Dear readers, we could say that the timber houses in Brisbane, are a lot easier to renovate than the houses of solid masonry in Europe, so, we are going to show you, how this can be done. To understand this, look at these two picture of the same house. One is while works are bring done, the one hereunder is when they have finished renovating.
Welcome to our article, House renovating,
Dear
readers, today because some friends in the suburb that I live in, are going to
renovate their house, we have this opportunity to talk about house renovating.
Anyhow, we want to point out that the timber houses in Australia can easily be
renovated to various degrees, it all depends on what you want done, and how
much money you can afford to spend, just look at this house that is being
raised and renovated in Brisbane, look at the great difference of how this
house looks now, and how it was before. Today this house looks like a new
house, but it was an old house before these renovation works were done. So, in
this article we are going to talk about this house renovations and show you
some photos to see how the work progresses.
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House
renovating needs tradesmen
Now, in this article we are going to
talk about major renovations, so, it is not a DIY article. Anyhow, we have been
talking about building and how to do it yourself, in our last posts, we have
talked about stairs repairs and fixing an old timber landing, but there are
lots of other things that can be done on a timber building, so, in this post we
want to talk about how to renovate a house. We invite our readers to follow how
these things are done, and then, compare the difference.
There are lots of things that can be
done to renovate a house, some of those things can be done from the owners
themselves, if they know how to use a paint brush, a hammer and a saw and a few
other tools, they don’t need to be trades people ether, since owners can do a
lot of things to their own houses, they can take their time and learn as they
go while doing the job, after all if they make a mistake nobody will say
anything, as there is nobody to answer to, so, try to do some D.I.Y work
sometimes, you will be proud you did, you see I did and every time I see what I
have done, I am proud about it, it gives you a good feeling.
In this article, most of the work must
be done from tradesmen, because we are going to talk about raising and building
under an existing timber house, you see, by raising a house you can add more
living space to it, but there is a lot of work to be done and a lot of people
involved. We will talk also about some jobs that can be done from the owners
themselves, like painting the house after the house has been raised and fixed
properly from tradesmen, so that the owners can save money.
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Timber
houses are easy to renovate
As we know, the
timber houses need maintenance, therefore, most people when there is a lot of
maintenance to do, they try to relocate, but some will renovate. There are
times when the owners may decide that they are going to raise the house higher,
so that, they can build a few rooms underneath their house, this sounds strange
in some countries that have only masonry houses, but with timber houses it can
be done. In fact, timber houses are the most versatile houses, you see, you can
even move the entire house from one place to another; of course, this must be
done from experts that specialize in house renovations or removals, because
this requires a lot of knowhow and a lot of heavy equipment, but anyhow it can
be done, and the outcome of it, is that it is cheaper than building a new house
from scratch.
Now that I have
introduced the idea of what can be done with these timber houses, let us follow
one of these houses that the owners have decided to raise it higher and build a
few rooms underneath. You see, this house not only needs fixing and painting,
it needs also restumping, because the original wooden stumps are rotting away,
perhaps one or two have been eaten from the white ants, the house is too low to
make decent rooms underneath, at the moment it is high enough to park a car and
to store a few things, but that covered space can be put to better use if the
house is raised. So, we need to think first how that can be done safely, and
then, we must do that according to the local building requirements.
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Need to follow the local building laws
The local
building laws here in Brisbane Australia allows the owners to fix the houses,
replace the stumps and other things without consulting them, if there are no
changes to the structure of the building, so, we can change the stumps replace
any timber that is rotting away outside as well as inside and even carry some
minor alteration inside. For most people that is enough freedom to carry on the
works themselves, or employ a tradesman to do the job, but in this case of
wanting to raise the house and fully enclose underneath the local authorities
require the owners to submit a plan of the works they want to carry out.
Once you start
with plans and everything else you know that it is going to cost a lot of money,
so, before you make you last decision make sure you have a fair idea what they
can cost you; you can ring a few firms that specialize in these works, and hope
that they are willing enough to give you a rough estimate. Another way is to
stop by where they are doing similar works and ask the contractor or the owner
what is going to cost them. Anyhow, you need to know what it could cost you,
even if it is a very rough estimate.
You have worked
out what it could cost you and have decided to go ahead and do the job, so, now
look for a firm that makes these plans; after that tell the person you have
chosen to go ahead and make the plans for you, they should be able to tell you
what the plans can cost, and also they can give you an idea of the cost and a
few other things that you must do.
Once you
draftsman or architect has made the plans and they have been approved from the
local authorities, it is time to have a few quotes from builders or
contractors, some people suggest that you get at least three quotes, and I
think that it is the right way to go. After that you can chose who is going to
do the job for you. You can decide this easily if you know somebody that does this
work; if not go for a firm that is really specialized in raising and restumping
houses.
Now all the
decisions have been done, you have this firm that is coming to do the work, in
most cases you have to move out of the house for a few days, or a few weeks,
for them to raise the house and restump it. Here we need to point out that you
need to have chosen a firm that has good tradesman and enough of them to do the
job quickly, most of these firms know that and they are ready to do your job as
quickly as possible. So, you are ready to move out as soon as they need you to
move.
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Raising the house is a specialist job
These firms
that raise the houses and move them have a lot of heavy equipment, in our case
that we have only to raise the house and restump it, and later on enclose it to
make a few more rooms, and a second bathroom and laundry, they are not using
the big lorries to take the house away, but there is still a lot of work to do.
In this article we are going to follow the works in progress, to show you how
this can be done easily, if the right people with the knowhow and the right
equipment are employed.
Now, let us
assume that the house remover team has come to do the work; they start by
reinforcing the house with steel beams attached to the bears of the house,
because to make normal size room under the house, some stumps will be removed
for good, so, there will be less stumps to support the house, and the steel
beams will support the house, where the stumps have been removed.
They have done
that, and now they make two rows of these large piles of timber, made from
squares block of timber as shown in the picture beside here, they place across
these square timber-piles two long steel beams one on each side right through
the house, they put these big jacks under this steel beams three or four of
them on each side depending how long the house is, and they start working the
jacks up. They work as a team and they all pump the Jacks up all at the same
time, first on one side of the house and then on the other side of the house.
Once the house
is raised to a certain level, they pack more timber on these square timber
piles and work a way how to move the jacks to a higher level, once they have
done that, they start pumping the jacks up again, they will repeat this
operation several times until the required eighth of the house is reached.
Now that I have
described to you that, it does not sound that hard to do it, but in reality, it
is, because there is no room for mistakes, as a single mistake may put in
endanger the workers that carry out this dangerous job, because they are under
the house while they are raising it. Also, to do it, whoever does it needs a
lot of material, see the large piles of timer columns made up from these large
pieces of timber, they have to carry it around from job to job, not only that,
but also the large steel beams that they place under the house, so, that they
can use the jacks to lift the house, and all those jacks and other things, so,
you need teams that do this work, to be on the safe side.
Anyhow, the
team that raises the house, has successfully raised the house to the right
level, and checked that the house is level, so, now a different job needs to be
done, to replace the stumps with steel columns, or in some cases walls can be
built to replace the stumps, instead of replacing them with steel columns.
Anyhow, there are a lot of other things that need to be done as well. Sometimes
the same people continue to do this job, at other times another team is
required depending how this firm or builder works.
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THIS ARTICLE WILL CONTINUE WITH PART TWO
Earth work and steel columns. See you soon.
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