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A “Disabled Facilities Grant” is a local council grant to help towards the cost of changing your home to enable you to continue to live there. A grant is paid when the council considers that changes are important to meet your requirements, and so the work is reasonable and practical. A note of warning Grants can take up to 12 months or more to be authorized

Who can claim for a Disabled Facilities Grant?

You can claim if you, or somebody living in your property/home, are disabled and you, or the person on whose behalf you are applying, are either the owner or renter (including licensees) of the property. You can certify that you, or the individual on whose behalf you are applying, propose to occupy the property as your/their only or main residence throughout the grant period – currently 5 years. A landlord may apply on behalf of a disabled tenant

Disabled Facilities Grants are available across the nation! England, Wales and Northern Ireland only. Scottish residents should contact the social services department of their local council for information on any grants that might be available

What can the grant funding be utilised for?

A grant can be used for adaptions to give you better freedom of movement into and around your home and/or to provide essential facilities within it. If you are disabled, acceptable types of work include:

Widening doors and installing ramps, Providing or improving access to rooms and facilities – for example, by installing Stair lifts or providing a downstairs rest room. Changing heating or lighting controls to make them easier to use.

Improving access to and movement around the home to enable you to care for someone else who lives in the property,eg a child. An occupational therapist will look at your circumstances and can advocate the sort of modifications needed.

How much are you able to claim?

The amount paid is mostly based mostly on a monetary assessment – a ‘means test ‘ – of your average weekly earnings re your spending. There isn’t any means testing for families of disabled youngsters under 19 years of age

Means testing will consider savings above a certain limit. Certain benefits including Disability Living Allowance and Earnings Support are generally ignored. If you’ve got a partner, your combined income will be assessed jointly. Capital is included in the means test. The 1st 6,000 of savings is overlooked.

A variety of premiums and allowances is used for all essential spending, as an example, lease/mortgage and personal expenditure. Actual outgoings are not considered. Depending on the result of this assessment the amount of financial help offered can vary greatly from 0 to 100 per cent of the cost.

Maximum grant amount

The maximum quantity of grant that a council is required to pay is 25,000 in Northern Ireland, 30,000 in England and 36,000 in Wales per application less any assessed contribution from you. If the cost of the eligible works is more, the council can use discretionary powers to increase the amount. A Disabled Facilities Grant won’t affect any benefits you are at present receiving.

For info on Disabled Grants and Outdoor Stairlifts Please come to Our site for Stairlifts Advice

When it grows hot, most individuals head out the door. A lot go to a public pool, a river, lake or the beach, but others would prefer to stay in their own backyard. Some people are lucky enough to have a pool in their back garden, but not everybody has the space or the money. However, the majority of people like being wet in order to cool down.

In this article, we will look at a few of the things that you do can in the backyard involving water to help you remain cool. The first one is the one we have already alluded to and the one home improvement that almost everybody would have if they could. A pool. Individuals love the thought of having a garden pool.

If your budget cannot stretch to a substantial in ground pool, you could get a smaller above-ground pool. These above-ground pools are a great deal cheaper, and whilst not big enough to swim in, they can absolutely be thought of as large plunge pools. Half a dozen people can have a lot of fun in one of these pools.

If this is not feasible, what about a Jacuzzi or a hot tub? There is a great deal of flexibility in hot tubs these days. You can have them built into all types of nooks and crannies in the garden.

You can also get a hot tub of any size you want: two, for, six, eight people and everyone can have a moulded chair with its own hydrotherapeutic directional water jets, so that you can play the jets on any parts of your body that you want.

If this is out of the question as well, what about a couple of garden water sprinklers? You could have plastic waterproof garden furniture and sit under the sprinklers simulating rain. This is an easy and very cheap way of cooling off when it is very hot.

You could hand everybody in your garden a water pistol to squirt everybody with. This might sound a little juvenile but kids and a lot of adults really enjoy it. Similar to this, you could fill a few dozen balloons up with water and use them for throwing at each other like having your own paint ball competition without getting dirty.

Water games are immense fun and a good manner of keeping cool whilst the sun is beating down in the summer. Just one word of warning – sunburn. Water will cool you down and you may not notice that you are burning. Be certain that everybody applies waterproof suntan lotion of a factor that is applicable to the degree of sunshine in your area.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now concerned with Sundance hot tubs. If you would like to know more, please visit our site at Hot Springs Spa Parts

It is heart-breaking for dog lovers who care about their pets to watch them scratching incessantly. Itchy skin can become such an annoyance that a dog will pull all its hair out of a patch and then still scratch its skin red raw. If this happens to your dog, then you know that something is radically wrong.

It could be a matter of canine dry skin, but this is quite unlikely, if your dog is on a healthy diet. No, nine times out of ten, it has to do with an infestation of fleas or, less commonly, ticks. Therefore if you see that your dog is constantly scratching a spot, check it. That spot will usually be on the dog’s back just in front of its tail – one of the favourite places for fleas to congregate.

So, the first thing to do is inspect for fleas and comb most of them out. This can best be done in the garden or you may get an infestation in your house as well, although if your dog has fleas this severely, then your house is almost certainly already infested.

Once you are sure that the itchy skin issue has to do with fleas, you can get on and take care of your dog. Go to your vet’s or your pet store (which is probably cheaper) and get an insecticidal shampoo and flea powder for your dog and a permethrin based insecticide for your house. If they have a soothing canine skin cream, a small tube of that will help too.

Leave the dog in the garden and get out the vacuum cleaner. Open the bag and give it a good squirt of permethrin or flea powder and zip it up. Vacuum clean your house from top to bottom in order to pick up fleas and any loose eggs.

Do not overlook the furniture and the curtains. When you have finished, spray the curtains, furniture and carpets with permethrin and put your own bedding on a boil wash.

Then take your dogs basket and blanket outside and close the door. Do not go back in for an hour at least. In the meantime, shake out the dog’s basket and blanket and sprinkle it with flea powder. Now you can turn your attention to your dog.

Give him a systematic bath in the insecticidal shampoo following the directions on the box. When he is dry, apply some skin cream or olive oil on to his red bald spot. It is best not to use human skin cream because it contains chemicals and your dog will lick it off, unless you put a ruff around its neck.

You might have to do all this twice in order to kill the new hatchlings, but some insecticides will kill the eggs as well. Once you have got your dog back to normal, groom and bathe him more often in the future and be watchful for fleas.

Another persistent source of annoyance to dogs is mosquitoes. Mosquitoes usually bite dogs on the snout and the undercarriage and they suffer the same problems from bites as we do, except they do not moan about it.

Do not apply DEET or any chemical because the dog will lick it off and it is not to be taken internally. Instead, try a lemon based natural fragrance as mosquitoes detest the smell of citrus. Put a few dabs here and there every hour or two when the dog is outside after dark.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is currently concerned with indoor mosquito repellent. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Repellent For Dogs.

There are times when it just seems that there are more insects than previously. Perhaps it is the warmer winters and wetter summers helping them breed more easily, or possibly it is because fewer people are using pesticides in their gardens. It is quite understandable that a lot of people do not want to use chemicals on their gardens, but not using anything at all results in a growth in the insect population.

Over the last fifty or so years, people have become more and more used to using chemical insecticides to kill household and garden insect pests because they are a faster and more certain killer. So what do you do if you want to control the number of garden insect pests, but do not want to use chemicals?

Well, you would have to go back to using natural insect pest killers, although most households have forgotten what their great-grandparents used to use to kill insects. The following is a list of a few of the natural ways of killing insect pests. However, not all techniques or plants will be available in all countries.

Stinging nettles: if you cut down a bunch of stinging nettles and immerse them in water for a week or more, chemicals will leach out of the vegetation into the water. Strain the water off and spray it over your plants. It will kill or discourage most garden insects. You can also use it as a plant food, but you will have to be careful how strong it is.

Rotenone: is a natural insecticidal. It is made from the roots of the derris plant. It kills by damaging the stomachs of insects. However, it is rather slow-acting and has to be reapplied often in order to get the maximum effect.

Washing Up Water: soapy water of any kind will kill aphids or greenfly amongst other garden insect pests. This is a very easy control to administer. Just strain your soapy water into a spray gun (like an empty window spray gun) and squirt your aphids.

Corn meal: you can dust this around plants or skirting boards to kill insects. If a tomato hornworm or a cockroach eats some, the cornmeal will puff up in the insect’s stomach with the bodily fluids in there and the insect will eventually explode.

Pyrethrum: will paralyze an insect, but it will also wear off, so it is often mixed with a poison to finish the insect off. Otherwise, you can pick them up.

A mixture of cow’s milk, flour and water can be employed as a natural insecticide, funnily enough. It is very good at killing the eggs of insects. It also destroys insects themselves by blocking their breathing holes. In other words, they asphyxiate.

Neem is a very common tree in India and has medicinal as well as insecticidal uses. This natural insecticide repels insects by means of an active ingredient that mimics an insect hormone. It makes it hard, if not impossible, to digest food and it stops their cycle of reproduction. It works most effectively of all on insects that primarily eat leaves.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is currently involved with indoor mosquito repellent. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Repellent For Dogs.

Many of us often get bewildered about Riser Recliner Chairs! There are 2 types of recliner chairs to make a choice from both operate function differently. Manual recliner chairs require the owner to manually release a lever and then leverage the chair into a tilt and recline position. For an average fit person with no muscle dysfunction the process is straight forward and needs only a little effort to place the chair into the desired tilt reclines position.

If the user is elderly or weak/fragile a manual recliner chair won’t be the perfect solution. Though the process may seem really easy for the average individual it does need plenty of strength to manually recline and tilt the chair into the required relaxing position.

A more typical approach to triumph over the strength needed to operate a reclining chair would be to purchase an electrical recliner chair. Electrical recliner chairs remove all of the obstructions one could have with bad health! Lack of strength due to a sickness or simply weak and frail due to old age. A simple press of a button will instantly raise and lean the chair into a comfortable relaxed position without any effort being made by the user occupant of the chair.

Depending on which type of electric recliner chair one may buy your chair might have infinite lean and recline positions allowing the user to either relax watching Television or recline the chair into a sleeping position or upright to eat a meal.

There are 2 types of electrical loungers available! Single motorized chairs with limited tilt recline modes and twin motor recliner chairs that allow an unending tilt and recline positions. Some chairs use mobility batteries as an emergency back-up in case of a power cut.

The main advantage of riser recliner chairs is they offer a simple method to dismount from the chair by reclining the back and sloping the chair forward to allow the individual to escape from the chair with no effort at all.

Free independent information on Riser Recliner Chairs and Stair lifts check our Website

It is laudable that these days many people are trying to do without chemicals in their daily lives. There is, no doubt, plenty that most of can do to reduce the amount of chemicals that we use. Take a look under the sink in many homes and you will see dozens of bottles, cans and sprays to cover all of the routine household chores.

Many of them are superfluous and could be replaced with home-made formulas. Except that most families have forgotten how to prepare them and it is easier to get a tin off a shelf in a supermarket. However, there are some jobs that are just too tough for the raw materials available to us and killing termites is one of them. Regrettably, there is no known home-made termite killer that is as successful as some of the chemical compounds.

In such a predicament, all you can do is lessen the load on the planet, while accepting that there will be some load. That is, use a chemical compound that will have as little impact on the planet as possible. Some of the older ways of poisoning a house and its earth to either discourage or eradicate termites like the spreading of the inorganic metal arsenic trioxide or insect growth hormones like fipronil are the least recommended techniques. However, these slow-acting toxins will lay around killing termites for weeks and will finally wipe out the colony.

These days, rather than poison the soil for a hundred square yards or metres around your home, you are recommended to lay bait boxes instead. Bait boxes are toxic food sources for termites. The chemicals are confined to the bait boxes and can be removed when your problem has disappeared or can be left in situ to kill any future intruders.

These bait boxes are put where you have or are likely to get a problem, that is, wherever timber comes into (close) contact with the ground. They have an active lifespan and so have to be replaced or recharged, but they last quite a long time.

Other preventative measures you can take include sweeping up damp leaves from around the base of your house and not stacking wood on the ground around your house. Keep a close eye on any timber that comes close to the ground and be on the look out for pencil-like tubes of earth and wood pulp which are the termites walk-ways

If you are purchasing a new house in a termite danger zone, make certain that it has been constructed in a manner that is unfriendly to termites. There are termite barriers that can be put under your house to inhibit the ingress of termites, one of which is inedible concrete. You would have though that went without saying, wouldn’t you – ‘inedible’? However, ordinary concrete is not a hurdle to subterranean termites. Neither is plastic or rubber, in fact they love it.

If all else fails, you can eat them. Termites are eaten in several parts of the world. The flying termites are a good source of fat and protein and can be fried on a hotplate without adding oil or fat. Apparently, they taste mildly nutty.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with Termidor termite treatment – a termite killer. If you are interested in this or if you are wondering: What Does A Termite Look Like?. Please go to our web site now for further details.

Do you have a termite concern? If you have, you should get on to it right away, because the eventual future of a house ridden with termites is a demolished house. Termites can be eliminated, there is no question about that, but the technique you select is important. One of the methods that some professionals use is termite tenting.

If you and your termite exterminator decide to use this method, the professional will put up a huge tent around your house to contain the noxious gas that he uses to kill the termites within your house. The house has to be tented to enclose the gas in and around your house and to stop it from dispersing, because it is injurious to human health as well.

Some say that termite tenting is old-fashioned and just too dangerous, others say that it is the only certain way of killing all the termites in a house. Some people say that it is very expensive, others say, so is a house. At the end of the day, the choice is yours, obviously, but please be aware that there are other alternatives of getting rid of termites these days, although not all are as fast-acting as termite tenting.

In fact, termite tenting may be the only option open to you, if your house is about to fall down, because you will be able to get on with the repair work that much more quickly. Other contractors do not agree, saying that if you use a slow-acting poison, you can still work alongside the dying population of termites. You would be best advised to get a couple of quotes for the job and a few opinions.

If you go for termite tenting, you will have to pack up all your food and clothing in air-tight plastic bags, which the contractor can normally provide. Then, they will make a large loose-fitting tent around your house. Next, they will release a poisonous gas into your house and have it circulated into every nook and cranny by means of fans.

This gas is harmful to humans, so you will have to move out for two or even three days and neighbours will be warned by signs to keep away from your house while it is being fumigated.

The termite tent will be taken down on the second day and the clean-up process will begin. Now the powerful fans will be used to expel the gas from your house and sensitive instruments will be used to monitor when it is safe for you to come back. That often takes another twenty-four hours to be definite.

Although the gas is toxic, it does not form a film on surfaces, so when the house is deemed clear, it really is safe. Many people worry that it is not. This fear is groundless, which is borne out by the fact that you are warned to have your house inspected for termites in your annual house maintenance routine because they can come back and you will not want another termite tenting treatment.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with Termidor termite treatment – a termite killer. If you are interested in this or if you are wondering: What Does A Termite Look Like?. Please go to our web site now for further details.

Wheelchairs are necessary for people that cannot walk, for one reason or the other. These are usually patients with a walking disability or are presently sick, and as a consequence can’t walk without help. Wheel chairs have been used for a considerable time now. Initially, it was only utilised by the disabled to provide mobility.

The manual wheelchair was the pathfinder wheel chair. This type of wheel chair needs the effort of the user to move it around, by utilizing the rims on the back wheel, one can move around simply. Manual wheel chairs are usually collapsible and make them more transportable whenever one is travelling.

You can also get electrical powered wheelchairs, they basically operates on mobility batteries to give it power to function correctly. These batteries are chargeable, so they can be utilised for a long period of time. This is more perfect for patients who cannot use their own power to move themselves around. Clearly, the electric wheel chair is dearer than the manual wheel chair, so cost may be a factor for those that purchase one. Cost is not a problem for a few individuals, while others cannot afford it if this is the case one might consider buying second hand

Before you can purchase a wheelchair, first consider the user. You ought to have their convenience and comfort in mind. Moving around isn’t easy for people using wheel chairs because of our own surroundings. This is why you must consider a wheel chair with mobility batteries to ease their movement.

Getting a wheel chair isn’t hard; you can either do so online or from a trustworthy manufacturer. It’s possible to get all the information about the wheel chair you are buying on the web. But you also should be careful not to fall victim to individuals who want to use your shortage of information.

For more information on wheelchair batteries and wheelchair lifts please visit our website

Are you aware if you have Medicare in the USA, you could be remunerated when you buy a wheel chair powered by mobility batteries? But if you do not have Medicare, this doesn’t imply that you cannot get a powered wheelchair to get you moving around easily. There are 7 kinds of wheel chairs that use mobility batteries. The amount of wheels on a wheel chair will indicate the name of the wheel chair.

Four wheels: Have 4 wheels, 2 in front and two at the rear. You’ll find designs with 2 additional wheels at the back to prevent tipping. It is however not practical for driving.

6 wheel: has 6 wheels; with two large wheels in the middle, two smaller ones in front and two that are smaller in the front. This type of wheel chair is considered comfy when driving due to their larger wheel size.

None folding: it is fatter, larger, and more padding on seats and backrests. It is kind of comfortable for riding. Since it is weightier, travelling with it can be cumbersome. But you can find designs that can be broken down to make automobile boot storage simpler.

Folding: The seat isn’t padded; as a consequence folding is possible in periods of travel. Won’t provide a lot of comfort but gets you from A-B.

Lightweight: sometimes called travel chairs, simpler to handle due to their light design. Since its light, carrying capacity can be limited. It doesn’t travel well on coarse surfaces. It is advisable for home use only.

Reclining: includes mechanisms to tilt or recline the wheelchair. One can move from sitting to lying position with the press of a button.

Heavy duty: they are sturdier in terms of construction; as such it can carry a heavier capacity. It is easier to travel on coarse surfaces and may be employed outside on the road or pavements.

Check out our Site for more information on Reconditioned Stairlifts and wheelchair lifts

As much as we love the warmer months of the year, there is one thing we do not look forward to: mosquitoes. Oh yes, these insects are not friendly at all. They carry more than one sort of disease. Yes, these insubstantial insects, which float in the air about us, pick up numerous illnesses from who knows where, will leave red, itchy marks on your body.

As Spring time and Summer time roll around, it is nice to have doors and windows open, but it is also vital to have screens fitted for a home’s doors and windows. These screens are particularly necessary when it comes to opening up your home in the warmer months. Having these screens for doors and windows have been the best invention for holding mosquitoes outside.

Once outside though, Mosquitoes will be zooming into you. Well, onto your skin more specifically. There are well over 300 scents that mosquitoes are drawn to and most of these scents are from human skin. For human beings to live, we need to exhale carbon dioxide.

Well, this is one thing Mosquitoes are attracted to. Yes, as soon as anybody exhales carbon dioxide, Mosquitoes are more likely than not, to make a b-line for your body. When eating outdoors, mosquitoes are going to want not only you, but your food too.

They, like human beings, like salty foods. Foods rich in sodium are also filled with lactic acid. Another thing that draws mosquitoes to human skin is body heat and if drinking alcohol, that too attracts these pests.

Okay, so now you are wondering what you can do to fend off these pests. There are several ways that you can use to repel them from your skin. If you are looking for something natural to repel any and all mosquitoes, try adding more garlic to your daily food intake. For some reason, garlic reduces the attractiveness of our skin.

Now, you do not have to quite eat garlic, but instead take garlic supplements, along with B complex and vitamin B1 supplements. Changing your daily diet, by taking certain supplements, particularly in the hot summer months, will fend off these unwanted insects.

Now, if using natural products is not the path for you, there are lots of chemical products on the market. Let?s see, anyone who is not a lover of mosquitoes, can go to their local grocery store and look for such mosquito repellents as DEET, Oils and Electronic Repellents.

DEET is made from such ingredients I can not even pronounce, but is mainly sold in solid or liquid form and is highly poisonous. If this does not sound good to you, there are a range of oils which can be placed on your patio table or wherever you sit outside.

Some of the more widely used oils are botanically based like Citronella, Eucalyptus Oil and Soybean Oil. Naturally, anything botanically, is considered natural or organic and while used as suggested, will not injure the you.

Electronic mosquito repellents have been used for a some time now. In fact, they are used in the desert, such as the Middle East, by American Soldiers. These electronic devices are made with chemical pheromones to attract them and electrified wires to instantly electrocutes these horrible insects.

These days, there are also mosquito repellents which you can clip onto your clothing. This type of repellent permits the user to be free of mosquitoes for 120 hours and repels them from 15 feet away. This certainly is one amazing, personal, repellent on the market today.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently involved with Electronic Bug Killer devices. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at electronic insect killer