A home improvement company has asked me to leave feedback - how do I do that?

One of your recommended companies has contacted me and asked me to leave some feedback on their services. How do I do this? I can't remember my original login details?

Home Improvement Quotes is committed to providing homeowners with as much information as possible so when you first use our online service, if you later speak with our customer advisors and take up our offer to find you a maximum of three companies to give you a written quote, we then email you a set of login details so you can go online and view the contact details, download deposit protection certificates and even view feedback from other homeowners on those companies we're recommending.

You can also leave your feedback for the benefit of future homeowners as well as helping us constantly monitor the companies we're recommending.

If you've lost or deleted your login details, then it's really easy to still access your online area and leave feedback.

Just go to our 'Quoter family website - homeimprovementquotes.co.uk

Then from the 'About Us' tab, select 'Home Owner Login Area' and click on 'Customer Log In'. You'll be asked for your email and password. Providing you use the email address you gave at the time of confirming your details with our sales advisors, you'll be able to use the 'forgot my password' feature - we'll email you your password again.

Many thanks for your participation.

photo credit: hashir

Don't use a Staple Gun when hanging Christmas lights up outside

Sounds obvious enough doesn't it, but judging by the number of old staples around our fascias, someone didn't heed the warnings about using staple guns to fix exterior Christmas lights to their house.

Staple guns are notorious for piercing plastic covering and shorting the exposed wires within. We don't want any fires do we? We don't want hours spent looking for the point of the short to fix it either, nor do we want anybody getting electrocuted.

Just a quick tip ahead of the weekend.

photo credit: lovepurple

VAT back on the rise

As of January 1st 2010, the standard rate of VAT will be returning to 17.5%. If you want to take advantage of the reduced rate, and potentially save hundreds of pounds on your upcoming home improvements project, you should be thinking about getting started as soon as possible.

In November 2008, the government reduced the standard rate of VAT to 15% in an effort to stimulate economic growth. This has always been billed as a temporary measure, and it’s due to come to an end in under two months.

If you’re thinking about having home improvements done, and want to take advantage of the lower rate of VAT, which could potentially save you hundreds of pounds over waiting until next year, then you really need to be getting a move on planning your project now.

Using one of our Quoter sites, you can get a free instant guide price for all manner of Home Improvements, and to help you get started quickly, we’ll offer to help you get in contact with up to three local home improvements suppliers who can come round and give you a firm quotation.

Our service is easy, fast, and free for homeowners. But don’t just take our word for it – One recent WindowQuoter customer contacted us to say “I was impressed with the speed in which all 3 [window companies] made initial contact. I would recommend WindowQuoter and will use Home Improvement Quotes again in the future. Thank you.”

Get started today with a free, instant, online quote from WindowQuoter.co.uk