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UtILIty WEEK | 9th - 15th May 2014 | 31 Community Disconnector Editor: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen.bennett@fav-house.com; News editor: Jillian Ambrose, t: 01342 332061, e: jillian.ambrose@fav-house.com Energy editor: Megan Darby, t: 01342 332087, e: megan.darby@fav-house.com; Features editor: Karma Ockenden, t: 01342 332086, e: karma.ockenden@fav-house. com; Reporter: Mathew Beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@fav-house.com; Reporter: Conor McGlone, t: 01342 332083, e: conor.mcglone@fav-house.com; Business development manager: Ed Roberts, t: 01342 332067, e: ed.roberts@fav- house.com; Sales executive: Nicky Shaw, t: 01342 332070, e: nicky.shaw@fav-house. com; Publisher: Amanda Barnes, e: amanda.barnes@fav-house.com. General enquiries: 01342 332000; Subscriptions: UK £577 per year, Overseas £689 per year, t: 01342 332011.ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: Buxton Press, Palace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE. Published by: Faversham house Ltd, Windsor Court, Wood Street, East Grinstead, West Sussex Rh19 1UZ If a job's worth bungling… Come on, then, what did you do over last week's Bank Holiday? Did you lounge around watching TV or start one of those "little jobs around the house" that we all have on a list somewhere? Some have ambitious projects in mind – "retile the roof " maybe – but most of us have much more mundane tasks pending, such as insulating the lo or bleeding the radiators. However, according to a recent survey by Eon-UK, when it comes to completing even straightforward energy-saving tasks around the house, DIY stands for Delay It Yourself. A staggering 44 per cent of us start an energy-saving improve- ment in our homes but leave the job unfinished. Of those, 61 per cent wandered off halfway through bleeding the radiators. Almost as many (52 per cent) le the lo half insulated. Eon-UK sought to get to the bottom of why people weren't finishing the job, so it asked them: 25 per cent said it was because they weren't very good at DIY; 24 per cent said it was taking too much time; and 16 per cent confessed that they'd just got bored. Leave it out Mind you, according to another poll – this time from Anglian Water – the big problem with tackling DIY jobs around the Disconnector home is not leaving them half finished, it's starting them in the first place. More than half of DIYers polled in the East of Eng- land (Anglian's patch) admitted they'd had to call in professional tradespeople to complete jobs because they'd run into trouble and couldn't finish the job themselves. Of those who did finish the task they'd set themselves, almost two-thirds said it would probably have been cheaper to get an expert to do it in the first place, even though saving money had been their primary motivation. People spent an average of £237 on professional trades- people called in to complete the job. In five cases, householders admitted it had cost them more than £10,000 to rectify jobs that had gone wrong, which makes Disconnector wonder what they were trying to do in the first place – build an extension? Anglian's interest in DIY mis- haps has grown over the years as people have become interested in greywater recycling systems, thermal solar heating systems and the like, but have balked at paying professionals to install them. Increasing numbers of people are incorrectly plug- ging their rainwater harvesting systems or solar water panels into the drinking water supply, and then calling Anglian out because their drinking water tastes funny. The motto seems to be that if you want a job done properly – or at all, for that matter – you really are better off paying someone else to do it. Measure by measure You can't manage what you don't measure, goes the old saying. But it appears that today's leaders take this to its extreme. Eon-UK has just completed some research that found that nearly half (48 per cent) of business leaders in the UK track their home life perfor- mance as much as workplace efficiency. Seventy per cent of the 1,000 bosses surveyed said they tracked their home lives, with large numbers monitoring their performance in exercise and weight (41 per cent), sleep patterns (17 per cent) and social media followers (13 per cent), as well as financial outgoings such as energy and living budgets. One-fih said personal tracking makes them better business leaders. Creating pie charts and spreadsheets about your personal life seems like a great idea to Disconnector, although since he doesn't take any exercise and sleeps like a log, he may have to choose other parameters to measure. Cups of tea consumed of an even- ing, perhaps. Or the number of times he swears at the TV when watching Question Time. Hey, if you want to succeed in this life, you've got to be prepared to do the graph. 3,580 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2013 Subscriptions: UK £577 per year, Overseas £689 per year fhcustomerservices@ abacusemedia.com Emily Gosden @emilygosden Decc giving away £120m free home improve- ments, inevitably to be snapped up by savvy middle class. Why not spend it on fuel poor? John Sinfield @MD_KINE Good news on the new #greendeal cashback schemes announced today. Let's hope they provide enough of a kick to get things moving. Anne Marie Morris MP @AMMorrisMP Please that @Ofwat have provisionally accepted @SouthWestWater business plan to 2020. Bills down & investment up for my constituents Bryony Worthington @bryworthington While @Ed_Miliband stands up for renters @GregBarkerMP wasting tax payers money on rich home owners to rescue his failing Green Deal. Greg Barker @GregBarkerMP @bryworthington oh dear Bryony, cheap misleading partisan points: you of all people shld back increasing #GreenDeal ambition #LabourCarping Nick Clegg @nick_clegg Can't beat climate change on our own. Can't create green jobs unless we are in the EU. Guynewey @guynewey "The easiest way to get water to the urban poor … is to let them buy fully priced water from an efficient operator." Wayward Jax @WaywardJax I don't want a Smart Meter. We will be living with candlelight and sitting around a woodfire in the garden. Money paranoia! Dreadheadchic @foreverinmymind What is the point of wind turbines if 90% of the time it seems they are switched off?!! #windfarm #eco #energy 3WhitehallPlace @3WhitehallPlace We regret to announce our Interim Head of Woolly Jumper Obligation, Ralph Lauren, has left his post owing to overcosting issues Top Tweets