House renovating part two.

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. We are also writing several blogs about the Australian housing problems, to read all the blogs of this selected group about rentals click on this link, or copy it in the search bar and click on it.  

Now, let me paste of few links of my other blogs. 

 ( http://ifyoubelieveingod.blogspot.com/,) (http://manneedsgod.blogspot.com,) 

This blog can be found in full at this link, House renovating. 

There is a lot of work to be done when you renovate. In this case they will also reinforce the house with steel beams on steel columns. What you see in this picture, is painted steel beams ready to be installed under the house.  

Welcome to our article, House renovating, part two 

 Earth work and steel columns

Dear readers, because the original article was too long, we have made to blogs, and this is part two, so, let us continue. In this case under this house all the timber stumps had to be removed, and there was an old concrete floor that had to be completely removed and taken away, then the foundations for the steel stumps were dug, after that the steel stumps were fixed to the timber bears and the concrete poured after making sure that the building was level. While the concrete is setting and becoming stronger as the time goes by, a steel worker is making and fixing these steel braces in a few places, as it is shown on the plan, these braces attach two columns one to the other, one end of the brace is attached near the bottom of one column and the other end at the top of the other column, a second brace is placed in the opposite way, so that the braces form like an X, this bracing makes the two columns very strong, because it transfer the strength of the concrete foundation of this column to the top of next column, in a lineal way.

After a day or two when the concrete foundations become strong enough to take the weight of the house and the stress of any movement of the house above; the house remover will come back to remove their jacks, their steel beams and their piles of timber, then the house will be fully on the new steel columns.

Once the house remover team has taken away their heavy equipment, the builder will come in and start by digging the rest of the foundations and concreting them as required; and then, they work out of to lay a concrete floor slab under the house.

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Concrete slab and things to do next

Anyhow, the house raisers have come and gone, now a builder and concreter that lay the concrete floor come, they level the ground under the house, work out the level that the floor is going to be, and start boxing accordingly. After boxing around the house, they lay the steel reinforcement, as shown in one of our photos, they get it inspected. When they are ready, they lay the concrete floor.

Now that the concrete floor has been laid, and the house is setting permanently in the right position, the builder can start to reconnect all those things that have been disconnected to raise the house, so, the plumber, the gas fitter and drainer will come to reconnect these things, there are plumbers that can do those three things, so, you don’t need to call three individuals to do these jobs. It is very likely that the power needs to be reconnected from an electrician, and many other electrical works, not only for the old house, but also for the future rooms under the house, perhaps a new power box is required, anyhow, the electrician will know what to do. But that is not all.   

Because the house has been raised, now the existing stairs don’t reach the ground anymore, so, the builder needs to extend or replace the stairs. After that the house upstairs can be occupied again, if there are no other major works to be done.

Anyhow, after doing a few other things, the owners move back to live in the house, because they want to save money, as they are on a budget, they realize that they don’t have the money to finish everything, So, they decide to enclose under the house and finish the external walls only. The rest of the walls will be left bare for when they can save some money to do it. Here we can say that for the time being, all renovation works on the house have been done. To save money the owners are going to paint the house themselves, which is a job that most of us can do. But after all this works on the house, the garden is a mess and the owner will do that themselves, since they know how to do that. 

Gardening and other things involved

Now, the yard needs to be made nice again, starting from removing those pieces of building material that are left over. The ground needs to be levelled, because there are hips of dirt and the ground is uneven, what we are talking here is not that we want the ground level, like we do when we build something, but we want the ground to follow the natural gradient of the land. After the yard is cleaned and levelled, we need to landscape the yard, or at least plant some trees or shrubs and then lay some lawn.

There are many other things that the owners need to do as well, to make the house and yard look beautiful. You see, the owners want their house to look beautiful and inviting, to do that it costs money, so, most times the owners do it themselves.

But it is worth to make the effort. After all, when we visit somebody house, the front yard and the garden is the first thing that catches the eye, from this view in mind, we start to imagine what we can find inside and what sort of people are living there.

Having said that, now we can go back to talk about our house and its garden. The owner of this house that we are talking about have done a lot of work and have fixed the yard and the garden, as you can see from some of these photos beside this article. I believe that they have done a good job.

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Fencing and other things

After doing all this work on the house, now the house looks great, but there are fences that are so ugly that need replacing. So, these owners have replaced also some fences. They have also built a brand-new fence in the front, as you can see from to photo, in the original article, that you can see if you follow this link, House renovating, Today they still should finish the rooms under the house, and they will do that when they can save the money, but most of the work has been done and they are happy about it.

I think I have said enough in this article, so, see you in our next article, where we are going to talk about, Fixing the landing, Or something else. See you soon.

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House renovating part one

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. We are also writing several blogs about the Australian housing problems, to read all the blogs of this selected group about rentals click on this link, or copy it in the search bar and click on it, http://menfranco.blogspot.com, 

Now, let me paste of few links of my other blogs. 

(http://menfranko.blogspot.com,) (http://menfrancore.blogspot.com/,) ( http://ifyoubelieveingod.blogspot.com/,) (http://manneedsgod.blogspot.com,) 

This blog can be found in full at this link, House renovating. 

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. 

D.I.Y. house repairs.

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. We are also writing several blogs about the Australian housing problems, to read all the blogs of this selected group about rentals click on this link, or copy it in the search bar and click on it, http://menfranco.blogspot.com, 

Now, let me paste of few links of my other blogs. 

(http://menfranko.blogspot.com,) (http://menfrancore.blogspot.com/,) ( http://ifyoubelieveingod.blogspot.com/,) (http://manneedsgod.blogspot.com,) 

This blog can be found in full at this link, D.I.W. house repairs. 

In this blog, we are talking about hot to repair timber houses, this photo above is a typical workers cottage in Brisbane, it is a smaller version or the real Queenslander, just because it is smaller and more affordable. Anyhow, this is how this house when it was near new, but today, it looks different.  

 D.I.W. house repairs

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, House renovating. 

To see more click on this link, D.I.W. house repairs. 

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Bricklaying work is competitive.

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. We are also writing several blogs about the Australian housing problems, to read all the blogs of this selected group about rentals click on this link, http://menfranco.blogspot.com, 

Now, let me paste of few links of my other blogs. 

(http://menfranko.blogspot.com,) (http://menfrancore.blogspot.com/,) ( http://ifyoubelieveingod.blogspot.com/,) (http://manneedsgod.blogspot.com,) 

This blog can be found in full at this link, Bricklaying is competitive. 

Brickwork and Blockwork is a hard job to do, because most times people are paid according to how many bricks or blocks they can lay in one day. So, it is a very competitive job. Anyhow, we will explain all this is this article. Here I want to add, that this is how we were working un the past, when we were building many affordable houses.     

Welcome to our article, Bricklaying is competitive. 

Building workers need to be competitive;

It is a well-known fact that whatever we do in life, we need to be competitive these days, therefore we would like to do it better and faster than somebody else. Most people have this inborn need to excel in whatever we do; and those that don’t fall in this category, because they don’t care to do better usually they become losers, so, we are forced to act one way or another. For these reasons, we always try to challenge ourselves; we have to do that to be successful in life.

This need to do things better and faster also applies to the building industry, because the building industry needs to be competitive, perhaps to a higher degree than other industries, therefore it is very important that we would be able to build better and cheaper houses, because that is the only way that the buyers would be able to afford them, whatever they are houses or apartments, and then, when they are sold, the builders could build another one to sell again, since the builder needs money to build houses.

As we have said, we know that in whatever activities we are able to perform, we would like to do that better and faster, so that we can beat our competitors; so, all the trade people that work in the building are constantly looking for ways to improve their output; you see a tradesman needs to perform well, if he is going to be employed from a builder or contractor, because he needs to perform well to earn his wage and a bit more for his employer. So, if you are a bricklayer you must be able of laying a certain number of bricks or blocks per day before you would be employable, of course this can vary greatly depending on the job that needs to be done.

Now, in some of our previous building articles we have talked about brickwork, we have started with, DIY brickwork,  then we have written  Building a brick base, and then  House brick base continues, so, we have talked about a fair bit how to lay bricks in these three articles, anyhow these three articles were written to show some people, how to lay bricks and how to go about building this brick base, of course we have also pointed out how to lay more bricks by using bricklayers’ profiles and other things, but the aim was mostly for people that were not real tradesmen. But what we are writing here-under is for more advanced builders.  

For the block layer tradesman. 

Now, this sub-article here, we are writing it for the block-layer tradesmen, because we would like the block layer tradesmen to challenge themselves and see if what we are claiming here could be done more than just a few times; of course, to do that, we are going to show you how you could lay more Besser blocks in one day that you did before, but you need to follow some rules that we have found helpful ourselves. In this example we are going to make it easy and we are going to talk only about straight forward work, otherwise it is going to be very hard to achieve and also to explain or measure what we want to do.

As we all know, for the bricklayer to lay blocks is even harder than laying bricks, because the blocks are heavy, each block needs to be lifted with both hands and carefully placed softly on the mortar bed that the block layer has laid, so it is hard to lay many blocks in one day, but there are ways to make it a bit easier and a block layer could be able to lay up to 250 in one day, when the job is easy enough to do; so let us see how that could be done.

Now it is necessary to explain to the public, what happens in the building industry and how many bricks or blocks a tradesman is supposed to lay in one day. In the building industry the best tradesman would exaggerate a bit their capacity of laying so many bricks or blocks per day, so, we go around boasting that we are able to lay 1000 common bricks, or over 500 face bricks, or 200 eight inches Besser blocks in a single day. Here we need to say that perhaps we have done it once or twice ourselves, and we want to boast about it, as if we could do it every day; but really that is hard to achieve, anyhow if you have been able of laying down that many bricks or block even one time in your life, you are a very good tradesman. Now the reality is that on average, when we work on houses or small building at the end of a job the figure could be half of what we are boasting about. Now that we have explained that let us see how we could do even better. 

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Laying 250 Besser blocks in one day:

Now, let us forget about the average number or bricks or blocks that can be laid in one day, and let us concentrate on what we have said above, where we were able to lay 200 Besser block in one day and that is very hard even for a good tradesman, so, since we claim that we are going to be able to lay 250 eight inches blocks in one day, we need to explained it clearly, how it could be done, and that is what we are going to do just now here under:

In order for a block layer to be able of laying 250 blocks in one day, everything and every movement should be planed, so that there is no waste of time and energies. So, how could we achieve those 250 numbers of blocks to be laid is explained here under. 

Now, to do that, it should be a straight forward job, let us say the walls are long and you are on a level platform, let us assume that we are working on a concrete slab, so the place is level and there is plenty of room to move around, the walls have been marked where they should be, so all you have to do is to lay these eight inches’ blocks. Now to do this job efficiently it required team work, so, if you are the block layer, you need to instruct your labor how you want to set up your mortar board and the blocks that you should lay.

Ideally you want the mortar boards to be set off the ground, so, the labour should put a couple of blocks on the slab and set the mortar board on them, they need to be set at least two feet from the wall and about 6 to 8 feet apart, you see here you want to give more room to the labour for the blocks; then instruct you labour that when he brings the blocks he should set the blocks between the mortar boards standing up, so that you don’t have to handle the blocks many times; this is how the labour should set everything up. But what’s about you the block layer; what do you need and how you proceed to lay those 250 blocks.

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The block layer procedure. 

The block layer first of all lays one block in each corner; and then he stretches his bricklayer line between these two blobs and lays the first course of blocks as usual making sure that all blocks are straight and have an even vertical joint, if everything is done the correct way, because the blocks have been made to cover 400 mm each in the wall, but their true length is 390 mm, if you measure the wall it should be an even number divisible by 100 mm and minus 10 mm. So if a wall is 10 metres long and you follow this rule strictly, you will end up with a wall 9.990 meters long, of course this could easily be adjusted from the block layer by making a few joints bigger or smaller as required.

The reason why, we have written about these lengths above is that we want to point out to some people that want to lay blocks themselves how to work with blocks, so, let us explain it in another way: when we work with blocks it is a lot easier for us to follow the gauge, because they have been made to cover an even number when laid, so, a 200 series block is 390 mm long 190 mm wide and 190 mm high, but when laid in the wall because we have to add the mortar joint it covers 400 mm in length and 200 mm high, so this is the gauge that needs to be kept, of course sometimes the length in the building do not work with the length of the blocks and this may cause a few problems; but whatever problems there might be, it is advisable that you don’t try too hard to adjust it by making the joints too big or too small; you can try to make the bed and vertical joint smaller if possible and it is still going to be a good job done, but if you try to make them bigger it becomes very unsightly.  

Of course, now we need still to write how a tradesman block layer could be able to lay 250 blocks in one day, in order to lay that many blocks he must set everything the right way from the start, so, let us describe how that could be achieved. We have mentioned above a wall about ten meters long, but it could be any length as long as it is not very short you can use the following method. After laying the first course of blocks you build the two corners, say four blocks high and you set your bricklayer line on these corners. Now make sure that your labour has brought the blocks and placed them between the mortar boards standing up us we have described above, this will save you the bricklayer to lift the blocks in that position before you place the mortar on them for the vertical joints.

Okay, everything is ready to go, tell the labour that he can wet the boards and fill them with fresh mortar; now pick up a plaster hawk and your bricklayer trowel, fill up the hawk from the mortar board and start laying the mortar on the block ribs on both sides, you see the blocks ribs are narrow and you cannot use a full trowel of mortar straight from the board, well you can but it is going to be hard to drop the right amount of mortar on the ribs, so by using the hawk you can pick up a small amount of mortar from it and place is straight on the block ribs, by doing this you will be able to lay your mortar bed a lot faster without bending to many times, so you can save time and energy, it is up to you if you lay the mortar bed for the entire course, or only part of it, it may depend on the length of the wall and other factor, and a good bricklayer knows what to do just by observing a few things; now that you have laid the mortar bed place some mortar for the vertical joint on the blocks that are already standing up, then leave your hawk and trowel on the mortar board; you see you have to leave these tools there because you need both hands free to lift up the blocks, here you have a choice, you can lift just one block carefully lay it on the mortar without squashing it  and tap it into position with your trowel and when necessary even a hammer, now you can lift one block at a time and tap it into position, or a few blocks and then tap them into position, it is up to you whichever way you prefer.

Anyhow, what we have written above is how you could be able to lay more blocks with less effort, it is worth to try, as we have tried it and it works. I hope that I have been able to explain this procedure clear enough for our readers to follow. 

This is all for this article, see you in our next article,  D.I.W. house repairs. 

To see more click on this link, Bricklaying is competitive. 

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Mix your own cement, part two

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. We are also writing several blogs about the Australian housing problems, to read all the blogs of this selected group about rentals click on this link, http://menfranco.blogspot.com, 

Now, let me paste of few links of my other blogs. 

(http://menfranko.blogspot.com,) (http://menfrancore.blogspot.com/,) ( http://ifyoubelieveingod.blogspot.com/,) (http://manneedsgod.blogspot.com,) 

This blog can be found in full at this link, Mix your own cement. 

 How to Make Concrete Even Stronger: 6 Steps (with Pictures) 

To make concrete even stronger, you need to use steel rods or mash, and place it in the right position, before you place the concrete, this picture above shows you one exsample. But we must say that usually there are plans to show you what steel to use, and how. hereunder is a link that will help you inderstand some of these issues. 

 How to Make Concrete Even Stronger: 6 Steps (with Pictures)

 

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Welcome to our blog, Mix your own cement. part two.  

As we have said before, because this article was too long, we have split it, and this is part two, so, to make sense, you should keen in mind what we said in part one, and follow. 

 

Mixing mortar, plaster, or cement topping.

Anyhow, in part one we have described how to mix concrete by hand and by using a mixer, the same ways can be used to mix mortar and/or hard plaster or cement topping etc. So now, we do not need to explain step by step how to mix them, but we will describe only the different amount of things that are used; but try to remember that when you mix by hand, it is a lot easier to mix the dry materials first and then add water, but when you use the mixer it usually is better and quicker to start with the water first.

To mix mortar for the bricklayer.

Just by using brickies loams and Portland cement, this mixture by volume is most likely 4 part brickies loams to one part Portland cement, but it could vary from (3 to 1) to (6 to 1) the aim here is to give the bricklayers what is easy to work with, and at the same time you don’t want to make the mortar a lot stronger than the bricks when it dries, and you don’t want to make it too weak for the job you are doing, so, it makes sense to see what the bricklayer reckons is good enough for the job; sometimes when making mortar you can replace part of the Portland cement with hydrated lime, plus other things to make the mortar easy to work with.

Mortar for cement blocks

The mortar for cement block is usually three parts fine plaster sand and one-part cement, it is a bit different from the brickie’s loams, as it is thicker and stronger and very close to the block’s colours when dry.   

To mix cement plaster to plaster walls.

This mixture is usually 3 parts plaster sand and 1 part Portland cement, in some countries where lime is easier to have than cement it can be made by using a mixture of lime and cement for the interior, we believe that there are a lot of old places that they have used lime only, the cement mixture is used wherever it is too wet.

Cement topping.

This mixture is usually 3 parts river sand to 1 part Portland cement; it can be used straight on the cement if it is still green, but when the cement is dry you need to make sure it is clean and rough for the cement to bond, you may have to use tools to indent the existing concrete, then you have to wet the cement and also you may need to use some cement bounding agent and/or paint to concrete with this cement glue called Weldbond or  Bondcrete or whatever and place the topping cement according to the instruction supplied, if these concrete glues are not available, you have to wet the concrete that you have to lay the topping on, then make some slur of water and cement and somehow work it in with a brush as if you paint the concrete, and before this starts drying lay your topping on it. 

These three mixtures plus the concrete are the main things that are required when we build with cement, of course, for those people that do not know how the different materials look like, is still hard to understand the hole procedure, but if they read a few times what we have said, they should have a fair idea of what we are talking about. Anyhow, I have described several things already, but I think that I need to describe how to mix mortar with lime only, as it was done in the old days and here I am not talking just hydrated lime that you can buy at the hardware store, but I am talking about quick-lime as it comes from the kiln and slacked lime. 

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Lime use in building.  

Quick-Lime and slacked or hydrated lime

Today when we talk about lime, we see a bag of white powder that we buy at the hardware store, we know that we can use this powder to replace some cement when we make mortar, but we don’t know much more than that, But lime is a lot more than just a white powder in a bag, because lime is one of those materials that has been and is being used a lot in many ways, its’ largest use is in making mortar for the master builders, but it has other uses also. So, let us talk about lime and where it comes from, so that we can understand its several uses, of course, here we are mainly interested about its use in the building industry for making mortar etc. But there is more to say about lime, but before we do that let us check out how the Wikipedia explains quick lime etc. Where you can find a lot of information about lime if you care to know, click on the links.

Slaked or Hydrated Lime

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From the Wikipedia:

   Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely usedchemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term "lime" connotes calcium-containing inorganic materials, which include carbonates, oxides and hydroxides of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, and iron predominate, such as limestone. By contrast, "quicklime" specifically applies to a single chemical compound.

Quicklime is relatively inexpensive. Both it and a chemical derivative (calcium hydroxide) are important commodity chemicals.

   Calcium oxide is usually made by the thermal decomposition of materials such aslimestone, that contain calcium carbonate (CaCO₃; mineral calcite) in a lime kiln. This is accomplished by heating the material to above 825 °C (1,517 °F),^[5] a process calledcalcination or lime-burning, to liberate a molecule of carbon dioxide (CO₂); leaving quicklime. The quicklime is not stable and, when cooled, will spontaneously react with CO₂ from the air until, after enough time, it will be completely converted back to calcium carbonate.

Annual worldwide production of quicklime is around 283 million metric tons. China is by far the world's largest producer, with a total of around 170 million metric tons per year. The United States is the next largest, with around 20 million metric tons per year.^[6]

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As we have said, lime has been used for a very long time its use could be prehistoric, nobody seems to know when it was first used in making mortar and plaster for buildings and for other things, it was/is used even to disinfect places, when there is no much else to use, and I know that there is a lot more to say about the use of lime even today; up to the time when I was young it was used even to whitewash the walls in spring once a year, after a long winter all the walls were darkened with smoke, because if you wanted to keep warm you needed to light a fire in the chimney, so, the smoke of the fire would find the way into the rooms instead of going all up the chimney, I am pretty sure that even today this is the cheapest way of cleaning rustic building, as, it is one of the cheapest ways to make everything clean. But let us tell you it’s use as a building material to make mortar.

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From quick lime to hydrated lime. 

From quick lime to slacked lime the old ways

Here we are talking about the late forties and early fifties, when I was young learning what was happening around me, so, hereunder we will be writing about what I saw and learned at that time about lime products and its uses. 

In the town where I come from in southern Italy; in the early fifties when there was a new building to be build or alterations to existing buildings to be done, one of the first things we would see was that the master builder would get ready a good supply of slacked lime, because this was one of the most important building materials, he needed to do the job. In those times bagged hydrated lime and cement was very expensive, and bagged cement has a short life shelving span, as it reacts when humidity infiltrate the bags, therefore, most people or builders that needed to build used lime wherever they could; they would buy quick lime and get it process immediately on delivery themselves or with the help of the people that delivered it, of course, one needs to know how to do that, because it is dangerous while you are doing it. Now, let us see how it was done, and then we will tell you where else the lime was used.

Anyhow, the master builder before delivery had to build a square wall like a box, and in this large box he would process the quick lime, because the quick lime cannot be held the way it is for any length of time, because it reacts to humidity and violently to water, so, it is necessary that it is turned into slacked lime as soon as possible after delivery.

 Okay, the cart or the lorry is on the way, so, the master builder gets his worker to start filling the pit with water, and when the quick lime arrives they start carefully throwing this burned lime stones into the pit in very small quantities, as soon as the quick lime comes in contact with the water it reacts and the water starts boiling, everybody is banned to approach the pit accept the people that must work there, and they ware some protective gear, because it is dangerous to handle quick-lime and around the pit, this process goes on until all the quick lime is thus treated, once they have done that it is left to cool down for a few days; after it has cooled down it is a lot less dangerous, but still you need to be careful near the lime pit. You see, the lime pit is now filled up with slacked lime, which looks like curd when you make cheese, but it is still dangerous and it can easily kill you if you fall in it, its contend must be handled with caution, but anyhow the slacked lime is now ready to be used, this is how the builders used to get ready the lime to make mortar. Now to use this lime to make mortar is different from using bagged hydrated lime or cement; so, we are going to tell you how to make mortar with slacked lime.

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How to make mortar with slacked lime. 

This is how I know it was done in the old time, perhaps for thousands of years, anyhow, let me describe the procedure. Let us suppose that you have the slacked lime in the pit or in a container; you have brickies loams or fine sand, so, let us start:

Start by making a hip of your sand on a platform; now that you have done that, make a well in the centre and place your slacked lime in it. The quantities in here may vary a lot more than when we use cement or hydrated bagged lime, because the slacked lime can be as liquid as thickened cream to as compact as feta cheese, so, you have to learn as you go about the quantities, but if you have mixed mortar before, you soon work it out yourself, or if there is any tradesman that is going to use the mortar he can tell you just by looking at the mortar being done, whether you need more lime or more sand and water etc.

Okay, now that you have the lime in the middle of the sand, with a Larry start pushing this devise up and down through the lime by adding a bit of water as needed and slowly mixing some sand with the lime; you need to do this until you have mixed the whole lot evenly. This is hard work but that is how it was done when there were no mixer and no bagged hydrated lime around.

Here we need to note that this mixing of slacked lime to mix mortar is completely different from mixing other mixture, because the slacked lime is already wet, and it is like a paste.

Now, let me talk about, lime use in farming.

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Lime use in farming. 

You know, lime is a very useful commodity, in fact they are countless places where we can use it, I only happen to know a few of them, so, let me say a few things about how we were using lime in our small family farm at the time when I was young, just the way I remember it:

We would use it like the builders use it when we had to repair or replace a few stone that were falling apart in the old stone building, so, instead of using clay like the first time, we would mix a small quantity of mortar using lime and sand; then, we used lime to whitewash the farm house, the stables, the pig stay, the chicken coop and sheds or other buildings near the farm house once a year in spring.

We could use it to disinfect stagnant water ponds that showed signs of vermin, or the water were too dirty, so, we would dilute some lime in water and then pour it in the water ponds, and next day the ponds would be clean, as the lime would kill the vermin and would make the water clear because all the dirt would sink to the bottom of the pond; you see, in our small farm we used to have a kitchen garden, so, we would dig up a few ponds beside the garden that would feel up with water during winter or when it rained, we used this water to water the plants when the soil was becoming too dry for the garden plants to grow.

In the farms of those days lime was also used to spray vines and trees, sometimes there were diseases that could be controlled by applying a coat of lime to the trunk of those trees; but there is one thing that always comes to my mind; it is when we were spraying the grape vines with a copper sulphate and lime, we would have two containers one with diluted copper sulphate and one with diluted lime, some people used to spray first with copper sulphate and then with lime, so that they would help each other to kill the mildew, but my grandma had worked a way how to avoid this double spraying and it worked thus;

In those times it was not like today and even the vine spraying pump was a devise that you would put on your back, and with a handle that you moved up and down you would spray your vines and trees as well; this devise could hold about three gallons of liquid, so, every now and then you needed to fill it up; as I have said we had two containers one holding diluted copper sulphate and one with diluted lime; (of course you had to know how much diluted you had to do your mixtures but that does not mutter here this time) anyhow, when the pump was/is empty you would go to these containers to fill it up: here is my grandma way to avoid to spray twice, when filling the pump, first of all you had to make sure than the mixture were well stirred, then you would put the copper sulphate in the pump and at the last minute you would add the lime, and immediately start to spray. This was my grandma way and it worked because the mixture would not have time to settle down and become stale. There you are this is just another way of how lime is useful in the farms.

Anyhow, I think that this article is too long, and I have said enough about how to mix your own cement or mortar, about lime and lime use in farming, so, see you next time with our article, Bricklaying is competitive. 

To see more click on this link, Mix your own cement..  

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