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The summer sun is here and whilst you might spend less time in your home and more time outside, we wanted to share our top tips to keep your house cool and protected whilst it’s hot.

Keeping it cool

Here’s how you can stop your home from keeping in the heat when it’s too warm:

1. Open windows on opposite sides of the house to encourage air flow throughout. If you have a multi-storey home open the windows upstairs so when the hot air rises it’s not trapped up there.

2. Close curtains or blinds during the day, particularly on sunny sides of the house, to prevent the sun from heating up your home.

3. Invest in an electric fan, which can be purchased fairly inexpensively. For an extra cool breeze place a bowl of ice in front of the fan whilst it’s switched on.

4. When possible, limit heat-producing activities. This includes using the oven, hairdryers and having hot showers and baths.

Protecting your garden

We often talk about protecting your home but with the sunshine we’ve got gardens on our mind too. Here are some tips for securing your garden and any property you keep in it:

1. Keep Your Back Door and Gate Locked

Even if you’re only stepping out briefly, always lock your back door and garden gate. Many garden gates use a sliding pad bolt and padlock, but people often skip the padlock out of convenience, leaving an easy entry point for burglars.

2. Secure Your Shed or Outbuilding
If you store valuable items like tools, office equipment, or gym gear in an outdoor building, they may only be covered by your home insurance if there’s clear evidence of forced entry. Make sure to keep it locked whenever you’re not using it and for enhanced security add motion sensor lights, a security camera, and a reliable burglar alarm.

3. Protect Your Garden Furniture

Most home insurance policies don’t cover damage from general wear and tear. So make sure you use appropriate covers for your garden furniture when not in use and, if possible, store it in a dry, secure place during the colder months to prolong its life and protect it from bad weather.

4. Secure Ornaments and Expensive Garden Equipment

Deter thieves by securing garden ornaments and valuable outdoor equipment. Once you’ve finished using tools, toys, or gardening equipment, store them safely in a shed or garage instead of leaving them out where opportunistic thieves can easily grab them.

Contents in the open and garden items are protected up to £1000 with a Uinsure Home Insurance policy.

Got a sinking feeling?

Subsidence is when the ground beneath a property sinks or shifts, causing the building’s foundations to move. This movement can result in cracks to walls, ceilings, and brickwork. If left untreated it may lead to serious structural damage.

Why does subsidence get worse in hot weather?

Subsidence tends to worsen during periods of hot and dry weather because soil shrinks as it dries out. This shrinkage removes support from the building’s foundations, leading them to drop or shift unevenly.

Prolonged heatwaves can also dry out tree roots, which then draw even more moisture from the surrounding ground in search of water, increasing the risk of subsidence for nearby properties.

What you should look out for

Homeowners should keep an eye out for tell-tale signs of subsidence, including large cracks in walls, particularly those wider than 3mm (about the width of a £1 coin). These cracks often appear around doors and windows or where an extension meets the main building.

Other indicators include doors and windows sticking or becoming misaligned, uneven floors, or visible ripples in wallpaper not caused by damp. If you notice any of these signs, it’s important to seek professional advice promptly to assess the situation and prevent further damage.

If you’re unsure about what your home insurance does and doesn’t cover when it comes to topics like your garden and subsidence, make sure you check your policy documents.

If you’re a Uinsure customer…

If you have a policy with Uinsure and you need to make a claim, click here to find our claims page.

Or, if you’d rather speak to us on the phone, give us a call on 0344 844 3844.

Keeping your home well-maintained is valuable for more important reasons than just improving the property’s appearance. In this article we’re going to discuss some of these reasons so you can understand how to improve your physical and financial safety through property maintenance, and why it’s vital.

Your financial safety

Being on top of property maintenance protects your finances in a couple different ways.

Firstly, when it comes to selling or renting your home, potential buyers and tenants are likely to look into how well maintained the property is. Particularly for potential buyers, spotting problems that they will have to pay to fix themselves could make them inclined to offer a lower price than expected, or put them off the property entirely.

Secondly, not maintaining your property often has a knock-on effect that can cause further issues which could be more expensive than keeping the property in good condition in the first place.

For example, a build-up of debris in your gutters can eventually lead to water flowing to the wrong places, potentially resulting in damage to foundations, walls, roofs, windows and more. The average cost of gutter cleaning in the UK is £20-£30 per hour (Source: Checkatrade) whilst the average cost of roof repair in the UK is £650, and up to £1100 depending on damage and size of your property (Source: Roofing Association).

There’s many examples we could give of these knock-on effects caused by not maintaining property. The one thing almost all of them have in common is that the repairs are more expensive and time consuming than keeping your property well maintained in the first place.

Your physical safety

More important than protecting yourself financially is protecting your physical safety through property maintenance.

In 2020 roughly 2.7 million UK citizens had to make a trip to the hospital due to an accident that happened in their own home (Source: National Accident Helpline). We could be avoiding some of these issues with proper maintenance that will keep your home safe and comfortable.

Some home maintenance and improvements methods include:

• Repairing stairs and banisters to reduce the likelihood of tripping and falling
• Purchasing electrical socket covers, particularly if you have young children at home
• Testing your fire and carbon monoxide alarms to make sure they are working properly
• Installing loft and/or cavity wall insulation and double glazing to help reduce respiratory issues that are linked to cold temperatures (whilst reducing your energy bills in the long-run)
• Checking your roof is well maintained, particularly in the winter, to reduce likelihood of tiles coming loose in the wind and causing injuries

Many of the above points are especially important for older homes, which are more likely to have worn-out systems that need to be updated to meet current safety standards.

In summary

It’s important to keep your property well maintained for a number of reasons, and it is cheaper and less dangerous if you can catch and fix any problems early on rather than waiting for them to become critical issues.

This is particularly important for older homes and during times when bad weather is more likely to damage already weakened areas of your home.

Home and Landlords insurance is designed to financially protect you should something unexpected and unforeseen happen to your property. Please note that failure to maintain your property can often lead to damage that is not unexpected because reasonable precautions were not taken to prevent it from happening, and your insurer may not always cover this.

Sources:

CheckATrade (Gutter Cleaning Cost)

Roofing Association (How Much Does a Roof Repair Cost in the UK)

National Accident Helpline (Accidents Home)