Winter is upon us and we tend to be a less busy during the winter months. With less daylight and worse weather building work and DIY projects do not progress as fast as other times of the year.

A lot of properties in our area are old and are situated within Conservation Areas or are Listed Buildings. Traditionally, such properties would have cast iron gutter and downpipes installed. These have worked well but, generally, require repainting every five to ten years. With the costs of labour and scaffolding, this can be very costly indeed.

Spring is here and things are beginning to grow. At this time of year we sell a lot of timber for making raised beds to both the trade and DIY.

We have found it difficult navigating the diminishing quality of plywood being imported into the UK from the Far East. There are some good manufacturers of ply in the Far East. However, there is a general lack of confidence about the consistency of quality of imported ply from the Far East.