Director of Enterprise at the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) – is to speak at a The Cambridge Cleantech event on Monday, July 9.  Sir Robin Young, Cambridge Cleantech Board member will chair the event Sir Robin said: “We are delighted and privileged that Adam, as a very senior government official, is giving his time to come and speak to the business community here in Cambridge. “We believe that the CleanTech sector is rapidly emerging as the next wave of the Cambridge hi-tech phenomenon. Since so much of the sector is influenced by Government regulation, such as for feed in tariffs and zero carbon buildings, it is critical that government listens to business leaders and adopts the relevant policies for enterprise and growth.“

 Adam Jackson said: “I am delighted to be speaking in Cambridge, which has such importance as a leading UK and European centre of excellence for hi-tech innovation and entrepreneurship and is helping to drive the economic growth we need.“I look forward to discussions with the business leaders in Cambridge so I can hear directly what they need to create the right environment for enterprising and innovative companies to flourish.”Tony Raven, chief executive of the university’s commercialisation arm, Cambridge Enterprise, will also be speaking at the event on ‘Accelerating Enterprise and the Commercialisation of the Science Base.’
 
Experienced commercial builders CD Hood Ltd are happy to provide a range of building services for growing enterprising businesses in Cambridgeshire.

Commercial builders CD Hood Ltd specialise in delivering impressive reception areas and effective shared spaces. We appreciate how important it is to show off your business and create inviting and effective spaces for you to conduct your business.

So it was interesting to note recently that the Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge University has unveiled a new gallery featuring a fascinating portfolio of images taken from the Marshall Group’s industry portfolio. The new Marshall gallery is in recognition of the generous donation to the IfM’s building fund and an appreciation of the Marshall Group’s generosity. The opening of the gallery captures the close relationship between the two Cambridge organisations.

The gallery was officially unveiled by Sir Michael Marshall, chairman of the Marshall Group with pictures depicting several highly acclaimed manufacturing achievements such as Concorde’s famous ‘droop nose’ – designed and built in the 1970s by Marshall Aerospace – and work underway in Marshall Aerospace and Marshall Land Systems hangars.

If your business has a special relationship with an academic organisation or has an interesting collection of objects or art connected with the business what better way to show it off than by incorporating it into your commercial building.  Experienced commercial builders CD Hood Ltd love a challenge and reception areas are perfect galleries for showing of your products, its history or celebrating special relationships between businesses.

It may not have been as harsh a winter as last year but as we know the winter is not over yet.  February is a good time to be making plans for any work that you might want to have done in the summer.  CD Hood Ltd experienced Cambridgeshire builders are always looking at the technology out there to improve on domestic or commercial building projects in Cambridgeshire. It is interesting to note that Sempatap Thermal insulation for solid wall homes was a massive hit with visitors to Ecobuild last year.   

You might have seen similar products on the likes on BBC 1’s D.I.Y SOS where they have used more and more Eco-friendly products to try and maximize the energy efficiency of the homes they work on.  With the increased cost of fuel and in particular trying to keep a solid wall home warm, everybody is interested in ways to reduce their heating bills.  Sempatap Thermal is the economical solution to insulating your solid wall home and there is now a Application DVD available which demonstrates how easy and quick it is to apply if you want to look it up.  

At CD Hood Ltd our experience as building experts means we are always happy to work with you to incorporate as many new technologies into your new build or retrofit of a building as you can afford or require. Insulating from the outside in is just another possibility to look at in the range of home improvements out there on the market.
 

CD Hood Ltd are experienced in loft conversion work and are used to working with architects and designers, an architect can be asked to prepare plans for your loft conversion if you want. We also suggest that you get more than one quote this will give you a better idea as to which company offers best value for money. But remember cost and value is not the same thing.

CD Hood Ltd like clients to look at previous work and talk to past clients to find out if they were happy with the quality of their jobs and the way in which they were carried out.

The cost of the job will vary depending on its complexity and where you live. A straightforward loft conversion for a three bedroom Victorian house in London might start from £30,000 whereas the same job in Lancashire might be closer to £20,000. If you are investing this much it makes sense to think about insuring the work.   There are several insurance-backed warranty’s that don’t cost the earth on the market and  provide the extra reassurance you might feel you need if something should go wrong while work is in progress.  They often last  for 10 years afterwards.

At CD Hood Ltd we are proud of our work and have lots of satisfied customers, but some are happy to pay a few hundred pounds more for peace of mind. And if they sell their house, the warranty is transferred to the new owner and can work as a selling point.

Cambridge loft conversion specialists CD Hood Ltd know the easiest way to tell if your loft is suitable for conversions is to see if you can stand upright at its highest point. But even if you can stand up, a dormer window extension will maximise headroom in the loft. Planning requirements often mean that this is put at the back of the house so it doesn’t change the house’s appearance from the street. For this reason, roof windows are commonly used at the front to provide light and ventilation.

A dormer is an extension to the existing roof, allowing for additional floor space and headroom within the loft conversion. Dormers protrude from the roof slope, normally at the rear of the property and can be built in a variety of styles. Internally, a dormer will have a horizontal ceiling and vertical walls compared to the normal diagonal sides of a loft conversion. Flat roof dormers tend to give the maximum amount of additional internal space although they do not look as attractive from outside the property. Gable fronted and hipped roof dormers look much more attractive but they often do not give as much internal space and will cost more to build due the extra complexity.

There are different types of dormer to check out- Gable fronted dormer - these are sometimes called a dog house dormer, Hipped roof dormer - a dormer with a hipped roof, Shed dormer - a single planed roof that is pitched at a shallower angle to the main roof.