A house extension could be the perfect way of ‘improving rather than moving’

If there’s one thing that you’re probably sick of hearing over the past few years, it’s that the housing market is experiencing a slump... especially if you’ve spent those years looking around for somewhere new to live, but have found yourself stuck in your present residence. To be fair, there have been some interesting movements on that front in recent times, since as George Osborne’s announcement of a Help to Buy scheme. It is developments like these that may lead you to invest in the house clearance service of Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk).

Of course, one reason for requesting house clearance in London from us is so that your house is more presentable and it’s easier for you to move, but it’s also a good idea if you are considering making major changes to your property. Although many such changes except painting and decorating may not add much to your home’s value right now, they can make a big difference when the market does inevitably pick up again, and in the meantime, you can benefit from the practical advantages that such a change means. That’s right... we’re talking about such major modifications as loft conversions and home extensions.

In our previous blog entry, we focussed on the former, so now, it’s time to shed some light on the latter’s many advantages. Given the difficulty and high cost of moving, if you require more space, a house extension could be the perfect cost-effective alternative. You may choose to extend your house because of a growing family, or you may even like the idea of an extra room that you could convert into a lounge or home office. Or maybe there’s an existing area, like the kitchen, that you think would look fantastic if extended? It could also be a good way of freeing up some much-needed storage space – and you only need to ask many of the hoarders among our house clearance clients, how much they’d appreciate that.

Naturally, it’s important to ask yourself what exactly the home extension is intended for, as this will help you to determine whether a loft conversion or even garden office could be a better solution. You’ll also need to ensure that the conversion is carried out to the highest standard, as a poor one is not going to add the value to your home that you desire. It’s also vital to consider where you live. House conversions make more sense in areas of the country, like London, where the extra space is better appreciated and therefore worth more, rather than less expensive parts of the UK where the emphasis is firmly on cheap, cheerful and small.

However, the value that a house extension does or doesn’t add to your home will matter little to you if it is simply the need for extra space that motivates you. Whatever you decide, Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) can be an invaluable ally, providing the house clearance service that you need to get started with extension work.

Editor’s Note: Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.

Tips for ensuring the tidiness of your office

Let’s be honest... offices can be places of real chaos. Office-based businesses in general can have a real propensity to accumulate stuff that soon needs to be cleared, from random pens that you forgot to throw away when they ran out and post-it notes with urgent reminders that have long gone out of date, to now-unnecessary filing cabinets and that whiteboard that you ended up never needing. Here, the experts in office clearance at Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) give you some quick tips for ensuring your office’s continuing tidiness.

First of all, you should recognise just how important a tidy office is. Even if you merely work from home, an untidy workspace can be distracting and disorientating, and can make it difficult to find important documents or even result in you slipping on items that have been left on the floor. If you work in an office into which you regularly welcome prospective clients and/or customers, then you should also be concerned about the image that is being presented to these very important people. Such messiness suggests that you don’t really care, and in many cases, such organisations really don’t, which often leads to the need for comprehensive office clearance in London, sooner or later.

Of course, if you work from home, it will ultimately be you who has responsibility for all aspects of office cleanliness, but for those that do the traditional ‘9 to 5’ surrounded by colleagues, it’s all too tempting to try to pass the buck – which is why you should delegate tasks to different staff members from the start, perhaps asking them to keep their particular area of the office clean. If there are communal kitchens and other areas that might take too much time to clean without detracting unduly from the core business, it may make more sense to hire a cleaner.

You should, though, at least take pride in ensuring the cleanliness and tidiness of your own workspace, which will set an example to others. If you tidy and order your desk before you go home each day, you’ll often unearth important documents that you could have otherwise lost. Provide readily available cleaning equipment and litter bins, and commit to doing just a little bit of tidying and cleaning each day so that office mess does not get out of hand.

Thankfully, Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) offers a well-priced and environmentally friendly service for those who do find themselves struggling with their office mess. Whether there’s a room that you need to clear out so that you can make it your new home office, or you have electronic waste and WEEE to get rid of from multiple workstations, we have an office clearance or house clearance service that keeps that tat at bay with the minimum of fuss. 

Editor’s Note: Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.

Even more good news for house clearance clients – we are now ContractorPlus approved!

Past and present clients of Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) will be more than aware that we are a house clearance specialist with a conscience. Not only do we enter the properties of our clients and clear their rooms as required, cost-effectively and with the minimum of fuss, but we are also committed to conducting ourselves in an environmentally friendly manner, donating or selling items where possible. And now, we’ve advanced in health and safety too, by becoming ContractorPlus approved.

We couldn’t have been happier to receive the ContractorPlus assessment results late last month, detailing that we had passed and that our company details had been successfully added to the ContractorPlus database. Accreditation is valid for a year, and is a further indication of our strong commitment to compliance with the latest corporate health and safety legislation. Having been successfully assessed and passed for accreditation by one of the renowned ContractorPlus health and safety consultants, we are now in an even more powerful position to attract clients to our already highly rated office and house clearance service.

The ContractorPlus scheme was developed in partnership with the national commercial property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton, and is a web based database of contractors who have been rigorously vetted to ensure their compliance with the very highest standards of health and safety. It allows surveyors to search online for reputable contractors, with searches able to be filtered by contractor service or location. Of course, it’s also great news for the domestic and commercial clients of Just Clear who want to know that we really do take health and safety seriously when providing all manner of home and office clearance services.

The assessment process is certainly a thorough one, with the qualified health and safety consultants of ContractorPlus considering such aspects of a company as its health and safety systems, accident reporting and analysis and tax and insurance details. However, we are also pretty thorough ourselves, as you can appreciate in our online health and safety statement. We are aware of our duty under Section 2 (3) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and in fulfilling our obligations to our employees and affected members of the public.

To that end, we undertake risk assessment to identify workplace hazards and implement preventative measures, while also providing safe plant and work equipment and establishing and enforcing safe work practises, among a wide range of health and safety measures. We also recruit only suitably skilled members of staff, promote good practice and provide appropriate refresher training from time to time, so that our employees maintain a high level of technical competence.

Such measures are continually reviewed, with changes considered in accordance with the current environment and circumstances. It has all accumulated in our finally becoming ContractorPlus approved! Contact Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) now to receive an instant quote for ContractorPlus accredited house clearance in London.

Editor’s Note: Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.

Have you considered having your loft converted?

As we have previously covered on the Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) blog, the housing market is showing some signs of picking up – which is giving more and more people a good reason to contact us about house clearance. However, many of our customers are perfectly happy with their existing property, and may simply want to free up space for more productive means.

Loft conversions, for example, have always been popular among those wanting to make the most of their home... and why not? After all, it’s hard to think of a part of the home where more junk naturally accumulates over time. For so many of us, the contents of our attics are ‘out of sight, out of mind’... until we decide that we’d quite like to have an extra bedroom, lounge or even home office, and would like an alternative to what may be a prohibitively expensive house extension that eats up the garden. It makes sense, then, to look up, and extract greater value from the largest unoccupied space in the house.

If you do have a loft conversion carried out, you may still want to incorporate some storage space, in keeping with the traditional function of the loft, but otherwise, you have plenty of opportunity to make the space precisely what you want it to be – and you’d be surprised by just how much inessential junk you have stored up there. For an efficient, cost-effective and environmentally friendly clearance of this part of the home, contact Just-Clear’s experts in house clearance in London, who will phone you 15-30 minutes prior to the two hour scheduled arrival window. We will do the hard work in removing, loading and taking away your items for recycling and disposal.

Loft conversions are extremely cost-effective as a way of adding extra living space to a home, and incorporating windows into the scheme can ensure plentiful natural light throughout the day. The loft conversion can typically be carried out within four to six weeks, with the final result being an extremely characterful and practical new room. Those who require a home office, for example, love the sense of separation from the rest of the property that allows them to concentrate completely on their work. You do, however, need to consider how to install a new staircase that will give you access to the room, and compliance with Building Regulations is also required at all times.

There are so many other aspects that you will need to consider to ensure a truly successful loft conversion, from the addition of rooflights and dormer windows to insulation and soundproofing. But of course, here at Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk), we are simply here to provide a house clearance service to people living in London and throughout the United Kingdom, removing everything from furniture and appliances to garden waste and electronics in a way that makes maximum practical and economic sense to our many appreciative customers. Don’t hesitate to call our seasoned house clearance professionals today, on 0845 319 8000.

Are you ready to take advantage of the 'Budget for businesses'?

If you run a business in the United Kingdom, then it's fair to say that one of the most important news stories to you in recent weeks will have been the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne unveiling his Budget. He certainly described it as a 'Budget for businesses', and sure enough, there was plenty for potential clients of Just-Clear's (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) office clearance services to saviour, from the fuel duty freeze and tax cut promises to incentives for hiring staff.

However, it's worth considering the business value of office clearance in London at this, of all times. With so many British firms finding it difficult to stay afloat even with Osborne's latest measures, more and more of them are considering how they can streamline operations, reduce costs and increase their competitiveness. Achieving all of these things at once might seem a tall order, but one of the best ways of doing this is, oddly enough, having a thorough office clear-out, which also ought to clear the minds of your workers.

Office businesses, much like the households that use our house clearance service, have a tendency to hoard stuff. Whether it's a flashy whiteboard or two that you just didn't need in the end, a load of excess stationery, an empty filing cabinet or even some sophisticated electronics equipment, there's always something lying around that is serving absolutely no use to your firm. So why not sell some of it, donate it or even recycle it?

There's only one problem with that plan for many businesses: a lack of time. When you have a very demanding core business to tend to, complete with clients that expect an answer to their queries within the hour, irrespective of the time of day, it's understandable if you haven't got round to your own office clearance. That's why so many British firms outsource such a task, much as they do for so many other services these days. Just-Clear clears offices for landlords, catering tenants, retail tenants, corporate and commercial tenants and so many other parties, both affordably and professionally.

You might have a large, bulky item to get rid of, or you may need to clear multiple workstations. Whatever you need to remove, Just-Clear can do it in a way that fully complies with necessary legislation. For each collection, a detailed 'Junk report' is provided. Certainly, this is relevant because many companies are also anxious these days to demonstrate a certain level of social responsibility to their prospective clients, so it can be nice to know precisely what, and how much, was reused, recycled and sent to landfill.

With a nice, thorough office clearance in London carried out, you'll probably find that you have a lot more space all of a sudden. Perhaps you can use that space for a few new employees, taking advantage of Osborne's 'tax off jobs'? Just-Clear (http://www.just-clear.co.uk) wishes your firm a highly profitable 2013.