Walled medieval hilltop towns, renaissance palaces and stunning churches are some of the many attractions of Umbria.

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With wind and rain battering the British Isles you’ll be inundated with news of doom and gloom. Take away a little of the worry by learning how to prevent storm damage from affecting your home.

By steering away from home maintenance myths and taking a few simple steps you could save yourself from thousands of pounds worth of storm damage. Prevention is key, as is knowing how to repair damage caused by storms. In fact, the experts at Toolstation estimate that between preparation and knowing what to do when water leaks through your ceiling could save you well over £5,000.

So read up, get prepared and hunker down to wait for the storm to pass. Just make sure you’ve downloaded enough Married At First Sight on a fully charged iPad to keep you entertained should the power go out.

External storm damage preparation

Before the gusty winds and torrential rains hit, make sure the outside of your home is fully prepared for any potential storm damage.

1. Inspect fences and sheds

Image credit: Future PLC/Russell Sadur

Fencing can easily become loose during a storm, and sheds could be destroyed by strong winds and rain. Reinforce fencing to keep it strong. If you can, consider removing a few planks of wood on your shed to allow wind to pass through without destroying its structure.

‘If a storm rips apart your garden and sheds and fences get blown into neighbouring properties causing damage, it’s unlikely your policy will pay out according to the Association of British Insurers,’ warn the experts at Paving Direct. ‘This is because in some cases fences are excluded due to having a flimsy construction – so ensure you have taken care to bolster the strength.’

2. Clear out your garden

Gardens are full of potential storm hazards, so cut back or clear out overhanging branches and garden debris. ‘ It’s even worth your while examining the condition of trees and branches that are close to your home and if necessary – consider removing them,’ suggest the experts at Hillarys. ‘Although we’d advise to contact a tree surgeon first.’

3. Take a look at your roof

Image credit: Future PLC/Brent Darby

We’ve all heard – or seen – tiles flying off roofs because of string winds, so it’s imperative that you fully check the state of yours. ‘Check for any loose or cracked roof tiling, as well as the bricks around your chimney to ensure any wobbly tiles or slates won’t easily be flung from your roof by strong winds,’ say the team at Hillarys.

‘If you notice anything that looks out of place or not right, the best bet is to contact a professional and get them repaired. Also make sure to remove any dead leaves and debris from your roof guttering so that they can drain correctly. If not properly maintained, this can cause an overflow of water and result in further damage, especially with potential flooding from storms.’

4. Protect your car

Save your car from being damage by – or from causing damage. If possible, park it in a garage. ‘If you don’t have a garage, a trick is to cover your vehicle with padding and then a plastic sheet or waterproof tarp,’ suggests Nick Drewe, homes and interior expert at WeThrift. ‘As well as this, make sure your vehicle is not parked by or under a tree.’

5. Put away your bins

Image credit: cuckooland.com

This may seem obvious, but we’ve all been guilty of forgetting to bring our bins back in nearly as often as we forget to bring them out. In storms, a wheelie bin could hit another person, house, or car. Prevent this by making sure it’s secure and weighed down.

6. Secure aerials

If you have a TV aerial on the exterior of your home, double check that it’s fully secured. Otherwise, these can be torn off with the winds.

7. Look after your plants

Potted plants are liable for breaking during storms, so it’s best if you can put them somewhere sheltered.

‘When it comes to your taller outdoor plants, it’s important to note that heavy rain could cause heavy damage to these and even cause them to snap,’ warns Nick from WeThrift. ‘A key trick to preventing this is to push a wooden or metal support into the ground and tie your tall plant to it. This will provide your plant with a safety net amidst the wind.’

How to prepare for storm damage inside your home

1. Secure your house

Image credit: Future PLC/David Giles

Close and lock all doors and windows in your home. An errant open, or unlocked, window could cause indoor gusts, breaking your property and even allowing debris to fly in.

Additionally, power outages will cause most alarms to stop working, so it keeps you safe if there are any opportunists lurking.

2. Switch off unnecessary electrics

Charge up your phones and tablets so you’re ready if the power goes out. Then, before the storm, switch off anything not in use to avoid damage or electrocution. If the power does go out, turn all appliances off at the switch. ‘If the power suddenly comes back on, you may leave appliances on and unattended without knowing it, which may end up causing a fire,’ note the experts at Bionic.

3. Move valuables upstairs

Image credit: Future PLC/Rachael Smith

‘If you are likely to experience water entering the bottom floors of your house, then try to move your valuable items upstairs and out of harm’s way,’ suggest the experts at Hillarys. Try to focus first and foremost on items that have more sentimental value and that are unlikely to be replaced by your home and contents insurance, such a photos, memorabilia and family heirlooms.’

4. Protect your larger belongings

Put away heavy ornaments which might blow over or fall down, breaking themselves or injuring someone. Furniture is at risk of floods caused by storm damage, so if you can move any precious pieces then do so. ‘If impossible to move, try also wrapping the wooden legs of tables and chairs in plastic bags to prevent water soaking in and causing rot,’ say the experts at Hillarys.

What to do if you get a ceiling leak

Image credit: Bionic

Homes are at risk of storm damage causing leaky ceilings. If you notice rainwater dripping down inside, then there are steps you can take to minimise damage. The experts at Toolstation take us through these:

1. Dont panic

‘It may be easier said than done, but it’s important to stay calm. Often, the damage won’t look half as bad once it has dried out a little bit.’

2. Turn lights off at the mains

‘Whatever you do, don’t touch the light switch as this could give you an electric shock. Find the breaker box and completely shut off the power.’

3. Move furniture and valuables into another room

‘Move all that you can into a dry room and drape anything else with waterproof coverings.’

4. Use an empty bucket to collect water

‘Place an empty bucket under the leak. You may want to put an old rag or tea towel in the bottom to avoid that annoying dripping sound.’

5. Puncture a hole for water to escape

‘This seems counter intuitive, but you want to minimise the extent of the water damage. Use a screwdriver to pierce a hole for the water to escape through. This provides an exit point for the water, so it doesn’t disperse across the ceiling. If you don’t do this, the entire ceiling could collapse.

6. Cover the roof with tarpaulin

‘If you’re confident you know where the rainwater is getting in and can safely get onto the roof, you may want to consider covering the external surface with a tarpaulin. Of course, in many cases this isn’t safe and you should call a professional.’

What to do if your boiler stops because of storm damage

Image credit: Future PLC/Colin Poole

It’s not talked about as much as power outages, but a boilers can stop working due to storm damage, too. Keep warm by learning how to tackle this issue.

First, check if a reset is all that’s needed. The off-and-on-again approach isn’t just for TVs. ‘Alternatively, your boiler may also just be low on pressure,’ suggest the experts at Bionic. ‘To fix this you need to find the filling loop – usually the silver flexi pipe with either one or two black taps on. Then start to increase the pressure by opening your taps fully until they lock at 45 degrees. You should start to see the pressure gauge increasing. When it goes green, you’ll need to close the taps again. To find out how to top up the pressure on your specific model of boiler, check out your user manual.’

Always remember that it’s not safe to touch the gas pipes. So if resets or pressure top ups don’t work, make sure that you leave the boiler alone and contact a gas-dafe registered engineer to fix it.

What to do if storm damage does occur

It can be hard to think practicality when dealing with storm damage. Keep your family safe, keep electrics, water and gas off and call the relevant services for your issue and area.

Taking photographs of the damage should be your other consideration. ‘At such a difficult time, it is understandable that taking multiple photographs of the water damage within the family home might be the last thing on your mind,’ say the experts at Hillarys. ‘However, it is imperative to document the effects on your property in order to ensure that your insurance company knows the full extent of the devastation and recoup any financial losses.’

The post Storm damage – how to minimise the impact on your home appeared first on Ideal Home.

Along with Ninja, Instant is one of the brands that dominates the air fryer market. And the new Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 Air Fryer with ClearCook is one of three new Vortex Plus models they have recently launched. It features a viewing window not seen on previous Instant air fryers, but does it deserve a spot in our guide to the best air fryers?

At £119.99 this is the cheapest of the newly launched trio, partly because it lacks the OdourErase air filter feature seen on the next model up. Nevertheless, this is a great price for such a good quality air fryer.

This sleek black air fryer has a capacity of almost six litres which is enough for up to six portions depending on what you’re cooking, so it’s great for families. I enjoyed everything about this easy-to-use appliance, it was fantastically fast at crisping and browning everything I made in it. What’s more, in addition to air frying it can also roast, bake, reheat, grill, and dehydrate, making it a pretty useful addition to your kitchen.

Ideal Home rated: 5 out of 5 stars

Reasons to buy:

• Viewing window and internal light
• Removable tray insert
• Good capacity
• Touch control panel
• Useful range of functions
• Dishwasher safe basket and cooking try

Reasons to avoid:

• Instruction manual lacks advice on cook times
• Quite bulky

Instant Vortex Plus Air Fryer with ClearCook

Specs

• Material: Plastic
• Colour: Black
• Capacity: 5.7 litres
• Modes: Air fry, roast, bake, reheat, grill, dehydrate
• Weight: 5.15kg
• Power: 1700W
• Size: 33 x 30 x 37.9cm (h x w x d)

Unboxing

The Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 Air Fryer with ClearCook comes in a chunky box, but it’s not very heavy and there’s a handle on top which means it’s easy to move into the kitchen ready for unboxing. Upon opening the box I discovered one of my pet hates – polystyrene. Two large polystyrene inserts hold the fryer in position inside the box, but with so many appliance manufacturers phasing out this hard-to-recycle packaging, it’s frustrating to see it here.

Once on the kitchen worktop I’m immediately impressed with the sleek and minimal exterior of the air fryer. It has a smart combination of shiny and matte black finishes, and I don’t feel the need to hide it away in a cupboard. The viewing window on the front of the drawer doesn’t allow you to see inside unless the internal light is switched on, this ensures it looks neat and streamlined when it’s switched off. Additionally, the touch screen control panel remains completely black when switched off, so the only visible control is the silver dial.

The small instruction manual contains the necessary information on how to operate the air fryer, but I would have liked some guidance on cooking times and temperatures for common everyday foods. If you’re new to air frying this information would provide a useful starting point. Having said this, there are air fryer recipes on the Instant Brands app, lots of them are American recipes, but they’ll give you an idea of general cook times.

Using the Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 Air Fryer with ClearCook

It really couldn’t be easier to use this air fryer. I like the angled control panel, which means I don’t have to stand on tiptoes to see the menu. Once switched on, the controls illuminate, and the cooking modes are displayed. After selecting a cooking mode, it’s just a case of pressing the time/temp button and spinning the dial for quick adjustment of these settings. Plus, it remembers the last time and temperature settings you used, which is handy if you regularly cook the same foods. There is an audible beep when you’re pressing the controls, I didn’t find it annoying but it can be switched off if you prefer.

When you start a cooking mode the air fryer automatically begins preheating and then the display tells you to ‘add food’ once it’s hot enough. Another feature I liked was the reminder to turn food part way through cooking.

The basket has a chunky handle and pulls out with ease. The perforated cooking tray slots into the basket and is held in place with grippy rubberised sections on each of the four sides, this means it doesn’t fall out when you tip food out of the basket. Not only does it allow air to circulate around your food for great crispy results, but excess oil drips through the tray into the basket underneath, giving you even healthier meals. I like that it’s removable though, so you can get it out of the way if you’re using the air fryer to bake foods like bread and cakes.

Cooking bacon

This air fryer cooked bacon with impressive speed. Admittedly I wasn’t looking for super crispy results since I was cooking back bacon. However, with the air fryer set to 190oC the bacon was cooked in just six minutes, the fatty rind down the side of each rasher had started to render and crisp. I cut this part off before eating, but if you want it super crisped it might require a couple more minutes. I also timed the preheat stage which took around 2 ½ minutes – just enough time to get the bacon out of the fridge, open it up and grab a pair of tongs.

I love that there’s no grease splatter to clean up afterwards like there is when frying bacon. And also found it reassuring how much fat dripped into the base of the drawer, rather than ending up on my plate. For foods like bacon that cook so quickly, the viewing window is a great feature so you can cook it to perfection without opening the drawer every minute to check on progress.

Heating frozen food

Frozen breaded chicken goujons crisped up a treat in the air fryer. The packaging said they would take 20 minutes in an oven set to 200oC so I stuck to the same temperature in the air fryer. I wasn’t sure how long they would take so I set it to 15 minutes, but could quickly see through the viewing window that they would be done much faster. I turned them once and after a total time of just eight minutes, they were crisped and hot. But eight minutes seemed too good to be true, so for the avoidance of all doubt (and food poisoning) I stuck my food probe into one of the chicken strips to check they really were cooked all the way through – which they were. I was impressed.

I also tried out frozen Quorn sausages. It can be tricky to achieve a nice brown crisp coating on these meat-free sausages when cooked in an oven. Not in this air fryer though, they were crisp and golden in 10 minutes, far short of the usual 18 – 20 minutes needed in an oven. I brushed them with oil before cooking, just as I do when oven cooking them. But unlike in an oven, the excess oil dripped away and they crisped without drying out.

Making chips

With no recipe or guidelines given in the manual, I headed to the Instant app for guidance on cooking chips. I could only find a recipe for skinny fries, but used this as a basis for my chunkier chips. I peeled, chopped and rinsed my chips, then soaked them in cold water for 20 minutes.

This part isn’t essential, but it helps to remove excess starch from the potatoes and can lead to a fluffier result. After drying, I coated in two teaspoons of oil and some seasoning. With a couple of shakes part way through cooking to ensure they browned evenly, they took 25 minutes to reach a nice crisp and golden texture on the outside with fluffy potato in the centre.

Roasting vegetables

Finally, I roasted a selection of Mediterranean vegetables using the air fry function. I coated chopped peppers, courgette, red onion and portobello mushrooms in two teaspoons of oil and air fried at 200oC for 20 minutes, shaking occasionally for an even result.

I was looking for slightly charred edges on the peppers and onion, which can take an hour in my oven, so to get that in just 20 minutes was a real time saver. All the vegetables were nicely cooked and unlike when I do them in my oven, the peppers hadn’t gone completely soft and soggy, they still had a slight crunch which I enjoyed.

It’s worth noting that lots of steam is created when roasting these types of vegetables. And I had clearly positioned the air fryer a little too close to the wall because the tiles became quite wet with condensation. Additionally, the viewing window steamed up in-between the two pieces of plastic and this took overnight to dry out completely.

Cleaning

If you’ve got a dishwasher, cleaning this air fryer is pretty simple. Both the air fryer basket and the removable tray insert can be washed in the dishwasher. But even if you don’t have a dishwasher the non-stick coating means cleaning by hand is still a breeze.

The shiny touch screen control panel, as well as the shiny finish on the front of the basket, mean both of these can mark easily with greasy fingerprints. But I found it only requires a quick spritz with a kitchen spray and a wipe to clean off any marks. It can dry streaky though, but I buffed it with a tea towel or microfibre cloth and the shine was quickly restored.

Should you buy the Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 Air Fryer with ClearCook?

I really enjoyed using this air fryer. It’s got a decent capacity and can produce crisp, evenly browned food in super quick time. One of its great features is the viewing window in the front of the drawer. Together with the light, the window meant I could keep an eye on what was cooking. This stopped me from opening it up too often to check whether the food needed a turn or a shake.

The controls are intuitive to use and with six functions to choose from, it’s a versatile air fryer that’ll mean you no longer need to switch on the oven to heat and crisp lots of your favourite foods. In my opinion, it’s a brilliant air fryer, and the very reasonable £120 price tag means it’s a bit of a no brainer. To see more from Instant, take a look at our guide to the best multi-cookers.

About this review, and the reviewer

Helen McCue is a freelance contributor who trained as a Home Economist. After starting her career in the food industry, she moved into home appliance reviews, utilising her cooking skills and experience to put all kinds of products to the test, and over the years has reviewed hundreds of home and kitchen appliances for a variety of publications.

Having completely renovated her current house, Helen reviews kitchen appliances from her open plan kitchen at home in a beautiful Berkshire village. When she’s not working, Helen can be found enjoying the local countryside or dreaming about her next house renovation project.

The post Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 Air Fryer with ClearCook review appeared first on Ideal Home.