Category Archives: do it yourself

There is a style that has both the patina of time and all the advantages of modern comfort. The Shabby Chic style is the perfect solution! Find out how to transform your worn-out old furniture into unique and stylish pieces, while creating a sustainable and cost-effective way to transform the atmosphere of your home.

Are you ready to discover the secrets of the Shabby Chic world and create an authentic eclectic space with a vintage feel all your own? Read on for a peek into the art of reviving furniture!

Continue reading Shabby Chic magic: Reviving and maintaining old furniture in your home →

Buy it in winter, dig it out and build it in spring, so you can swim every day from the beginning of summer.

A self-installed, in-ground, concrete, insulated, steel-walled, foil-lined pool will be presented, including the installation of a counter-current system and heat pump pool heating.

Background

Have you ever experienced this?

You don’t need a large dog for this. It’s enough to have a tired foil inflatable pool, from which air is slowly but steadily escaping, and a curious cat, who, preferably in the middle of the night, presses down the edge of the pool to see what’s inside. Once it does, the edge won’t come back up due to the low air pressure, and by the time you wake up from the sound of the gushing water and rush out, the garden is already ankle-deep in water.

This is when you decide you want a safer solution.

The choice fell on a steel-walled foil-lined pool, and since the manufacturer suggested that the pool should be at least 30 cm deep in the ground for side stability, we got the idea to dig it in completely. This way, it doesn’t overwhelm the relatively small garden.

Continue reading Pool Construction DIY – With Counter-Current System →

We can increase our comfort while simultaneously reducing heating costs.

It is well known that the lower the temperature of the water used to heat the house by our boiler, the more economical it is. This is especially true for condensing boilers. Whether it’s an old open fire or a turbo gas boiler, caution is needed because the return water temperature to the boiler must be higher than the dew point of the flue gas. This is approximately a threshold value between 55–60 degrees Celsius. In condensing boilers, the key is that the return water temperature is as low as possible, as the condensation of the flue gas below the dew point is stronger, meaning the precipitation of water vapor from the flue gas. This precipitation, the change of state, comes with additional energy release. The lower the temperature of the water used to heat our home, and by better dissipating this heat, making the return water as low in temperature as possible, the better efficiency we can achieve in operating our condensing boiler.

Here, the heating pipe is already in the living room wall:

All of this is fine and good — however, the lower the temperature of the heating water, the more difficult it is to give off heat, as the temperature difference between the room temperature and the advancing water temperature becomes smaller. This problem can only be solved by increasing the surface area of the heating element. Beyond a certain size limit, implementing this with a radiator would be impractical. Especially considering that multi-panel radiators increasingly enhance heat dissipation through convection (i.e., by heating the air) and to a lesser extent through radiation. This is not advantageous, as heat emitted through radiation provides a more pleasant sensation even at lower temperatures.

On the other hand, if we use underfloor, wall, or ceiling heating, we can heat a larger surface area. This warm, radiant heating ensures a comfortable feeling of warmth.

If we want to live in the apartment during heating system improvements (now specifically discussing water heating), among the three surface heating methods, wall heating comes with the least dust, clutter, and inconvenience, using the following method — provided there is available wall space. And there was.

Continue reading Installing wall heating in an already inhabited apartment, under plasterboard or stone porcelain – do it yourself method →

Two basic principles:

1. Produce the energy with highly efficient equipment!
2. Don’t let the generated energy go to waste!

The transformation of the living room:

As much as it’s a priority to steer the population away from gas consumption, let’s admit that in an apartment block without district heating (central heating), heating and hot water can primarily be provided by gas, and secondarily by electricity. If many people switched from gas to electric heating, it would also cause problems, as many apartment block infrastructure and stairwell electrical systems are not designed for mass electric heating. Therefore, the possibility of massively increasing the amperage of apartments would also face limitations. Naturally, heating with air conditioning could be an alternative to direct electric heating, as it represents roughly a quarter of the electrical load, but many people do not like the warm air blowing, and the numerous outdoor units attached to the façades are already a terrible sight. For this reason, I believe gas will remain predominant to a greater extent.

But what can we do to keep our gas bill low?
Continue reading Energy cost reduction in an apartment block – DIY – window replacement, internal insulation, underfloor heating →

Besides general home renovations – such as replacing cold and warm flooring, kitchen cabinets, and sanitary ware – a crucial point was to create a low utility cost home.

Because of this, modern plastic insulated glass windows with shutters were installed, and the previous convector heating, open combustion bathroom heating, and the open flow-through domestic hot water unit were replaced with a single condensing boiler.

Since there is zero chance for common facade insulation in the apartment building in the near future, 10cm thick glass wool internal insulation was installed on the enclosing walls, with a vapor barrier heat reflective foil and drywall covering.

Continue reading Do-it-yourself home renovation – window replacement, internal insulation, heating modernization, new bathroom, kitchen, wardrobe – cold and warm flooring →

Manufacturers of single-color LED strips generally produce only the three primary colors: red, green, and blue, with some also making yellow. Pink is quite rare, and purple is even rarer. However, some people need orange or turquoise LED strips.
The answer to this is to buy an RGB LED strip and mix the desired shade yourself. Some people do not want a remote-controlled system; they just want the light to always be orange when they turn it on. For them, it seems unnecessary to buy a system capable of displaying all the colors of the rainbow, performing lighting effects, and dimming the lights when they only need one color. Why buy it if these features will never be used?

There are two solutions, but both require either an RGB LED strip or two different colored LED strips stuck next to each other.

Continue reading Purple LED strip, pink LED strip, blood orange LED strip, turquoise LED strip, goose green LED strip – but where from? →

There are three ways to create the so-called starry sky.

Continue reading How to create a starry sky with LEDs? →