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Timber houses repairs or renovations
Timber houses like this one need a lot of maintenance, but they are easy to repair, if you know how, anyhow in this page we are going to talk about how to repair, or perhaps we should say replace the stairs that are rotten. Of course there are a few way that this job could be done and we have chosen to replace them with concrete treads; Anyhow here you can follow our text how we did that job and if you would like to see more picture, then click on the link at the top, that link will take you in hub pages, where we have published this article with lots of pictures.
Timber houses repairs or renovations
D.I.Y. house repairs
Welcome to our article, D.I.Y. house repairs and alterations.
Timber houses repairs or renovations
In this
article we would like to talk about house repairs and renovations. Since we
have already written other articles about houses buildings, now, the main
trades that we have been talking about in our latest articles has been about
brickwork, concrete work and block work, but today we are going to change and
it will be a mix up of trades including timber work. You see, if you want to do
any job on old houses, generally 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,
or drive a few nails, and at this same time you don’t need to be a qualified
tradesman for any other trades as well, because it is your house and you are
going to do the job yourself, as long as you feel confident that you can do it,
just go ahead and do it.
Therefore, in this case we are going to talk
about what we can do ourselves, or mostly 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, and therefore I
know most about what could be done here legally, in other parts of the world
there might be laws that could forbid some building repair and alterations,
unless they are done from the experts, at the same time, there might be in some
part of the world where you are allowed to do whatever you want.
Now let us
talk about the timber houses, the timber houses in general need a lot more
maintenance than the brick and masonry buildings, because they need to be
painted regularly, otherwise the exposed timber outside could easily 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 could and would
do, if they own a timber house and want to repair or do some renovation or
alterations, so 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 very easy, because you just need to pull the old rotten
board out and replace them with new ones, to replace the stairs was a lot
harder, because first of all 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 lately after fixing the patio floor I had to replace
the front stairs of the house as well, where I am living now; I had known it
for a while 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 about how to build them.
So, even
though I could say that I knew what to do, because of the several set of brick
stairs that I have built during my life as a bricklayer, I did not like to do
this job, as they are hard even for somebody that knows what to do, 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 person or weight would get on them, so this job that I was
trying to delay suddenly became urgent, it became urgent faster than I thought
because this steel brace that was holding them tight together had rusted so
much that it suddenly broke.
I did not
want to replace this set of timber stairs with brick stairs, because brick
stairs are very expensive, because they take a lot of bricks, a lot of concrete
and a long time to build, you see brick stairs are only build where a building
is made of bricks and it would look odd if you put a different type of
material, in fact we could say that they are the most expansive 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
also the timber is not of that grade that lasts as it used to be. You see this
has been the problem why they were not being repaired or replaced; I was always
debating how or with what material we should build them, but then suddenly the
job became urgent and I had to think quickly how to solve this stairs
problem.
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 really well because it was a sort
of bonus, as we did not have to walk first downhill and then walk up the
stairs, I hope you can see the picture here, even if I am not supplying one.
And now let us see how I solved this present stairs problem.
Building the new stairs
So the
problem here is that we want a new set of stairs that are not very expensive,
they last a long time, they are almost maintenance free, so how we can achieve
that one might ask?
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. I
remember that a few years ago I lot of suppliers had them in stock, today you
have to look for them, but most of the larger hardware’s stocks them, anyhow
sometimes it pays to look at direct supplies, with the internet that is easy to
do and that is what I did, and I saved some money. I bought my concrete treads
from a concrete product supplier; this is their link if you happen to live in
Brisbane you can buy direct from them;
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 costed more than is used to cost when we could buy some concrete bland
and a bag of Portland cement, but this is what is readily available today, so
it has got to do; I also bought a couple of galvanized brackets that I would
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 hand rail I would
use the old hand rail, and somehow fix that 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.
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Step by step procedure
Now that we
have bought most or perhaps all the materials that we need to replace this set
of stairs, we are going to show you how we did this job, so that if you have
something similar to do you could have a good idea how to go about.
First of all
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 hand rail, as long as I could keep it attached to the house and so
I did, so I cut all connection between the hand rail 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 might 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 one needs to be careful specially if
they are long and heavy.
Next step
insure 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. Now you can take
one of the steel stringers and lift in position to see if it fits and where it
ends, because there you may have to dig a hole in the ground if your stringer
have an in ground leg, so that you to 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 measurement, 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.
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