Archive

Archive for September 7th, 2009

Home Security

September 7th, 2009 No comments

Increasing home security can be relatively cheap and easy. In many cases, simply looking at your home from an outside viewpoint, and considering how you would break into it were you a burglar or intruder can identify weak points and easy entry areas. Once these areas have been pinpointed, you can take steps to minimize the risk of your home security being breached.

Even the littlest things that you might take for granted each day can act to dissuade potential home invaders. Making sure you lock windows and doors before leaving, ensuring the grounds surrounding your home are cleared of obstacles that might create easy hiding spots for intruders, leaving lights on inside the home or having motion sensing lights outdoors, and having a dog are all great ways to improve home security.

But eliminating a burglar’s hiding spots doesn’t necessarily mean you are dissuading them from entering your home. You must still do the little things each day to maintain your home’s security. Locking the doors and windows before you leave, leaving lights on, closing blinds, even having a dog or dogs, can be easy deterrents to criminals looking to enter your home.

Many people wonder if having a security system is necessary for proper home security. In many cases, just having the security system decal in your window is enough to ward off criminals. The effectiveness of any system is greatly diminished if you don’t advertise that you have it. A burglar or intruder is more likely to search for another target that he believes doesn’t have a security system, rather than risking it with a house that he either knows or believes might have one.

You don’t necessarily have to have such a security system though to keep your home secure. Sometimes the presumption of burglars that you have such a system is enough to make them move on to an easier target. By posting a security system notice or sticker in windows or doors, you may fool potential intruders. In many cases, the mere appearance that a home is armed with such a system may be a big enough concern that a criminal will move on to an easier target.

For many homeowners though, the time of most concern regarding home security risk, occurs when they are away for extended periods. Maintaining the appearance of activity around your home, even when away, is once of the best ways to increase home security. Having friends or neighbors keep an eye on your home, remove excess mail, leaflets, or newspapers, and turning lights on and off inside your home, can all make your home look like it’s being lived in even when it’s not.

It is important to bear in mind that the best home security precautions don’t always involve the most expensive gadgets and newest technology. By reviewing your home’s layout, the surrounding terrain, and making simple security procedures a part of your everyday routine, you can safeguard not only your home, but your assets, and your family’s safety.

Employed as a fire alarm installer for over thirty years Chris Williams is an expert in home security. If you are looking to upgrade your home security please visit http://www.adt.co.uk

The Landscape Foundation – Soil Building

September 7th, 2009 No comments

No matter how carefully the garden has been planned on paper, hard practical work must be done by someone before you can see the dream break into flower.

If you moved into your new home during the fall or winter you will probably be pretty discouraged when the snow leaves in spring.

Grading – Rough Grade

Though most building contracts call for the rough grading to be complete, this may be pretty rough. As a bulldozer is used, the surface is usually packed hard, with bricks, wire and boards pressed into it. Leave it alone until the mud dries out quite well, as working it too soon could ruin the texture of the soil.

As soon as you can walk on it without getting stuck, pick up and get rid of all the rubbish. You may find that a few knolls need to be shoveled into low spots. This rough grade should be 3 to 4 inches below where you want the finished grade. Excavate shrub beds and others to 9 to 12 inches below the finished grade.

Usually poor earth, either sandy or clay fill, is used to make the rough grade. The good topsoil is either buried or scraped off and sold as topsoil to someone else.

Manuring

If you can get well-rotted manure, spread it over the rough grade at 1/2 to 1 ton per 1,000 square feet. Then rent a rototiller from an equipment dealer and work this manure into the top 4 to 6 inches of the rough grade. If you cannot get manure, use five bales of granulated peat and 25 pounds of 6-9-6 fertilizer per 1,000 square feet instead. Dig manure or peat and fertilizer into the bottom of shrub beds, using the same rates as for the grade.

Finished Grade

Now you are ready to add topsoil to fill up to the finished grade. Try to get rich sandy loam or light clay loam. Avoid the woody black muck from swamps that is often sold as topsoil, and also the very light yellow sand. It takes about 3 cubic yards of topsoil to cover 1,000 square feet with a finch layer; therefore. 12 cubic yards should give you a 4-inch layer. The shrub beds and others need 9 to 12 inches to fill them up to the finished grade. You will probably find that you need 15 to 20 cubic yards of topsoil altogether.

To save a lot of shoveling, have the trucker spread the topsoil as he dumps it. You will have to do some hand work, of course. On a large lot where you can use a machine, use a plank drag hitched short on one side behind a tractor to level the earth. On a small lot, hand raking is about the only solution but you can make it simpler – though heavier work – by tying a 3-foot stick (1 x 2 inches) on the rake and using it upside down.

Fertilizing

As soon as the ficus tree and lawn area is raked smooth , roll it until it is firm. This will show up humps and hollows that need to be raked again. Before you do this raking, scatter 20 to 25 pounds of 6-9-6 fertilizer per 1,000 square feet over the area like putting fertilizer to your ficus tree house plant so that it is worked into the surface three or four days before seeding or sodding.

Seeding

Use a top-quality grass-seed mixture – it does not pay to use cheap seed. Eighty percent Kentucky bluegrass or Merion bluegrass along with 20 percent red top or Norlea ryegrass has proved most satisfactory in Canada, when sown at 3 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Seed either between May 1 and 15 or between August 20 and September 10; sodding may be done from late May to October. Water the lawn regularly until it is well established.

Learn more and have more on ficus tree house plant. Click on the link to visit http://www.plant-care.com/ficus-benjamina-they-call-it-the-indoor-tree.html.