When winter arrives, are you left scrambling to do things around your home to prepare for winter? Chances are you are not alone. Many people put off winterizing their home and would rather spend their days out Christmas shopping, sitting on the couch watching football or curled up with a book next to the fireplace. Winterizing your home is a necessity that comes every year and it’s been estimated that approximately 50 percent of most household utility bills goes towards heating and cooling your house. It is better to be prepared for the cold weather and save money on heating your house.

Think you might be marketing your home in a few years’ time? If the dip in the housings market continues , this may become more difficult to do. So, you will find below a quick guide to which changes will add the most value to your home .

1. Loft conversion + 21%
According to a study by Nationwide bank , a loft conversion is easily the single most valuable home improvement you can make to your house .
By adding 300 square feet of floor space – and then incorporating an extra bedroom and bathroom – you could add over 20% to the value of your property. Starting with a house worth £200,000, this is a potential price increase of £42,000.
The estimated cost of this sort of conversion is just over £17,000 – a sizable sum, but very frequently a recommended investment.

2. Another sleeping room + 12%
Just adding an extra bedroom can make your house price zoom up . Turn a two-bedroom house into a three bedroom by adding another good sized bedroom, and you will typically increase the saleable value by 12%.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that this figure is based on increasing the size of floor space usable (by, for example, extending over the garage).
Messing about with existent floor space to produce the extra room generally adds less value – around 6% for the same type of home .

3. Central heating + 6.8%
A large majority of UK houses now have central heating – and if yours doesn’t , then you’re losing out on a big chunk (just under 7%) of added value. Which makes a £200,000 home worth in the region of £214,000.
The installation of a complete gas heating system currently costs in the region of £5,000 – so it unquestionably seems a cost-efficient investment to make. And of course, a newer, energy-efficient system can also save money on utility bills.

4. Parking + 6.5%
Easy yet effective . Squeezing a parking space onto your property can add well over 6% to its value. If you build a double garage and the value rockets by some 14.5%.

5. An extra bathroom + 5.2%
And finally, an extra bathroom can make a big difference. though houses with two or more bathrooms have become more common in recent years, adding an extra one can still boost the price of a one bathroom property by over 5%.

Just make sure you plan carefully when you tackle all these home improvements.

According to a recent report from Halifax , one in four major home improvement projects overshoot their planned spend each year.
It has been documented that , getting carried away with fixtures and fittings is the major Generator of a rise in costs, with kitchen makeovers the most likely to spiral out of financial control. So make sure you draw up a budget, then stick to it!

For more information on home improvements or to find reliable tradesmen to carry out your home improvements contact SafeTrade.

A home solar power system is a very good way to generate free electricity from sunlight and lower your monthly utility bills. You can now reduce or even totally replace the power you buy from the local electricity company with home solar panels which are much more efficient and less expensive than they were even 10 years ago.   A great application of these solar panels is a   do it yourself solar charger .

The newer types of solar panels are greatly improved in many ways and, with little maintenance required of the homeowner, will provide decades of use.   The primary way these home solar panels have been improved is in the area of efficiency converting the sun’s energy into electricity.   Modern solar panels can achieve nearly 20% efficiency and so you will not require as many panels to produce the same amount of power as you would with older panels.   Because of this, you will not need as much space for the solar panels and installation costs will be much lower.   Homeowners with limited roof space will especially appreciate this benefit.   Previously, such homeowners could mount only as many solar panels as could fit on their roof and thus they may have been able to produce only a portion of the electricity needed.   Today they can meet their energy needs by generating more power with the same amount of roof space.

Another advantage to newer solar panels is they are more tolerant to orientation.   In order to produce maximum power output, older home solar panels had to be pointed due south.   This gives the panels access to sunlight at a direct angle for the most time per day. Because of the severe angle of the sunlight, these older panels would generate significantly less power during the day, just because the house didn’t have a side facing due south.   For the many people with houses that don’t have a southern facing side, these new panels are great news.   If you want to build your own solar panel, a great guide is   earth4energy review .  Generating threshold is another big improvement in these newer solar panels.   The generating threshold is the minimum amount of sunlight required for the conversion to electricity to begin.   The older solar panels required quite a bit of sunlight before they would start generating power.   The result was on cloudy days or at sunrise or sunset, the panels might not produce any power at all.   Because of the reduced generating threshold of the more modern panels, they can produce power for more days of the year and for more hours each days.   This will also help people that have their solar panels mounted in a position that is less than perfect so that they can generate power for a longer time each day.   The combination of these improvements means more power produced for your home.   Making use of free energy from the sun means that will have to buy much less electricity from the power company.   If you’re interested in plans to build your own solar panel have a look at   home made energy .