Amtico offers a fabulous range of colours and textures for all rooms in the house, and in our opinion it is a vastly superior product to most of its direct competitors. The range includes some very successful natural stone and wood effects that are hard to tell from the real thing.

With its thick stain-resistant wear layer an Amtico floor shrugs off dust and dirt, and makes cleaning quick and easy. A quick sweep with a dry microfibre mop is all that’s required on a day to day basis.

Amtico floors come with a 20 year warranty against normal household use when fitted by a qualified Amtico installer. If you have a busy household with children, frequent visitors or pets, Amtico flooring will keep its good looks for longer than most other floor coverings and as a premium product it will add value to your home.

If you are on a budget you might want to consider looking at the Spacia flooring range. Spacia is from the same people as Amtico and boasts a very wide choice of colours and finishes, the only difference being a less generous wear layer. Spacia floors come with a 15 year warranty against normal household use when fitted by a qualified Amtico installer.

Call us on the office number for a copy of the latest Amtico or Spacia brochures, or visit our showroom to see Amtico flooring on display.

This offer applies to the following appliances:
Freestanding: G 5100 SC, G5500 SC wh, G 5500 SC clst, G 5720 SC
Semi-Integrated: G 5725 SCi XXL, G 5935 SCi XXL
Fully Integrated: G 5575 SCVi XXL, G5885 SCVi XXL, G 5985 SCVi XXL

To apply for this fabulous offer, contact the Design Matters office for a claim form.

Our one-day training course entitled ‘The Basic Principles of Accessible Kitchen Design’ is aimed primarily at Occupational Therapists, as it assumes a certain level of understanding of various impairments requiring kitchen adaptation. However Case Managers, Architects and Personal Injury Solicitors might also be interested in becoming better acquainted with the issues surrounding kitchen design for their clients who are pursuing compensation claims to improve their independence and quality of life.

Adam Thomas is an acknowledged expert in the field of inclusive kitchen design and has many hundreds of successful designs to his credit for olderpeople, wheelchair users and people with a variety of conditions such as muscular dystrophy, muscular sclerosis, post-polio syndrome, acquired brain injury, arthritis, dementia and restricted growth. His ethos is simple: Kitchens can be fully accessible and attractive, and can be designed to last a lifetime. Find out more about the growing field of inclusive design, the fundamentals of accessible kitchen design, and the latest products and design techniques on our intensive one-day course.

We supply a lead trainer and assistant, and all training materials. You supply a maximum of 20 delegates, refreshments and a training venue. An extensive case study is included to bring the theory to life. New for 2011: Case study can be varied according to your training requirements.

Fees vary depending on the distance of the training venue from our headquarters in South Bucks. Contact Natalie Foskett our training coordinator for more information.

Our installation team spent much of the weekend prior to the event transporting and constructing our exhibition stand and installing a state of the art kitchen full of accessible features. This is a huge undertaking, however with each successive year the team gets better at creating a room out of nowhere, and the finished stand was superb.

As the exhibition opened, the office team took over to man the stand and run two training sessions in the CPD Seminar Theatre, led by Adam Thomas. The display kitchen, training seminars and digital presentation of our recent work were very well received. We now have our work cut out responding to all the enquiries we received on the stand!

Thanks to everyone who visited us at Naidex. Do visit us again soon to see more pictures, and to keep tabs on our progress.

With a stunning fully featured kitchen display on stand G106, and the opportunity to book an appointment with Adam Thomas our award-winning accessible kitchen designer, Naidex 2010 is the place to be if you are looking for kitchen inspiration.

Our Naidex display kitchen will feature an exciting new colour scheme for 2010, and a wide range of products and storage ideas for you to try out. Don’t forget to pick up a copy of our brochure while you are visiting the stand and chat to our helpful staff who are there to answer all your questions. There will be plenty to see and experience if you are looking for kitchen ideas.

If you would like to meet with Adam, please pre-book your time slot by calling us on the office number. There are a limited number of meeting slots available each day, so don’t delay in contacting us. Please bring along a rough sketch, or plans of your new kitchen space to make the best use of this unique opportunity.

Calling all OTs and health professionals! Adam will be speaking twice during the official Naidex seminar programme on accessible kitchen design. There is no need to book in advance for these sessions, just turn up on the day: April 21st at 1130h and April 22nd at 1330h.

Registering to attend Naidex is simple, just visit www.naidex.co.uk and click on Register Now to pre-register for quick and easy entrance on the day of your choice. We look forward to seeing you there!

• Quality kitchens for private homes
• Tailor made Accessible kitchens for disabled people – still receiving finishing touches
• Designer kitchens for private developers – still receiving finishing touches

With all-new images showing the different kitchen styles we can offer, and extensive portfolios of recent work, we are aiming to give you more ideas and inspiration than ever before. We are also entering the world of social media, with regular News items and plans to publish videos on the web. Please bear with us as we iron out any snags and put the finishing touches to our pages for Accessible kitchens and Private Developers. And visit us again soon to see the new content as it becomes available.

January 2010 sees the opening of our refurbished showroom in Flackwell Heath. It is always a challenge to design four kitchens to sit side by side in the same space, but the finished result is stunning, and a great illustration of the wide variety of kitchens now on offer.

The front of the showroom features a Ballerina kitchen with white glass doors, Miele appliances and a striking orange glass splashback. A beautiful Edwin Loxley painted shaker kitchen coordinated with a walnut pantry shares the limelight. Towards the centre of the showroom we are showing Rational furniture in book-matched Smoked Oak veneer with a coordinated Silestone worksurface and Gaggenau appliances. Finally,to the rear of the showroom, we have installed a shaker oak kitchen with Neff appliances and substantial Corian worksurfaces.

To complete the update, an LCD screen featuring images of recent projects is now the focal point of our meeting area. This is linked to a further screen at the front of the showroom, and is also networked to our office giving us internet access for quick product searches when discussing design ideas with clients.

The overall effect is breathtaking, and we are receiving great feedback from recent visitors who have caught us adding the finishing touches. Do make an appointment to pop in, and let us know what you think.

The kitchen industry expects to see a resurgence of interest in wooden kitchens, to provide warmth and comfort as the recession lingers, albeit in high gloss finishes. Exotic wood veneers continue to become more accessible and more beautiful as new manufacturing methods produce real wood imitations of rare veneers previously only available to the super-rich. These manufactured veneer products make book-matched doors more readily available and more consistent in colour and finish.

Add warmth to your finished room with fabric blinds and softly textured worksurfaces such as flamed or honed granite, especially when your kitchen doubles as a dining/entertaining area and you want to deaden the ringing echoes created by hard surfaces.

One final design tip as we enter 2010 is candy-coloured accessories for a splash of colour and cheer in an otherwise grey climate. For more inspiration visit our Kitchen Styles pages, and speak to one of our design consultants.

The alternative is to install a filter tap which will pay for itself in less than a year. Not to be confused with water softeners, where salt is  added to the water supply of the entire home, water filters come in the form of either a replacement tap with filter system, or a standalone filter cartridge that fits in the cupboard beneath any tap. Today we are can choose between a number of different water filtering systems according to health requirements and taste. The type of filtration offered by these systems varies, and this article sets out to demystify some of the options.

Brita offers a range of quality replacement taps with a separate control for filtered water, and a filter cartridge mounted in the cupboard beneath the sink area. Brita filters improve the clarity of water by removing limescale, chlorine and other impurities such as some pesticides and heavy metals. This  improves taste and creates a famously crystal-clear cup of tea. Brita cartridges last for around 500 litres of water treatment, and are widely available from high street retailers. Brita also runs an active recycling programme for used cartridges

Franke Triflow taps come in a range of prestigious designs and finishes, with a separate lever for filtered water. The system includes a filter cartridge mounted in the cupboard beneath the sink which removes a range of contaminants including – harmful bacteria, protozoan organisms such as giardia and cryptoporidium cysts, chlorine, foul tastes and odours, certain chemicals, rust particles, sediment and numerous other undesirable contaminants including particles above 0.2 microns in size. Franke Triflow cartridges should be replaced approximately every 6 months, are widely available in quality household stores. Franke runs a service to remind customers when cartridge replacement becomes due.

The  Zip Hydrotap delivers instant filtered boiling and filtered chilled water in a smart contemporary chrome pillar tap with its own drip tray and a special child lock.  The triple action water filtration system filters out dirt, rust and particles that contaminate drinking water, plus asbestos fibres and micro-organisms such as giardia and cryptosporidium. The filter timer is set to approximately 9 months, but this can be adjusted to take account of local water conditions. Replacement filters are available directly from Zip.

The Quooker tap delivers filtered boiling water on demand for much less than the cost of running an electric kettle, and is fitted with a child-proof push and turn handle for safety. The Quooker boiler comes with an internal high temperature activated carbon filter (HiTAC), which removes or significantly reduces many volatile organic chemicals (VOC), pesticides and herbicides, as well as chlorine, benzene, trihalomethane (THM) compounds, radon, solvents and other chemicals found in tap water. The integrated filter should be replaced every five years, and replacements can be purchased online. An additional in-line limescale pre-filter can be fitted in front of the boiler in particularly hard water areas to protect your Quooker boiler and also your dishwasher, for example. The additional pre-filter we use is the Everpure Claris system (below).

Everpure Claris Filters can be fitted into the kitchen cupboard beneath any tap, and combine excellent filtration with the option to tailor water hardness. These  highly efficient water filters combine ion exchange (changing scale ions into sodium ions for ’softer’ water), and a 5-step filter to provide a high level of particle and mineral removal down to 5 microns. Some coffee machines and steam ovens use mineral content to detect the presence of water, so the Everpure Claris Filter allows a blend of filtered and tap water to be set to the mineral level required to operate appliances properly without compromising on taste. Baristas choose Everpure technology to protect their coffee equipment from scale and at the same time gain optimum taste, and they know their customers can taste the difference. Water is blended to adjust the mineral content by the simple twist of a dial on top of the filter. On the inside Everpure Filters employ  Micro-Pure® precoat filtration technology which means superior chlorine and particulate reduction, and significant reduction in contaminants such as lead, cysts and asbestos. Everpure filters should be changed once a year, and claim to be six times as effective as the competition.

So what about the technology behind the phenomenon? Induction hobs have a strong electro magnet under the tough ceramic glass cooking surface. When a saucepan with a ferrous metal base is placed on the hob, the metal in the base of the pan completes an electric circuit which causes the molecules in the base of the pan to vibrate and generate heat. This causes heat to transfer to the contents of the pan. Simple.

Because the hob doesn’t generate heat by way of a conventional heating element, it uses 25% less energy than a conventional gas hob, and offers even greater fuel economy over electric plate hobs. Induction hobs cool down quickly, and are blissfully easy to clean. They come with a range of additional features such as child locks, safety cut-out if a zone is turned on and then left unattended, minute timers, and a special feature that knows the difference between a saucepan and an unattended spoon!

Apart from their remarkable safety credentials, induction hobs offer a huge range of formats. They come either framed in steel or frame-less. They can be controlled by push-button, by touch-control, or via a touch-slider. They can have from two to six rings, with special zones for fish kettles and woks, or on some models the entire hob area is ‘active’ at any time, which is useful for over-sized pans or even for several pans at the same time!

Test to see whether your pans are suitable for induction cooking with the aid of a magnet.  If the magnet sticks to the base of the pan, your pans will work with induction.

Special Safety Note on Induction Hobs:
Induction hobs generate short-range magnetic fields, and it is possible for these magnetic fields to affect the function of older pacemakers or other active implants. The likelihood of implanted devices being affected is low if the hob is being used correctly. Anecdotal evidence indicates that interference occurs only at very close range, causing the implant to pace at the programmed lower rate while it is in close proximity to the hob. Once distance is increased the implant reverts to normal operation.

All the induction hobs supplied by Design Matters comply with current standards on electromagnetic interference and are in keeping with prevailing legal requirements (89/336/CEE directives). They are therefore designed not to create interference with any other electrical items, assuming that the pacemaker or other active implants are also designed to comply with relevant legislation.

We would strongly advise that you make any users of your kitchen aware of this safety note and ask them to check with their doctor, or the manufacturer of their device in order to identify any incompatibilities. If you, a visitor or a member of your family has any concerns, then take the following precautionary measures:

•    Keep the implanted device more than 24 inches away from the hob
•    Avoid using metal utensils for cooking
•    Avoid touching pans for extended periods while in use on the hob

This information is the result of our own informal research, errors and omissions excepted.