Green Light For Peer-to-Peer Renting

Is the Government trying to turn all UK homeowners into entrepreneurs? asks Rebecca Burn-Callander

Key move: the Summer Budget unveiled changes to Rent-A-Room relief  Photo: Fotolia

In the recent Summer Budget, a small reform was bundled into the small print, which effectively gave the green light to peer-to-peer renters across the country.

In it, the Government tweaked the existing Rent-a-Room relief, allowing hosts to rent space in their home tax-free on income of up to £7,500, up from a previous cap of £4,250. The relief has been unchanged since 1997 and will take effect next April.

The move follows the exponential growth of peer-to-peer accommodation networks such as Airbnb, which allows any homeowner to rent out a room, or their entire property, to visitors.

The Government said that the change reflected rising rental costs but Airbnb leapt on the news, saying that it “further demonstrates the UK Government’s commitment to being a world leader in the sharing economy and shows their support for local residents across the country who are sharing their homes”.

This is not the first time the Government has indicated its support for peer-to-peer renting. Earlier this year, it implemented progressive new rules that allowed Londoners to share their homes for up to 90 days annually without permission or registration.

Homeowners are not the only benefactors of the Government’s “sharing economy” largesse. Last year, it launched a major new initiative to place the UK at the centre of the global sharing economy, which will be worth £230bn by 2025.

The term “sharing economy” refers to individuals who get the most from their own assets, and the companies that have grown up around them.
It is estimated that more than 150 million consumers will pool property or possessions over the next year.
While only 5pc of European consumers currently “share” in this way, nearly a third say that they will soon take part in the phenomenon. The UK is the third largest European player in the sharing economy, behind Turkey and Spain.
Cars are the most popular segment of the sharing economy but holiday accommodation is expected to take the lead in the next year, with two in five consumers saying that they would consider paying someone to borrow their home.
There are an estimated 19 million empty bedrooms in England, according to Spareroom.co.uk.
This kind of data has clearly influenced UK policymakers to start supporting this new wave of property entrepreneurs.
Debbie Wosskow is a sharing-economy entrepreneur, as the founder of home exchange club Love Home Swap. She is also the chairman of the industry body Sharing Economy UK (SEUK).
She welcomed the changes to the Rent-A-Room relief in the Summer Budget, saying that they “encouraged a nation of micro-entrepreneurs”.
But are the tweaks enough to prompt a full-scale sharing economy revolution?
“Whilst it's great that barriers have been removed, there is a still a long way to go,” Ms Wosskow said. “The last change to this relief was in 2005 and we don't want to wait another decade for it to be increased again.”
As for the next thing on her wish list, she said: “It would also be great to see such a tax relief extended to other verticals of the sharing economy – such as driveways and household items, like power tools.”
It does seem the Government is listening.

source:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/business/sme-home/news/11737226/green-light-for-peer-to-peer-renting.html

New Technology Makes It Possible To See Through A Semi Truck

YOUTUBE

*clears throat*

You can pass if you want to
You can leave your friends behind
Because your friends can’t pass, and if they don’t pass
Well, they’re no friends of mine
S-A-F-E-T-Y… SAFETY… TRUCK

Yes, Samsung has invented the Safety Truck. The electronics company was apparently sickened by the number of car accidents that are caused each year by people unsuccessfully overtaking semi trucks on one-lane roads and decided to do something about it.

The Safety Truck is mounted with a wireless camera in front that sends constant live video of the road ahead of the truck to four outdoor monitors on the back door. The camera also has night-vision mode, so it can work 24 hours a day to help anyone following behind the truck to see both the lane ahead of the truck and the lane of traffic going in the opposite direction.

The idea is that not only will this live feed help you pass a slow-moving semi, but if something (like a deer) darts out in front of the truck and causes it to slam on its brakes, you’ll see that and react to it, too.

Samsung test drove their Safety Truck in Argentina until it stopped working, but they’re confident this prototype produced results they can take to other countries and work with governments to develop more systems like it. They’ve still got to figure out how to do that legally, so there’s no word on how much this would cost to install on a fleet of 18 wheelers in the States.

Below, you can see their Safety Truck promo video and how it works.

Source:- (thank you very much) http://uproxx.com/gammasquad/2015/06/new-technology-makes-it-possible-to-see-through-a-semi-truck/

2-bed house to let in Grimsby, UK

To Let

Cosy, unfurnished 2-bed terraced house with on-street parking

£465pm

Description

Near to the Leisure Centre, Auditorium, Cromwell Primary Care Centre, Lidl and many other shops. 
Frequent bus service into town or a 10 - 15 min walk
Good primary school nearby. 

Potential long-term let. 

A well-maintained home. 2 reception rooms, a roomy kitchen and front & rear yard with a brick shed. GCH &DG 
EPC both rated D. 

Deposit and agency fees will be required. Utility bills and Council Tax will be the tenant's responsibility. 

Please ask about the acceptability of your pets. 

Contact DDM for more information 01472 358671

The Sloppy Jalopy

                                          

source:- http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sloppy_Jalopy

The Sloppy Jalopy is Oscar's junk car featured on Sesame Street. The car has a sign painted on the side: "Oscar's Taxi Service: Ride At Your Own Risk". The car was seen on the show as early as season 12.

The Jalopy was the featured element of the street story in a 1993 episode, as Oscar reminisces about his time with the car.

The car was featured in The Sesame Street Special and the 1997 video Fiesta!, where it was being used as a carosa (float) by the kids to replace Rosita's broken float. Elmo thought that a fairy godmother transformed his pineapple into this Sloppy Jalopy as the float for the kids.

Oscar takes Bob to Grouchytown in the car in a 1989 episode.

In a 2006 episode of Sesame Street, Oscar and Grundgetta drive the car in a race. In the 2009 storybook,Love, Elmo, Oscar is fixing up the Sloppy Jalopy to use it as a taxicab.

Episode 2107

Episode 2269

Episode 2483

Episode 2487

Episode 2490

Episode 2648

Episode 3081

Episode 4028

Episode 4030

Episode 4134

Episode 4237

Music coordinator Paul Rudolph sits in the Sloppy Jalopy on the Sesame set, 2009.

Make A Simple Solar Air Heater

Heat a room or outhouse with a solar heater made from recycled aluminium cans

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Using the sun to heat water is a very cost effective way to save energy. Typically payback on even the most expensive systems is under ten years, with DIY Solar Water Heaters paying for themselves in just a few months. Similar techniques can be used to make a Solar Space Heater - a device which warms the air inside a room or building.

Solar Garage Heater

Pictured above is a simple small passive solar heater made from recycled aluminium drinks cans and used to heat a garage. If the building to be heated is well insultated, a solar heater such as this can lift the temperature by a significant number of degrees. A larger heater or a number of similar heaters can be used to heat larger spaces, or to heat smaller spaces to a higher temperature.

Offcuts of 2 x 4 and a sheet of plywood were used to build a box to tightly hold 5 rows of 10 black-painted aluminium drinks cans. The inside of the box was then sealed using caulk to prevent hot air from escaping. Cold air is drawn in from a hole at the bottom of the box, and the heated air emerges from the top passing through a pipe into the garage to be heated. A plexi-glass sheet was glued to the box to let sunlight in but not let the hot air escape.

Click here to find out more about this basic almost free garage heat project. Read on to find out how to make your own solar heater.

Building a Solar Space Heater

This type of solar space heater works by drawing the air to be heated into the bottom can of a column of cans. The air is then heated inside the cans by the sun's energy and the hot air within them rises upwards (thanks to convection) to be fed into a pipe which re-enters the building to be heated.

Building the Box

First of all make a box out of whatever scrap materials you have to hand. Set the dimensions to that the width of the interior of the box is exactly the same as the width of however many columns of cans you would like to use in your heater. 
The height of the box should be the same as however many cans you would like to have in each column plus a few centimeters.

For increased efficiency, you may choose to insulate the box to prevent heat escaping (by conduction) through the plywood. If so, size your box so that the cans and insulation will fit snuggly.

Drilling the Cans

For the air to pass through a column of cans, holes must be drilled into them. Remember that there is already a hole at the top of each can out of which the drink is poured. That just leaves holes at the bottom of each can to be drilled.

In the bottom can of each column a 1/2 to 1 inch hole is drilled in the side. (see image below)

The rest of the cans in the column have a similiarly sized hole drilled into the bottom. See image below)

Building the Can Columns and Painting

Then the cans of each column are glued together using caulk or silicon adhesive and painted using black paint to help them absorb the sun's energy. Barbecue or fireplace/stove paint is excellent for this as it will not flake off, but any marine grade paint will do a similar job - just make sure it has a totally matt finish to maximise solar absorption.

The inside of the box must also be painted with the same paint before the columns of cans are glued into position using caulk or silicon adhesive. The outside of the box should be treated with preservative, varnish, or paint to help it survive exposed to the sun, wind, and rain, for many years.

Sealing the Solar Heating Box

Ideally the front of the unit will be sealed with a sheet of tempered glass - glass of the type used in car windscreens. This glass is very strong and resilient to heat. However, tempered glass (unless you can find and recycle a sheet) is also very expensive.

As a cheaper alternative plexi-glass (plastic) can be used, but note that it will degrade over 3-5 years becoming translucent and eventually opaque which will reduce the energy this heating system can get from the sunshine until you replace the plexi-glass sheet.

A hole at the top of the box acts as the hot air outlet and can be connected to the building/room to be heated using an insulated pipe.

Possible Improvements to the Design

Pictured above is an alternative design in which the cans are all joined together in a snake. The illustration shows an array of just 3 x 3 cans for simplicity however hundreds of cans could be joined in this way to make a larger heater.

Air inside this snake would rise much more slowly through the heater (than was the case in the previous design) since it has a much longer path to travel, and the air is obstructed from rising straight upwards. Therefore the air leaving this heater will reach higher temperature than it will in from the previous design BUT the quantity of air heated will be less.

A PV Electric Solar Panel could be used to power a small fan (such as that used to cool the processor in a computer) to drive air through the snake. The final temperature achieved would be lower, but having a large quantity of 30 degree Celcius air entering a room is usually going to be much better than a much smaller quantity of 50 degree Celcius air.

The following short video shows this type of fan driven solar air heating system in action:

Solar Air Heating Links

This article: Pop Can vs Screen Collector compares the efficiencies of drinks can solar air heaters to the screen collector type of air heater which used to be more commonly used. It also shows in well illustrated comprehensive detail how to make both types of solar air heater.

This article: DIY Solar Air Heater, details the success of a 240 can solar air heating panel in Michigan, USA constructed by Guy Sperry. This panel provides heat for the whold of a 1000 square feet home.

He cut a star shape into the base of each can in order to introduce turbulence in the air flow through the panel and also to draw heat from the sides of the can to the centre to heat the air passing through. He carried out some detailed datalogging and analysis over a couple of winters to understand the effect of the solar air heater and presents some of that information in his article.

An alternative, very simple, but larger solar air heater design is detailed on this instructables page:Solar Heater - for which no cans are required.

source:- http://www.reuk.co.uk/Make-a-Simple-Solar-Air-Heater.htm