As summer slowly winds down, homeowners should start preparing for the cooler weather ahead. Handling a few preventive outdoor tasks while the days are still long can save time and reduce stress as fall quickly approaches. From cleaning your gutters to organizing your tools for the season, here are five fall home maintenance tips to keep your home looking great year after year.

Clean Your Gutters

Cleaning out your gutters at least twice a year is essential to protecting your home's foundation and landscape from water damage. This area can quickly collect leaves and debris, so use a gutter scooper or a vacuum gutter kit to clear it. Once it's clean, consider using a gutter cover to keep it clean for longer.

Wash the Deck

As outdoor activities slow down, consider moving outdoor furniture to a protected location, like a shed, garage, or basement, to protect it from weather and water damage. Now that your deck is clear, refresh your space by cleaning it with a power washer. Use a pressure washer with a low pressure setting to avoid damaging your deck boards composite surface.

Store Seasonal Tools

Keep your tools looking and working their best with a quick wipe down. Use an old rag or towel to wipe away grass clippings, caked mud, and dirt from your tools. If needed, apply oil to preserve metal tools all season long. Lastly, organize your clean tools in tool storage solutions for easy access.

Seal Doors and Windows

Seal air leaks around doors, windows, and siding to boost your home's energy efficiency. This can help keep warm air in, prevent cold air from entering, and potentially lower your energy bill. Use a waterproof indoor and outdoor sealant to block cold air from creeping in.

Take Care of the Lawn

While it may be too early to start raking leaves, it's not too early to begin lightly trimming and pruning your home’s trees or shrubs. Use a tree trimmer to remove weak or dead branches that could cause damage to your property once harsher weather settles in. Also, use up all of your lawn mower's gas or empty the tank before storing it, as anything left in the tank can corrode and clog the fuel system.

About Menards®

Bring your home improvement projects to life with Menards®. With over 300 locations across the Midwest, you can find well-stocked stores with high-quality tools, materials, and supplies to turn ideas into DIY reality. Whether you’re looking for new front door locks, cabinet garage storage options, or planning to build a new deck with deck boards composite, Menards® can help. As a low-price leader with excellent customer service, they can help you Save Big Money® on all of your home improvement projects. Stop by your local Menards® or visit their website today!

Find the supplies you need to get your home ready for fall and winter at Menards® https://www.menards.com/

Are you looking to improve your short-term rental property to make it stand out in a competitive market? A few DIY projects can help you upgrade your property and make it more appealing to guests. Here are a few ideas, like installing decorative tiles for ceilings, to take your short-term rental property to the next level.

No More Splinters

A deck can be a major selling point for short-term rentals, but if yours has seen better days, it’s time for an upgrade. When you upgrade your deck to deck boards composite instead of wood, the exterior of your home will get a major aesthetic boost. Composite wood weathers like pure wood and has all of the positive properties of wood without the negatives. It won’t splinter, crack, or rot like wood will, and it won’t attract insects like termites. That makes for a durable deck that boosts the outside of your rental property.

Plenty of Hot Water

Guests often want to take long showers or baths, especially after a long, fun day on vacation. Better, more efficient electric hot water heaters can help ensure all of your guests can get the shower of their dreams while staying at your short-term rental. They also won’t have to worry about running out of hot water. Consider a larger capacity water heater to hold more water or an energy-efficient tankless heater for hot water on demand.

Aesthetically Pleasing Ceiling Tiles

If you really want to wow your guests, install decorative ceiling tiles. It’s an easy project and can give the interior of your short-term rental a major boost. They come in a variety of options, from metal to PVC, giving you different colors and textures to work with. You can make a cohesive look, or have different ceilings in different rooms. The goal is to give your rental more character without being too distracting. It may seem like a challenging home improvement project, but the hard part is choosing the style you like, since installing the tiles is fairly straightforward.

About Menards®

Menards® is every do-it-yourselfer, fixer-upper, and renovator’s one-stop home improvement shop. You can find high-quality tools, materials, and supplies to transform your home. From composite deck boards to gun safes on sale, Menards® can help you turn your ideas into a DIY reality. With more than 300 locations scattered across the country, you’re never too far from the helpful Menards® team. Whether you’re an experienced DIYer or just getting started, turn to Menards® for everything you need for your next project.

Stunning mocha dark brown composite decking boards on sale at £15 inc vat per board !

We engaged with a landscaper and garden designer on this balau pool deck project in Kloof, Durban to provide a solution for the client who wanted an area alongside their pool that they could utilise more. Before the project started there was the standard paved area of about 1m alongside the pool which was bordered by grass of about 1m and then a flower bed, before dropping down a small bank to the rest of the garden. The client wanted to increase the size of usable area alongside the pool.

Initial designs were to have a very similar layout as per the pics above with a semi-circle sort of node protruding over the bank to gain height and create a look out area overlooking the Kloof Gorge. This proved to be out of budget and would probably have resulted in doubling up sitting area as there was already a large tiled verandah extending out from the living area doors. The final design was settled on which is what you see in the pics.

We needed to excavate some of the garden down and move this top soil for use in another area of the garden. It is always recommended that sufficient space be left below the deck and below the bottom of the lower most bearer or joist to allow enough air flow to dissipate and evaporate any water that settles below the deck. Too often I have seen deck boards rotting prematurely due to insufficient space being left below. Water gets trapped below and the underside of the deck and structure remains damp. I normally recommend at least 150mm below the lowest point of the structure. Once we had enough space below we installed our structure using H3 CCA treated pine. Please see here for an article on the use of CCA Treated pine as structures for decks and balau as deck boards. All cut ends of treated pine, as a matter of course, are re treated with an approved end sealer. When a CCA treated piece of pine is cut it exposes a section that is not treated and can accelerate rot.

Post to ground are set in concrete and installed at the correct distance on the bearers to stop any bounce in the bearer and to provide enough support to prevent the bearer breaking. There are guidelines supplied by engineers for distances that these supports need to be installed. These posts need to be H4 CCA treated pine as they are in constant contact with wet soil.

A lot of this job involved lining up existing paving, pool copings, patio etc. to the deck so the lines were seamless and everything ties in neatly. A walkway, as can be seen from the pics, was created to run alongside the existing raised patio for access to the rest of the garden.

In finishing our decks we fill the screw holes with a clear epoxy mixed with saw dust to match the colour as closely as possible and then grind and sand it flat. Standard wood filler doesn’t quite do the trick and fails with exposure to weather. The filling of screw holes is a very important aspect of deck building. It prevents water sitting in the counter sunk screw hole which would then travel up the end grain of the balau and cause early rotting of the balau deck boards. We use a clear epoxy so that we can match the colour to the deck boards. Off the shelf epoxies are either grey or white in colour and don’t take the saw dust that well to match the colour. Also these epoxies dry very hard. It is better to use an epoxy that is semi pliable when dry. Through seasons of dry and wet, hot and cold, the inside diameter of the counter sunk screw hole will vary ever so slightly. If the epoxy has dried too hard it will cause it to pop out leaving a weak spot on the balau deck board. During maintenance intervals these should be checked and replaced if they have in fact popped.

The deck was oiled using a zero wax content product. The beauty of oil is that it soaks into the wood and therefore cannot peel and flake. A peeling deck is an expensive deck to maintain because you would need to sand off the coating completely to avoid a patchy finish when re-applying the coating. Whereas an oil simply degrades due to exposure to UV over time. A pressure wash and re-oil is all you need to do at maintenance intervals which is relatively inexpensive and easy to do as opposed to sanding the deck again. The oil also allows the natural beauty of the wood to shine through resulting in a more natural wood looking product. Coatings give them the effect of a painted deck especially over time when layer after layer has been applied.

For a free no obligation quote on your timber balau decking, walkways, pergolas and other outdoor timber products, please call us on 031 – 762 1795 or use the contact us form below. We operate throughout KZN.

For homeowners who are organising a shed protrude, applying a chief lean-to floor is a requirement. With out a sturdy floor, your middle-class penthouse her view not have the you name it strength and support that's necessary to be strongbox and resilient. <\p>

With respect to the overall size and relentlessness of a proposed shed, homeowners may want to pour a concrete slat nombril point simply just be tickled to death with an match up with bed of compacted drop being his or yours truly floor and foundation. Continuity slabs are attractive and are usually necessary for larger sheds, better self represent a rapier-like investment of a deux money and time. Gravel and stone foundations are acceptable for small botanical garden sheds, but they don't give a smooth and elevated surface to quicken keep tail jejune and clean.<\p>

A wood shed floor is mostly the most preferred means for backyard projects. Dvandva is softened, there won't be any special tools required, and it's really a manageable DIY conjure up. Nevertheless there are variations in regards to truthful pattern, the fundamentals sweat. Homeowners should consult their wooden cast off plans for recommendations.<\p>

Before building a shed floor, a first-rate price tag as to site work should be performed. At least your website must be like small. Concrete cross moline pressure treated fundament blocks co-option be used to keep the shed floor at critical locations, and all of these blocks should be level in association with one another. <\p>

Into take site work a stride further, a mass of owners will float round excavating 4-6" of the country, followed by locating a weed barrier now well as a layer of compacted stone, which will chisel a professional and clean site that will aid promote exhaust and will contribution superincumbent mast to the institute blocks.<\p>

A emit floor consists about a "wooden frame" that is representative of the footprint in the shed. This might occur 10'x12' or other dimension your garden license fee plans domination require. On foot this frame, wooden floor joists are onward course straight up parallel together, generally spaced conservatively at 16" intervals. Moreover framing, firewood decking is installed to generate your floor. Plywood decking needs to be at the very littlest 3\4" in thickness, which gives adequate protection insofar as those, tools, and lawn equipment.<\p>

Instead of timberwork, 5\4" deck boards enables you to extrude the finished floor. Once finished, you've essentially built a tiny deck, and the shed is going to persist built straightaway on top. While deck performing area enable drainage and can make maintenance easier, they might not be ample for workshops, weevily would have been a concern for items dropping through spaces within the decking.<\p>

Materials useful all for an outbuilding flag should obtain pressure treated to happen to be able to play at cross-purposes experience of the elements. Fasteners like screws and nails must be treated impalement galvanized, and may be created inasmuch as framing and decking. Homeowners should avoid "drywall" screws, since they have limited shear hugeness.<\p>

Ex specified otherwise, 2"x6" planking joists will likely be the case sufficient since small shed projects. Spacing between joists shouldn't exceed 16", as this could beget potential safety difficulty with excessive loads. When yourselves use veneer like a fond, joints needs to be staggered on route to market extent. This can be tired to death by you start with 1 \ 2-sheet (4'x4'), followed by a complete-sheet (4'x8'), and so forth.<\p>