Welcome to our article, D.I.Y. house repairs. D.I.W. house repairs
Timber houses repairs or renovations.
Dear
readers, in our previous DIY articles we have talked about, how to lay bricks in, DIY brickwork , and other articles about building, the
last one, Bricklaying needs to be competitive. In this article, we want to talk about
house repairs and renovations. Since we have talked about brickwork, concrete
work and block work, but today we are going to change, it will be a mix up of
trades including timber work.
You
see, if you want to do any job on old houses, you need to know how to do a bit
of this and a bit of that, so, you don’t need to be a carpenter to cut a few
pieces of timber, drive a few nails, paint the house or build a wall.
Because,
if the work is for your house, you do not need to be a tradesman, except for
those trades that are forbidden from bylaws, since it is dangerous if you make
mistakes; like electrical work or plumbing work. So, don’t do electrical work,
except changing a light bulb, and plugging in any electrical devices; plumbing
work you can change a tap washer valve, or unblock the kitchen sink drain, if
you have the right tools, and that’s all. Other trades you can do it ourselves.
Anyhow, let us
talk about what we can do ourselves, if we own a timber house say in
Queensland; we want to talk about Queensland houses, because that is the place
I have been living for many years and I am writing from, therefore, I know most
about what can be done here legally, in other parts of the world it can be different.
Now let us talk
about the timber houses, the timber houses need a lot more maintenance than the
brick and masonry buildings, because they need to be painted regularly,
otherwise the exposed timber outside can rot, and then you need major repairs,
but not everything affects these timber houses in a negative way, because they
are easier to fix and to do alterations, compared to bricks and mortar
buildings, so, let us see what most people can do, if they own a timber house
and they want to repair it, or do renovation and alterations. Now, let us talk
about the latest work I have done, which was replacing some flooring on the
veranda and then replace a set of old timber stairs with concrete treads. To
replace the timber flooring was easy, because you need to pull the old rotten
board out and replace them with new ones, to replace the stairs was a lot
harder, because first I had to decide what I wanted to use, as the existing
stairs were rotten beyond repair, but let us see what I did.
Repair or replace stairs.
I am writing
this article now, because after fixing the patio floor I had to replace the
front stairs where I am living now; I knew that the stairs were rotting away
and soon or later we had to replace them, but I was trying to delay it as much
as I could, because stairs are not easy to build and anyone that attempts to
fix or replace them will find it hard to do unless he knows how to build them.
But since I am a bricklayer, I knew what to do.
But even though
I knew what to do, because of the several set of brick stairs that I have built
as a bricklayer, I did not like to do this job. However, one day I saw that the
timber stairs were becoming dangerous, because the timer stringers were rotting
away and some of the treads were just about to fall out or break if a heavy
weight got on them, so, this job that I was trying to delay suddenly became
urgent, because this steel brace that was holding them tight together suddenly
broke.
I did not want
to replace this set of timber stairs with brick stairs, because brick stairs
are very expensive, they take a lot of bricks, a lot of concrete and a long
time to build, you see, brick stairs are built where a building is made of
bricks. We can say that they are the most expensive to build using just simple
building materials. Now at the same time I did not want to get somebody to make
new timber stairs because today they are very expensive and the timber is not
of that grade that lasts a long time, as it used to be.
The story of
this set of old timber stairs is thus; I have been living in this house for a
long time, and over twenty years ago I fixed this same set of stairs that were
rotting at the bottom by cutting a few treads at the bottom and then building a
concrete pathway higher than the existing ground, this was easy to do because
of the sloping ground, in fact, it worked out well because we did not have to
walk first downhill and then walk up the stairs.
Building the new stairs.
Now the problem
is different because we need to replace all the steps. So, I was thinking, we want a new set of
stairs that are not expensive, they must last a long time, they are almost
maintenance free, so, how we can achieve that?
After thinking
it over we decided to build a new set of stairs using concrete treads on a pair
of galvanized steel stringers; you see these two types of material last a long
time as they don’t rot and because of that they are mostly maintenance free;
they are ready made and available if you shop around a bit in Brisbane QLD.
Anyhow, I remember that a few years ago, I lot of suppliers had them in stock,
today you must look for them.
Anyhow, it pays
to look at direct supplies, because they may have a larger stock to choose
from, so, I did, and I saved money as well. I bought my concrete treads from a
concrete product supplier; this is their link;
Crosby Concrete Products - Domestic Concrete Step Treads ..,
Anyhow, I went
there and picked them up and saved some money, you see it pays to shop around
and see what your best deal is.
Buying
galvanized steel stringers
Next, I bought
a pair of galvanized steel stringers from Scott Metal, here I did not save a lot,
but they were the closest with a reasonable price, so, I went there and picked
them up.
This is their
web address; www.scottmetals.com.au/, Scott Metals,
Woolloongabba Brisbane - Metal Manufacturers
I visited the
closest hardware to buy some bags of concrete, these bags of ready to mix
concrete cost more than is used to cost, but this is what is readily available
today; I bought also a couple of galvanized brackets that I could lay in the
concrete to hold the hand rail firmly up and some screws. These are the main
materials that I needed to do the job, as for the handrail, I was using the old
handrail. All I had to do is to fix the handrail to the timber post that would
be fixed to the galvanized brackets at the bottom of the stairs, any other
adjustment would be done while working on site. So, let us replace this set of
stairs.
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Describing our step-by-step procedure.
Now that we
have bought the materials that we need to replace this set of stairs, we are
going to show you, how we did this job.
First, you need
to remove the old set of stairs; but before you do that you need to know if
there is anything that you can save, in my case I decided that I could save the
old handrails, if I could keep them attached to the house, and so I did. To do that,
I cut all connection between the handrail and the rest of the stairs that had
to be demolished. After doing that, I started to remove the old timber treads
one by one, you see you need to be careful here, because they are heavy, and it
is easy to get hurt. Anyhow, you need to use a sledgehammer to knock the treads
out of there housing, because some of them may still have some old nails
holding them in place. After you have removed all the treads you remove the old
timber strings, here again you need to be careful specially if they are long
and heavy.
Next step you make
sure that the part of the house that you are attaching the new stringers is
solid and if it is not fix or replace whatever it is needed. Then take one of
the steel stringers and lift in position to see if it fits and where it ends,
because you may have to dig a hole in the ground if your stringers have an in-ground
leg. To do that, you should get your stairs approximately in the right
position, once you have done that, you need to work out the height of the top
step; because the top step needs to be the same height of the rest of the
steps, so, this is one of the critical measurements, the other one is the
distance between the two stringers, as we will explain soon.
Now, mark the
centre of the stairs and sit the two stringers at the same distance, generally
the top flange of the stringers would be level or one inch below the existing
floor, which will be your last step. Temporary fix the two stringer with a
small coach screw each at the distance that you have worked out, these screws
are only temporary but they should be strong enough to hold the weight of the
stringers easily; now if you are using concrete treads you virtually need to
fit the top tread on the two stringer, you need to do this because the holes
for the bolts of the concrete treads most time are not in line with the holes
on the flange that holds the treads, then fit also your bottom tread on the
stringers. If everything has been marked right the treads should be level both
ways (level the full length and level across) and the top tread should be the
same height as the rest of the stairs, if they don’t work out the first time
make any adjustment necessary. Once you have achieved that you can fix the top
flange properly with larger coach screws or bolts.
Now that we
have fixed the top of the stairs to the existing building, we need to fix the
bottom with bolts or concrete. So, let us assume that we have to concrete the
two legs of the steel stringers; here we need to make sure that we have dug
deep enough and there will be about 6 inches of concrete under the stringer leg
and also that the holes we have dug allows about 4 inches of concrete around
the legs. Here we need to say that if the bottom treads that you have placed at
the beginning to get the right distance between the stringers is in the way,
you need to change it one step higher, but keep it as close as possible at the
bottom, just because the stringers might move and then you will not be able to
fit the rest of the concrete treads, in fact, if it is possible and you can
think of something that can temporary hold the weight of the entire set of
stairs, then you may as well place all the treads on except the bottom one and
then concrete, after concreting you can also fit the last tread and the job is
done.
Here I need to add that you might need to see the photos of the original article, at this link, D.I.W. house repairs, to understand better what we are talking about.
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Other repairs or renovations
For
instance here in Queensland most houses have a roof over their patio (veranda)
most houses have too much space for verandas, (these are spaces that have a
roof on them but they are open and have a handrail around for safety reasons if
the building if off the ground) so, if an owner feels like that he is short of
space in the house and he needs a small room for the kids or a study, he can
enclose some of the veranda space and have an additional room at this house,
because there is no structural alterations and the roof is already there, this
can be a D.I.Y. job, as long as you know enough how to do it. Anyhow, this is
just an example how easy it is to do some repairs or small alterations to these
timber houses.
This is all for
this time. See you next time with our article,
To see more click on this link, D.I.W. house repairs.
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