Beware DIY disasters

THE forthcoming May Bank Holiday weekend should be a time for rest and relaxation over a barbecue and a beer.

For some however, the weekend spells the time for those all-important DIY chores to be tackled... but beware of DIY disasters!

AT WORK: DIY is essential to maintain your property.

But help is at hand with property maintenance firm Adrem, whose 24/7 services will curb any unexpected DIY catastrophes.

Here are some of the firm's top tips:

When DIYing indoors always use dust sheets – even if you are doing a "dry job", such as hanging a picture. You don't know what's going to happen... if you have a wooden floor, for example, and you drop the picture the dust sheet can prevent any expensive repair to the floor.

If you are going to spend more than £5 – £10 on plastic dust sheets buy a 110 square-metre Homebase Mega dust sheet roll instead of individual sheets. This will save you a fortune and at a cost of 8p per m2, it knocks spots off other smaller dust sheets – which can cost 25p per m2 or more.

Tools! The best tradesmen have all the tools necessary. This makes work look easy. Hire tools you don't have. Shop around for the best prices and take advantages of great credit crunch offers. They want your business.

Clean your gutters and check they are "falling" correctly. Blocked or sludged or out of level gutters can cause big damp problems – when water runs off the gutter onto masonry – this can damage your paintwork on the outside and can even saturate walls internally.

Buy online. Not just for price but delivery too. Even the biggest building contractors buy regularly from the likes of screwfix.com.

Don't mess with gas. Only Gas Safe approved tradesmen are licenced to touch boilers, hobs or gas fires. Boilers are basically controlled bombs.

Don't choose colours from a colour chart – get some samples and test them on a small section of the wall to see how they'll look under natural light.

Overestimate the amount of work. I've never heard of someone complain they had too much time to do a job.

Don't bite off more than you can chew – call in the professionals when necessary!