60 Minute Makeover is ITV1′s daily interior design series and is hosted by a team of high profile designers including Colin & Justin, Richard Randall, Hannah Sandling, John Amabile and Linda Barker.

BHL were approached by ITV1 to supply Fireside products for the Petersham episode. Under the guidance of designer Derek Taylor the show will be broadcast on Friday 10th September 2010 at 2pm on ITV1.

Stay tuned for further details including the show highlights…

‘Young Talent of the Year’ is a BBC Three series celebrating young trade talent across the country.

BBC Three are on the lookout for those talented youngsters with a trade. Young Plumbers along with Beauticians, Butchers, Fishmonger and Hairdressers are encouraged to enter

The BBC are looking for talented young Plumbers who can be a true ambassador for their trade. Entrants should be aged 16-25 and must be up for a challenge and ready to show their skills off to the world.

Plumbing experts will help choose an eventual winner to represent their industry.

Applications are open from Monday June 7th. To apply for an application form Email: youngtalent@bbc.co.uk
OR Write: Send a SAE to Young Talent of the Year (series 2), Casting Team, Room 4060, BBC Entertainment, Oxford Road, Manchester M60 1SJ

To all entrants, BHL wish you the best of luck

The birthplace of notable luminary including ’Dickie’ Bird, Arthur Scargill and of course Michael Parkinson, Barnsley is shaking off its industrial reputation and coal mining past and embracing the challenges of the future.

Tasked with transforming the town, Barnsley Development Agency (BDA) hope to deliver and assist existing and new businesses. Their website proudly proclaims “Barnsley is fast becoming one of the most talked about towns in the North of England. Business confidence and interest in the Borough has never been so high so there’s never been a better time to relocate to or expand in Barnsley”

The BDA have offered BHL support and guidance. Here is an article that they recently wrote about us;

A Barnsley-based supplier of heating products has been making waves in distant parts of the world, thanks to their investment in a new website, and the assistance of Enterprising Barnsley. Closer to home, their products can be found in Royal houses and stately homes.

BHL- located in Barnsley since their establishment in 1968 – has put significant investment into the redesign of its website in an attempt to enter markets previously untapped. The company sells a wide range of heating products from boilers to towel warmers, and having achieved significant sales both nationally and internationally via their previous website, further investment in online technology seemed the natural next step.

“Although we’re only a small company, we have been able to reach markets far beyond where we could have imagined just a few years ago” exclaimed Neil Bumford, of BHL. “The support Enterprising Barnsley has provided to the company has certainly added value to the business. I’d certainly recommend contacting them to anyone else who needs business support.”

Shaun Higginbottom of BDA commented “an increasing number of Barnsley businesses are now benefitting from the comprehensive, free support and advice available through Enterprising Barnsley. We are delighted with BHL’s success and look forward to continuing to work with the company in the future”.

The new website, www.bhl.co.uk, was six months in design and is now capable of holding over 1 million products, is user friendly, easy to navigate and offers significantly improved download times. Since its launch, the site receives over 1.5 million visitors annually, and has resulted in orders from as far away as Dubai and California. This development is just part of the growing online presence of BHL, who sees the future of electronic trading to be strong.

Please visit our new website

60 Minute Makeover

We were recently approached by ITV1, the makers of 60 Minute Makeover. They were looking for a supplier of high quality Fireside Accessories and so naturally came to us. 

60 Minute Makeover is ITV1′s award winning interior-design daytime series. Hosted by a team of top interior designers, in each episode the challenge is to decorate the home within 60 minutes.

Fireguards & Fireside Accessories

In the new series (starting early September) in the episode entitled Carshalton, BHL have supplied a Fireguard to the home of a family in Biggin Hill, Kent. In addition to adding an injection of charm and quality to the family home, the fireguard also became a really important part of the design, answersing practical and safety concerns by protecting little fingers and the families pets from the Gas Fire. 

Colin & Justin

Property and interior design presenters Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan host the show.  Designers Colin & Justin began practicing their design skills on friends and families homes. Today Colin & Justin are familar faces on our screens having presented a range of peak-time property, entertainment and lifestyle shows.

Be sure to watch us. Get the kettle on and the biscuits out, 60 Minute Makeover will be aired on ITV1 on Tuesday 8^th September 2009 at 2pm.

Buy Fireguards Online

Hosted by George Clarke, episode one of the popular show featured a young professional family of four who were seeking inspiration for their victorian terraced home.

 Read more about The Home Show’s Parsons Green project and BHL’s contribution to the successful renovation.

Grand Designs, The Glass & Timber House, Dulwich, London

In March 2006, a joinery/carpentry firm -Talisman Manufacturing, owned by Bill Bradley (who is passionate about wood)-began building two timber 4-bed eco houses in South London (Landells Road, Dulwich). The scheme was architect-designed for a RIBA competition entitled The Future House of London, and encouraged architects to design houses suited to making better use of brownfield sites.
 
The houses are very modern, urban and visually stunning. As such, they have been selected to appear on the next series of Grand Designs (Channel 4) presented by Kevin McCloud. (Kevin was so impressed with Bill’s reclamation of the tiny site that he even wrote an article about BIMBYs – Build In My – in the Sunday Times HOME section. The TV crew is now on site virtually every week to film each stage; providing a fantastic showcase for all the suppliers, many of whom are local businesses).
 
In addition, a new TV programme called Grand Designs:Trade Secrets is also being filmed about the houses to explore the wider technical issues surrounding green buildings. This show will air on More4 directly after the main programme and is expected to appeal specifically to the trade sector of Grand Design’s audience (architects, engineers, contractors, designers etc etc).
 
The timber houses – constructed of huge parrallams sitting on steel piles-are clad in stylish Western Red Cedar sourced with help from the Canadian Timber Assn, surrounded by a huge Massandubra deck and gardens designed by a Silver-medal Chelsea Flower Show winner. Wooden fixtures and fittings throughout the houses are all manufactured from carefully selected FSC woods. A huge amount of research has gone into all aspects of the design – from the flat seedum-planted roofs which will attract birds and wildlife -that drain run-off rainwater into a harvesting tank; to the kitchen worktops which are being made from recycled wine bottles and crushed shells. Around 45% of the first floor of each house is glazed and, as they are built around a U-shape atrium, they are light, bright and modern with vistas right through each house.  
 
A Chelsea Flower Show Silver Medallist has been contracted to prepare plans for the exterior gardens and decks. Simon Thomas is planning to use huge architectural plants – ferns, palms, bamboo etc to create a lush and exotic “jungle in suburbia”. The micro climate in London means that he can use plants that would not survive elsewhere in the UK and Simon is v excited about the project.
 
Everyone who has visited site has been blown away by the houses and many suppliers and contractors have very generously offered substantial discounts in support of the project.
 
Technical overview
 
- Two Worcester 24i System Boilers manufactured by Worcester-Bosch

- Two detached eco-friendly dwellings, built on brown-field site surrounded on all sides by residential properties. The houses are approached through a video entrance gateway opening to a timber-decked walkway with external built in lighting and planting.

- low impact piling foundation system designed to reduce the impact on surrounding boundary walls and neighbouring homes.

- timber construction. Walls and floors supported by parallam engineered beams encapsulating all cantilever aspects.

- building is sheathed in a constructional board and clad in vertically fixed fire-treated Western Red Cedar. The cedar has been supplied in part by the Canadian Timber Assn to help raise awareness of this FSC timber.

- clever design retains the neighbours’ perception of their greenness by using natural materials, extensive elevational planting and low maintenance flat sedum grass roofs. Seedum ensures water drainage is 90% more efficient than hard roofs. The run-off water will drain into a rain-harvesting system and be recycled for flushing toilets and exterior taps. The suppliers of the harvesting system are going to use the site to spearhead their “Save the Rain” PR campaign in 2007.

- about 40% of each house will be glazed. Windows are constructed and positioned to provide privacy to the occupier and adjacent neighbours with glazing running up from the floor and across the ceilings in the bedrooms and bathrooms. The houses are centred around fully glazed courtyards with open-plan living areas to each side. Large glazed doors at each end of the building open on to landscaped garden rooms. This, together with architectural planting to the courtyard areas, provides a green vista from any location on the ground floor.
 
- The issue of being overlooked/overlooking has been carefully considered with the clever use of controlled window views, roof lighting and obscured glazing elements. Southwark’s Planning Dept showed particular support for the proposal in relation to issues of overlooking and daylight/sunlight.

-The kitchen/bathroom worktops will be made from recycled wine bottles (crushed and mixed with shells).

- upper floor, reached via a floating staircase, consists of four double bedrooms joined centrally by a linked glazed ‘bridge’ overlooking the courtyard.

- garden design is by a Chelsea Flower Show silver-medal winner and includes 100% FSC deck, recycled rain water in square “ponds” and lime rendered walls.

- all internal décor will use eco-friendly paint and natural pigments/oils. The exterior cladding will be stained with linseed oils to maintain green credentials.

- The scale of the dwellings has been kept modest and the form broken up so as not to present large blank elements.

You can of course Buy Worcester Boilers from BHL

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