Reasons and advantages for choosing an electric fire for your home.

When choosing a fireplace, one may opt for the safest one whether it is for home or office heating. The reasons that may make the electric fires the safest option to choose are that their flames are not real. Furthermore, there are no exposed hot surfaces to cause accidental burns as well as any harmful mold growth in pipes or ducts. Most importantly, materials are usually fire-retardant.

The other highlighting points that make the electric fires much more appealing to opt for are their energy efficiency and convenience.

More Energy Efficient

Electric fires are more energy efficient, than any other firesides. Plus, you find electric fires to fit just about any budget; you do not have to go for expensive home modifications with a full built-in wood fireplace with chimney etc. On the other hand, electric fires are almost 100% efficient and reliable and they may also ignite quickly. Once you collect measurements of the room and area of installment as well as the outlet voltage, you can purchase the appropriate size, style and wattage that will provide ultimate warmth, in affordable price. Unlike gas or wood-heated fireplaces, you can easily replace the parts of electric fireplaces.

Convenience

They come in different sizes, materials, styles, colours and wattage plus they take up little space and they may be the most portable ones which can be stowed away when on in use as during the summer. Furthermore, you are relieved from collecting and storing logs/woods and there are no vents, ducts or flue blockage to worry about. Most of them are so simple and easy to install that you can even do it yourself and there is no messy ash and shoot to clean up, dust can be removed with a simple, damp, soft cloth or vacuum cleaner. Furthermore, with the touch of a button they can be turned on or off, so you do not have to work to ignite a fire or wait around for it to go out completely.

Keeping in mind all these extreme pros of electric fires, Stanningley provides you some very good quality electric fires, that are made 100% efficient, convenience and affordable too.

For individuals who may love to go for some mix theme of traditional plus modern may choose the electric fire like Celsi Electriflame Traditional Modern Electric Fire.

Celsi Electriflame 16” Traditional Modern Electric Fire

Celsi Electriflame may cherish you with the joy of relaxing and enjoying the smoky, soothing flames and be amazed by the depth of the fuel effect of the Electriflame Modern. On the other hand, the Celsi Electriflame Modern hearth mounted electric fire uses advanced 3D technology to create one of the most realistic flame pictures found in any electric fire today. Individuals who would like to go for model look may opt for the Be Modern Stanton Electric Suite.

Be Modern Stanton Electric Suite

The Be Modern Stanton Electric Suite is available in 2 finishes: Natural Oak finish with Almond Stone effect back panel & hearth and Almond Stone effect with matching back panel & hearth. It also features an Electric LED fire with mirrored trim.

Stanningley Firesides are one of the leading suppliers of Fireplaces within the Barnsley area that provide you the best quality fireplaces in Barnsley with a large choice of fires to choose from. Stanningley Firesides helps you to choose the fireplace of your dreams plus they offer you free delivery to your home.

Can solid wood furniture be comparable to compressed wood variations?

A question of quality verses convenience and practicality. Weighing up the benefits and value of quality wood furniture over lesser priced alternatives.

When it comes to decisions that affect your lifestyle and home the replacement or acquisition of furniture could have a major impact on your finances. We have two choices as to what material we could have our furniture made from; solid wood and compressed wood fibre. Solid wood furniture would be the more expensive, premium choice in this situation as fibreboard is a recycled wood alternative, where the wood is compressed and glued together to form a firm, workable material. This wood board does not however look like wood so a thin veneer wood texture is attached to the surfaces.

So what are the benefits of using compressed wood boards? Mainly that it typically costs less than solid wood and that is can be easily recycled. It is also a lighter material and therefore can be moved to different locations easier. Some designs can even be disassembled and then reassembled when moved to a new location in the house or another home.

If the choice is simple that of cost then it is possible to still enjoy real wood furniture without the high price tag. Furniture can be made from woods that are generally inexpensive, sustainable and fast growing like Pine and Tulip. There is also the issue of branding. Some furniture manufacturers do charge a premium regardless of what the items are made from. If you can find independent manufacturers then you will probably make a saving and may even receive a higher quality, better made product. Many independent manufacturers do offer a bespoke service if you are wanting furniture for kitchens and bedrooms.

Fibreboard is known to bend under sustained load; like for instance, if you have had a TV resting on a table for any length of time, you will notice that the table will have bowed under the weight. It is for this reason you may choose not to use fibreboard if the furniture has to be load bearing.

Solid wood furniture is easier to maintain and is generally a more resilient material. You might of experienced that when you move to a new home or move the furniture to a new room your chest of drawers or your wardrobe came apart at the joints because the fibreboard couldn't withstand the force of moving the overall weight of the item.

If the furniture is regularly used, such as a dinning table it will acquire dints and scratches or the finish might be rubbed off. These imperfections can be repaired with ease and little if any expense but when you damage compressed fibreboard it would be better just to replace the item. Solid wood can sometimes look better after it has seen some use developing a patina or lived in look.

Both types of furniture material have their uses under different usage situations but solid wood will always be the better choice. You may think that it is expensive but bespoke made furniture can be comparable to branded self assembled fibreboard, you will get the beauty, quality and durability of solid wood for less than you think.

Aspect Pine are manufacturers of bespoke, hand crafted solid wood furniture for use throughout the home. For more information about solid wood furniture please visit http://www.aspectpine.co.uk/

When we cooked on open fires.

When I was a young boy my grandparents lived in a remote cottage in Wales. It was a wonderful cottage with a huge garden where they grew all their own fruit and vegetables. They even kept chickens and a pig. 

The main room was the parlour, and it contained a huge fire range with a massive chimney from which hung chains on which they would suspend a big black kettle over the ever burning open fire. The fire also heated an oven to one side and a boiler to the other. All their cooking was done on the range over the open fire. As a small boy I remember toasting the most delicious toast in the world on a toasting fork held close to the flames.

In the days before the television took its place, the kitchen hearth was the centre of family life. As well as being the place where food was cooked, it was also the main gathering point, the focus of all that went on in the family; in fact focus is the Latin word for fireplace.

Although things are very different today, there is nothing quite like relaxing with family and friends in front of a log burning stove. It is a very different kind of warmth from the warmth you get from central heating. It is focussed warmth, and something to focus on visually, and it creates a very special feeling of being relaxed and content. That welcoming warm glow from those slowly burning logs penetrates through to the very soul. 

A recent symposium in Leeds was about open stove cooking. It was called ‘Open Hearth Cookery’ and covered such things as the Roman technique of cooking over ashes and recreating ancient English dishes cooked over a ‘chafing dish’ which is a sort of portable grate; something like a cross between an old fashioned grate and a modern charcoal barbeque. 

Cooking over an open hearth is a craft that in many ways has influenced cuisine throughout Europe and most of the recipes that we use today were first created for cooking over an open hearth. Only recently have they been adapted for cooking in a modern kitchen. Modern cooking is far easier that it was back in those days, but there is little doubt that the flavours are not so good.

The Leeds Stove open hearth cooking symposium included advice on how to control the heat, which requires a knowledge of how the fire operates along with a knowledge of how different kinds of wood burn. Not all woods are good for cooking; generally hardwoods are best. Oak, ash, and hard maple are good, though any woods that generates an even intense heat and many red hot cinders and coals will do. Blazing fires may look good, but they are not very useful for cooking.

Perhaps it is certain nostalgia for the taste of cooking on an open stove that feeds our passion for barbeques. Cooking over hot charcoal is certainly the next best thing to cooking over an open hearth. According to a famous online encyclopaedia, barbecue originated in America in the 1800s when cowboys on Western cattle drives used them to slow cook tough cuts of meat such as brisket. (If you have never eaten brisket that has been slowly barbecued for 24 hours, then try it; it is tender and perfectly delicious.) Unfortunately, today charcoal barbecues are being replaced by gas barbeques, which are not the same at all. 

One technique that we learned at the Leeds stove cooking symposium was to cook on the hot surface of a wood burning stove using a Dutch oven, which is a cast iron cooking pot with a tight fitting lid. You can monitor the temperature using a stove chimney magnetic thermometer. We intent to try to slow cook a joint of brisket this way; we’ll let you know how we get on. 

The Leeds Stove Centre has many different multi fuel stoves to choose from. Visit http://www.leedsstovecentre.co.uk/

Selecting the best wood for your wood burning stove.

When it comes to choosing the best wood for your wood burning stove, not all woods are the same. Here we will look at the different kinds of wood that you can use and we will offer some advice making the best choices.

Moisture content
Moisture content is very important. ‘Green’ logs with a high moisture content will be difficult to light and they will produce much less heat as much of the heat that they generate when they burn will be taken up by evaporating the water that they contain when then goes up the chimney as steam.
They also produce much more tar and smoke because they burn at a lower temperature. This tar and smoke will blacken the glass of your door and it will also deposit gunk on the inner lining of your chimney which means that you will need to carry out more maintenance.

Seasoning and drying
Freshly sawn logs can have up to 60% moisture contents so in order to reduce the moisture content of your logs, it is necessary to either season them or kiln dry them. Seasoning typically takes two years and reduced the moisture content to 20% to 30% and kiln dried logs have a moisture content typically of 15% to 20%.
You can either season the logs yourself by keeping them in a place sheltered from the rain and that allows air to circulate freely. Alternatively you can buy pre-seasoned logs or kiln dried logs. Kiln dried are the most expensive; seasoned are cheaper and unseasoned are the cheapest.
You can get some idea of how dry your wood is from its weight.

Hardwood or softwood
Generally hardwood is the best choice but it does need to be properly dried or seasoned. Here is a table that shows how well different kinds of woods burn.

 For more information on wood burning stoves please visit http://www.leedsstovecentre.co.uk

Type	Details	Quality
Ash	Excellent wood; hot and slow burning. Best when dry.	Very good
Beech	Excellent wood; hot and slow burning. Best when dry.	Very good
Hawthorn	Slow burn with good heat output.	Very good
Thorn	Top wood for burning with steady flame - high heat output with minimum smoke.	Very good
Yew	Top wood for burning with steady flame - high heat output with minimum smoke.	Very good
Apple	Excellent wood that when dry bums slowly and steadily	Good
Birch	Hot burning but burns quickly in small quantities - can be burnt unseasoned.	Good
Cedar	Good burning wood with long heat output. Can crackle and spit.	Good
Cherry	Slow burner with good heat output. Must be dry.	Good
Hazel	Is a good but fast burning wood and produces best results when allowed to season.	Good
Hornbeam	Good burner but needs to be dry.	Good
Lilac	Good kindling wood and good burner.	Good
Maple	Good flame and heat.	Good
Oak	Good slow burning wood when dry.	Good
Pear	Good slow burning wood when dry.	Good
Plum	Good burner with high heat output.	Good
Horse Chestnut	Good burner in stoves but tends to spits - don't use in open fire.	Good
Pine	Good flame but can produce smoke and tar.	Good
Elm	Reasonable burner but must be dry.	Medium
Larch	Reasonable burner but must be dry. Can cause deposits.	Medium
Laurel	Good flame, medium heat output. Must be dry.	Medium
Sycamore	Good flame, medium heat output. Must be dry.	Medium
Sweet Chestnut	Medium output when dry but spits. Don't use in open fires.	Medium
Alder	Poor heat output and fast burn.	Poor
Chestnut	Poor burn, low heat	Poor
Firs	Poor burning wood with low heat output and causes deposits	Poor
Holly	Fast burning with good flame but poor heat output.	Poor
Spruce	Poor heat output and fast burn.	Poor
Willow	Difficult to burn	Poor
Laburnum	Very smoky wood - avoid,	Poor - avoid
Poplar	Very smoky wood - avoid.	Poor - avoid

It's a brave new connected world for home audio and visual media.

How the internet and wireless connected systems are changing audio and visual media within our homes. Is fully digital, non tangible video and audio becoming the norm?

 

If you have found yourself wanting to get a new audio or TV system, you will have probably noticed just how much choice you have and how many more possibilities there are to bring sound to your home. Many of use still have a large collection of CD's, DVD's or even older media such as tapes and vinyl but these days you don't even need to touch hard-copy media.

Everything these days can be connected in some form or another but the most popular way is using internet wireless routers. Most of us are already using them with our computers, tablets and smartphones but did you know you can do it with some audio systems? Network connected audio devices are now available where you can download, store and stream your favourite music to other rooms in your household. You can use the hard-drive in your computer or a network attached storage (NAS) to convert your CD's to high quality FLAC (free lossless audio codec) and even use downloaded 24-bit studio quality music files.

It's not just your network connected audio that you can receive and play your music collection. If you have portable media devices such as a tablet computer or a smart-phone you can access your collection anywhere with a network with access to the internet. With such innovations in place music lovers are freed from just confining their enjoyment to just one room and could have smaller satellite systems in places such as the bedroom and kitchen. For those that are on the move can access their collection on the commute to work and even on holiday in other countries.

Home visual media is also benefiting from the new connected nature of multiple systems. TV's can now be routinely found to be able to connect to home networks and the internet which is turning them into media hubs, where you can download or stream music and movies online. The proliferation of high-definition movies and program content is giving the perfect excuse to take your TV experience and turn it into a home cinema showcase. Virtually all modern movies come with multi channel soundtracks and most audio and video devices support additional speaker configurations. For those that have not experienced the difference that a home cinema system can have when viewing high-definition content, will be surprised to the difference it makes to the enjoyment of your favourite movies.

Moving on there would be an increasing shift towards a fully digital, non hard copy attitude to the media available to us. We would no longer need tangible media such as disks as we would have all our acquired media be them music, movies, video, written and photography would all be stored in storage that we personally may or may not own in our homes. For media we have not made ourselves there would be access rights that we have bought, so even if we somehow loose our media libraries, we could still reacquire what we had stored in them. There may be discussions as to if we would still prefer to own tangible media but I would think they would just gather dust somewhere like my current CD collection does.

Audio Projects is a Leeds based supplier of premium audio equipment. For more information about audio solutions and network audio systems please visit http://www.audio-projects.co.uk.

Why is it so difficult to buy a gift for Mother’s Day – Especially for men!

Why do men seem to forget when to send gifts and best wishes for Mother's Day? Let us explain how the date Mother's Day changes and how men's attitudes to buying gifts can create this problem. It all starts with the way Mother’s Day is calculated in the UK which is 3 weeks before Easter; Easter in the UK is determined, would you believe, by the 1st Sunday after the full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox. Phew, it sounds all really complicated but has the effect that Mother’s Day in the UK is on different dates year on year.

This makes it difficult to remember exactly when it is; you probably have a vague idea it is sometime in March but without a consistent date many people think they have lots of time but can be suddenly confronted with buying a gift far sooner than they had imagined. This in turn adds to the stress of choosing a suitable gift and because it is for your Mother or your Wife or from your kiddies on Mother’s Day you really want to get something appropriate and something that is going to be appreciated. In the US however, the situation is somewhat clearer as it is always the 2nd Sunday in May. Now I'm not making excuses for men here, but sometimes we do panic which is not conducive with choosing that elusive perfect gift. Men mostly do try, speaking as a man I can attest, however, herds of men can be found wandering from shop to shop in search of this and probably with not much of a clue but with the knowledge that it is important to get it right.

When it comes to choosing gifts, men generally find great difficulty, however, if we are married with kids this makes this process even more difficult as we have to buy a gift for the mother of our children, then, we have to buy a gift on behalf of the kids. Do we buy one gift from all the kids or gifts from each individual child; this also goes for Mother’s Day cards. We always set out with good intentions and desperately want to find gifts that express the sentiment of the occasion, not easy for the male of the species and we probably know the consequences of not getting this right, despite our best endeavours. The memory of past mistakes with that disappointing look haunts us, which just adds to the pressure. This goes some-way to explain why men, at best, find it really, really difficult and at worst, holds a special hell reserved just for us.

When children move into adulthood or late teens the responsibility then usually passes to the individual child for the procurement of the expected Mother’s Day gift. The female of the species usually not only finds out when it is, but has a gift & card organised. Sometimes they will inform any males in the household of the impending occasion and then when the time becomes near, will remind them that is only a week away and to get out there and get that gift and card. The males of the family then panic, usually because we have thought about it and are still unsure what to do. Do we go down the chocolates and flowers route or something else? It is my experience that the girls have already covered this and because the boys are not on the ball have to find possible alternatives. It now comes full circle because most mothers would probably like a gift that reflects just a little thought. However it is my contention that men and, I'm a man with extensive experience, over think and get it wrong because we feel we have to get a perfect gift reflecting everything we feel our mother or wife would like, without some simple steps to establish this.

These steps are to find out what she might need if anything and a little research would yield dividends and not just at Mother’s Day. We only get into hot water when it is clear that she never would want such gifts and that the answer lies in her normal tastes and needs. The needs section of this issue is very simple, is it practical, is it what she would herself choose? The simple truth is that all the information is already available; all we have to do is listen, observe and use this when we think of buying a mother’s day gift, and of course, remember to buy a nice card!

Just to let everyone know this year Mother’s Day in the UK is on Sunday 30th March 2014, and in the US is on Sunday 11th May 2014, so you have been told in plenty of time so good luck and I hope you find that special gift without the stress!

 Peekaboogifts is an online general gift store where you can buy gifts for friends and family. For more information and to browse their collection please visit www.peekaboogifts.co.uk

Do men really find it harder to choose gifts for people?

When it comes to buying gifts for loved ones why do men tend to miss the mark? A brief explanation of men's habits and attitudes when it comes to acquiring gifts.

A frequently occurring thought that occurs to men when they are faced with buying a gift for a loved one is what to buy them. A lot of the indecision comes from more of what to buy the recipient that they will actually like and appreciate. When men buy things for themselves they base the decision on whether the item is useful or will help them with some part of their lifestyle or interests. Getting gifts for others especially if they aren't that close in your life can pose a challenge when using this method as you won't know what the person wants or needs at any particular time.

When it comes to buying gifts for women men can also fall short. Women like gifts with a sense of sentimentality or romance – both things men aren't naturally accustomed to in their average daily thoughts. This can also bring a feeling of stress and inadequacy for man especially when they have gone to some time and trouble to find a gift only to have it rejected or misinterpreted. So given the pressure to do the right thing and not make a mistake can take a lot of the fun out of finding gifts and make the whole experience an undesirable one.

Men are more likely to leave finding gifts for special occasions and Christmas to the last minute. This would seem understandable given many men's aversion for shopping in general. Usually when a man goes to shop for something they will have a good idea as to what they what and where to get it before they leave the house. When it comes to Christmas shopping however they will find themselves going from store to store trying to find something that the recipient of the gifts will appreciate. This does generate frustration and can leave men feeling drained – not looking forward to when they next have to try again for more gifts.

So to answer the question, yes men do struggle to find gifts in general and it's not because they can't or don't want to but more because it doesn't suit the average man's mindset or sense of masculinity and even if it is a good use of their time. Like for instance if a man would like to get their loved one a new fragrance it would be a question of do they like the fragrance even though it is intended for a woman. If the answer is yes then it is very likely the woman will also like it and appreciate the thought and effort of getting it. So in that way it was a good use of their time and not diminished their sense of masculinity.

So it does come back to the thought of will the other person even like the gift but that shouldn't be the main focus on why we are to go through the time, trouble and expense of acquiring the gifts. The most popular mindset is that the recipient will appreciate the gift no matter what it is and can be rest assured. Is it the thought that counts? - Yes, so there is nothing wrong if you are concerned with whether it's the wrong gift or not.

Peekaboogifts is an online general gift store where you can buy gifts for any occasion. For more information and to browse their collection please visit www.peekaboogifts.co.uk