-
Welcome to our blog, menfranco general blog
and this post, house renovating
-
House renovating
-
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.
-----------------------------
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.
-------------------------
This is:
This is:
Menfranco general blog,
House renovating
IS TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, raising the house
-------------------------------------
Some personal and religious links:
Some personal and religious links:
No comments:
Post a Comment