Tuesday, October 20, 2015

House renovating

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG, IN ADDITION TO OUR OWN POSTS, WE HOPE TO BE ABLE TO SUPPLY SOME USEFUL INFORMATION TO OUR READERS, SINCE WE ARE GOING TO WRITE SOME DO IT YOURSELF POSTS.
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Welcome to our blog, menfranco general blog
and this post, house renovating
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House renovating
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Timber houses like this one are so easy to enclose and make a few more rooms under the house. When the house is not high enough it can be raised to the level you want. This is what we are going to talk about, starting with this post. Anyhow let us see what we need to do.




 House renovating 
D.I.Y if you can
Dear readers, in our last posts we have talked about stairs repairs or renovation and also fixing an old timber landing, of course there are lots of other things that need to be done on a timber building, so, in this post we would like to start talking about how to renovate a house.
There are lots of things that could be done to renovate a house, some of those things can easily 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 very expert at it ether, since they can take their time and learn as they go on doing the job, after all if they make a small 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.
As we all know, the timber houses of Brisbane Australia and also in other parts of the world need more maintenance than other types of building, therefore most people when there is a lot of maintenance to do they try to renovate. There are times when altogether the owners decide that they are going to raise the house higher and build another room or two underneath, this might sound strange in some countries that have only masonry houses, but with timber houses it could be done easily and it is very common, in fact timber houses I would say that they are the most versatile houses of them all. You see you could even move the entire house from one place to another; of course this should be done from some experts that specialize in house renovations or removals, as this requires a lot of know-how and a lot of very heavy equipment, but anyhow it could be done and the outcome of it is that it would be cheaper that building a new house from scratch.
Now that I have introduced the idea of what could 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 the house needs re-stumping, as some of 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 all that covered space could be put to better use if the house is raised, So, we need to think how that could be done safely and according to the local building requirements, as they may vary in different country or states.
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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, as long as there are no changes to the structure of the building, so, one could 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 these sorts of works are going to cost a lot, so before you make you last decision make sure you have a fair idea what they could cost you; you could ring a few firms that specialize in these sorts of work and hope that they are willing enough to give you a very rough estimate. Another way is to stop by where they are doing some 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 look for a firm that makes these plans, unless you have a qualified person that you already know, after that just 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 would cost, and also they could give you an idea of the cost and a few other things that you may have to do.
Once you draughtsman or architect has made the plans and they have been approved from the local authorities, it is time to have a few quotes from some 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 could decide this easily if you know somebody in this sort of work, if not go for a firm that is really specialized in raising and re-stumping 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 for them to raise the house and re-stump 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, and now you are waiting for them to turn up, so let us see what happens when they are raising the house to restump.
I believe that I have said enough in this post, so see you in out next post that we are going to call raising the house.

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 This is:  
Menfranco general blog, 
House renovating
IS TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, raising the house 
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