species to continue to thrive. Otherwise, there would have been a problem with our species becoming extinct long ago. It has taken a great deal of time, but these skills are infinitely better than they were before. Here is a closer look at this evolution.

This technique has developed with time. Without conscious behavior’s, some signals directly alert others of any risks that are perceived. We are also able to communicate to others around us immediately. As our brain forces us to freeze in place when we see an aggressive dog, it conveys our body’s reaction. It is noticeable whether or not we are comfortable or uncomfortable, content or hopeless, safe or in danger. The benefit is two-fold. As we physically react to the world around us, others can benefit. For instance, if we taste something disgusting, people will see our facial expression. They will not even need to taste it because they will know by your face that the food is terrible. Body language gives you an efficient way to communicate before your words can even come out. As you can see, body language is essential to our evolution.

Importance of Body Language and Facial Expression

Body language has not only evolved from the need of survival, though this is the main reason for it. Our brain also expresses intentions through body language. For example, say you are speaking to someone, and you notice that their feet are pointing towards an exit. You will know that this person probably needs to leave. They may be running late for something and need to go. They stay to talk to be polite, but they need to go. You can see this through their body language, and you can end this conversation. A perfect example as to why we say that actions speak louder than words.

So what’s psychologically behind all of this? Our demands, feelings, thoughts, emotions, and motives are processed by what’s known as the limbic system of the brain. The limbic system has input into what our body naturally does without thought. For instance, when someone gives us bad news and our lips compress instantly, or you are asked to work another weekend, and we narrow our eyes as our chin lowers. These are common facial expressions for these situations, and stress displays that our limbic brain has perfected over the years. You are not reacting this way based on cultural identity; rather these are things that everyone does.

How People View Us

Body language helps people get clues on how we feel about them or how they should view us. When we see someone that we are comfortable with, our eyebrows will arch defying, and our facial muscles will relax. Our arms will be pliable so we can welcome them. In the presence of someone we love, we are going to have very specific reactions. We tend to lean our head, and blood will flow to our lips making them complete, as our pupils dilate. This signifies that our bodies naturally adjust to the authentic thoughts that we feel.
Our bodies do not have to react like this. However, we evolved to present them for a reason. We are social creatures that want to communicate verbally and non-verbally. Understanding body language is quite crucial and also very fascinating. There have been reported cases where children who are born blind, having never visualised these non-verbal cues can instinctively do them. For example, a child that is blind had covered their eyes when they heard something they do not enjoy. This suggests that body language is hardwired into us.

Conclusion

What one visually observes can in combination with other cues, be an excellent way to discover how others feel about you and assess how a relationship is evolving. Frequently when people feel that something is wrong in a relationship, this can be expressed in body language displays. Couples who hold hands all the time may or may not be a real indication of their relationship if it’s done out of habit. Instead, the subtle behaviours may be more accurate representation. Learning the art of reading body language can go a long way. It can help us identify what others are feeling, believing, wanting or worrying about. Having that additional insight gives a much better evaluation of others. In turn, it helps us in communicating more empathetically and efficiently for better comprehension. No matter where we are, our body language will give us away. You have all been there when someone is saying “yes” to you; however, the body language is saying “no”. Our body language will tell observers what we are thinking and feeling, giving off signals to the people around us.
Author: Professional researcher

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Time Management Tools and Tips

time management juggle

Time management has always been a challenge whether it is for a small businesses owner or anyone that has many tasks to manage. Let’s face it, you want to make the most of a day, and being organised is essential. Before modern technology that we have today, this was a seemingly challenging task. However, now we have a wide array of tools available to us to ensure our business is running efficiently. You may not think that you need these tools; however, it can impact the success of your business if you don’t utilise them. This article discusses why you need these tools, some tips for usage and three popular tools you should check out.

Why You Need Time Management Tools

The core reason for project management is making sure many tasks are completed on time and budget. Predecessor tasks that are not completed on time, hold up other tasks and projects can get blown out on both time and budget. Now a Project Manager for a long time has used a Ghant chart to show how all the activities are linked and when the project will be completed. Using this type of project management for a small business, with multiple projects, tasks, activities and employees are challenging, because a Ghant chart lacks flexibility. These days everyone is mobile and want information instantly. Therefore, every user should have online access to tasks, be able to give updates and attach information so that all information is shared instantly. Not only that, the process must be agile enough, so that if changes are needed, tasks can be altered, changed and fed back into the system.

An agile approach

Luckily enough born on the back of software development and the constant changes required when software is being developed, project management took a shift with the development of a more agile approach, even naming a type of project management framework Agile Methodology. A bunch of tools which we discuss below have utilised this methodology. Within these systems, Project Boards, Lists, Tasks and Users can be created, and you can drag and drop tasks around within the software to dynamically adjust and plan out the tasks so that everyone’s time is effectively utilised. If you think about it, its the same requirement as to when you are running a business or someone that has a lot to plan out.

Tools for time and project Management

Now here are some amazing tools that you need to check out and some of the benefits of each:

Asana

The goal of Asana is to help you and your teams manage their tasks as well as their workflows. It has a very easy to use interface, and it is quite flexible to individual needs. Asana incorporates a well-designed web interface and app, which makes it easy to use on whatever device you have. Projects have a task list that can be set up by the project manager, making the project easy to manage. It’s very easy to communicate with other users and conversations are captured and stored. Another good thing here is that most of the tools are free when you first sign up, it’s only when you go over a certain amount of users do you have to pay subscriptions fees. So from day one you get most of the power from an Asana development point of view. There is online support with Asana which is handy.

Trello

Trello is a fully customisable tool that you can adapt to your individual business needs. There are many free openly developed add-ons to Trello that can be enabled on your Firefox or Chrome browser. However the base set is pretty simple, and enabling some of these tools can be tricky. In saying that Trello has close to 68 Integrations, which makes this tool probably the most flexible out there. It can consolidate any projects and communications with the team into a single location for convenience. Users are updated of any changes within tasks, via Apps, Web console and email. The projects are now easy to view allowing you to see all of the workflows in a single look. It turns your project into something that employees can visualise, improving the efficiency of your employees. Each user can add on what makes sense for them in their portal, like calendars, agile scrum functions, CRM, and time tracker software, to name a few.

Trello has just been acquired by Atlassian which already makes very powerful collaboration tools such as Confluence, JIRA, HipChat and BitBucket. With this we will probably see some great integrations coming our way, making Trello an even more powerful tool. One downside of Trello is that customer support seems to be an area when compared to other platforms is not as high priority.

 Wunderlist

Wunderlist is an application that can work across many operating platforms, making it accessible to more people. From this application employees can see the tasks assigned to them. It also allows you to track any goals that need to be met and share when you have completed them. There are also spots for comments for the team members and send out reminders to the team. Wunderlist is very customisable to meet your specific needs. The good thing on this is that the free version includes many functionalities. Like the others, the drag and drop type control interface is very smooth and easy to use. It doesn’t have the feel of being as powerful as Asana or Trello. However, if you intend to keep your business relatively small, this may be exactly the simple tool to use for you.

Whether it be for managing your own time, your companies time or your teams time, using one of these tools above you are going to notice a huge improvement in the efficiency of your day.

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