Thursday, December 9, 2021

Friends Could Help.

WELCOME TO OUR GENERAL BLOG YOU ARE INVITED. Here, we will post articles about world issues, Australian issues, Italian issues. And we will post also my personal life story articles. 



I believe that only those people that help can be called real friends. So, when you need help you ask your friends for help, and if they are your friends they will help you. Anyhow, this is what we believe and we are going to write in this article.  
   

Welcome to our article Friends are there to help. 

Dear readers, we have written about houses building and maintenance. Now, in this article of, friends are there to help, we want to talk about when we buy houses. Buying a house is an important decision, and most of us have never bought a house before, so, we wish we had a friendly person to ask some hard questions, because we want to know, if the decision to buy is the right one, so, we need somebody that we can trust.

But who are those people that we can trust, when we are not sure about ourselves. Anyhow, there are reasons to believe that we would be better off, if we help each other and use our life knowledge to help our friends, sometimes we have to go out of our ways to help some friends, when they ask for help; but if you think it is worth the effort to help your friend, then do it, it is a noble thing to do, and you may feel proud of yourself for doing it.   

Here, we want to point out this. Let us not make the mistake that everybody that we talk to is our friend, because friends are only those people that when you need help, they are willing to help you; sometimes they volunteer their help willingly, but sometimes we have to insist to get them motivated to help us, it works both ways, since the help that we need from a friend can be what that friend knows about. Most times the help we need is knowhow and this costs nothing moneywise to our friend. But sometimes the line of work they are involved in, forbids them to give us advise willingly. Take the lawyers for instance, they are paid for counselling and their words cost plenty of money, and they might be just a few words of advice.

Anyhow this is not our case, because our case is at a much lower category, it has got to do more about building accommodations and real estate than laws, but nevertheless we may not want to talk about what properties we own, because people can feel jealous and hate us for showing off, so, we have to be careful what we say.

But there are times when our friends want to buy their house or unit to live in, since they know that you own properties, they would like to know everything that you know about properties, so that they may avoid mistakes. In these cases, we should accept that their inquiries are genuine, and we should help them. Now, let us write an example about houses for sale or rent.

Houses for sale or rent. 

Anyhow, because we want to about building and selling, this article was going to be called, houses for sale or rent, but it ended up with “Friends could help”. Anyhow, let us see what we can offer to help those people that are about to rent or buy their own house; at the same time let us describe how friends can help, and why it is not that simple to find people willing to help in these cases. But first, let us define who can be called a friend, because a friend in need is a friend indeed.

 Yes, this is the case that we are going to talk about in this article, because one of my friends that we are going to call Joe in this article wants to by a property and is asking my advice how to go about it; so, we are going to talk real estate and what we need to understand before we buy. After all I believe that what we know should be used for the betterment of ourselves first, and then, for the betterment of our family and friends and also for the betterment of the rest of the community, so, any knowhow that we have should be shared with our friends, and this is what we are going to do here, while we are answering my friend Joe’s questions; anyhow, I am willingly going to share whatever knowledge I have, because my friend Joe is asking for help, so, let us see what Joe wants to know about properties.

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My friend Joe real estate questions. 

Anyhow, one day Joe said to me: Frank, we have been friends for a long time, so, I trust you more than anybody else, for this reason I want to ask your advice about buying a house, since I am thinking of buying my house soon. I know that you own a couple of properties and I know that you have bought them yourself; therefore, you know what is involved. 

Anyhow, I was saying that I and my wife have been thinking about buying a property, so that we will not be paying rent for the rest of our lives, I and my wife both work and we think that we can afford a unit or a small house. So, I would like to ask you, if you can help me to understand those things that we need to know before we buy?

Okay Joe, since you came to me as a friend, I will tell you my opinion about your enquires. I believe that you are renting, and you feel as if paying rent is money down the drain, so, before you have your own family you want to buy your house, is that right Joe?

(Joe said, yes that is right Frank)

I can understand that I said, since we all want secure accommodations in our lives, it is the dream that everybody dreams, and for some of us it will remain only a dream, because we will not have the will power to do what is needed to be done to acquire a property, even though every time we pay rent, we are forced to remember that if we had a property that we could live in, we would not have to pay rent, even if we owned a small unit that would cover our heads.

Anyhow Joe, I am glad that you have decided to do something about it, so, I am saying that I am willing to give you my personal advice freely, but even with my limited advice it is not going to be easy to buy a property, because it requires a lot of planning, but the most important thing is this; do you have enough money to buy the property? Nine out of ten the answer is no, so, you have to borrow money from the Bank or building society or other institution that lend money to the public to buy houses; now if that is the case and I believe it is, then we will have to consider how much money is safe to borrow from these lending institutions, you see, you don’t want to borrow too much, just in case it becomes hard to repay back your loan.      

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Joe continues to ask me real estate questions. 

Okay Frank, I know what you mean, it is not easy to buy a house or any property, but what should we do to get started? We would like to know this. You see, I don’t like to ask direct personal questions, like what did you do when you bought your first house, but whatever you can tell us can help, otherwise we will never know what the best way is to go about, and that is the reason why I have come to you for advice, so, please tell us what you know and what you can tell us? As I have said we have some money in the bank, but we don’t know if that is enough to get us started?

Okay Joe, fist let me give you a very short answer to your several questions you are asking. If you don’t think that you have got enough money, then you need to work out several times what you have and what you can afford to pay, therefore, it would be wise, if you start by buying a small house or apartment. Now let me go back to answer the other questions:

You see Joe, I have to go back to my own life experiences to answer your real estate questions; so, I have to say Joe, that to buy a property is not easy unless you have enough money in the bank to buy it outright, but as you said you have some money, therefore, I guess that your money is not enough to buy this house that you are wanting to buy, and therefore, you are here to learn what is the best way to borrow money. 

Anyhow, I have written about this somewhere else, see if you can use this link to learn about it, if not come back to me okay. I hope the link works for you. http://diybrickwork.com. 

Joe I have tried to help you, because that is what friends are for, when you need help ask a friend, thank you Joe, for thinking about me worthy to be asked, and come back another time to see how you are going with your borrowing money and other things, I would like to continue to help, by telling you what I can? See you later Joe?

I believe that I have said enough in this article, so, see you in our next article, Property for rent. See you soon. 

To see more click on this link, Friends are there to help. 

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Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Fixing the timber landings.

WELCOME TO OUR GENERAL BLOG YOU ARE INVITED. Here, we will post articles about world issues, Australian issues, Italian issues. And we will post also my personal life story articles. 
Anyhow, today we will post another personal life story, in this article, D.I.W. house repairs.   


In this part of the world, we call landing, a small part of an outside building that leads to the entrance. Now being outside and being used a lot by going in and out of the house, the landing needs more maintenance. Anyhow, with this landing here, I have been able to repaint it without having to do any repairs. It looks like that it can last a few more years, before the decking needs to be replaced. 
 

Welcome to our article, Fixing the landing. 

Dear readers, in this article, we are going to talk about how to maintain and fix those outside patios or landings. But first, let us explain to those that are not familiar with these types of old timber buildings, and the reasons why we have those landings outside the main building.

The reason that in Australia we have stairs and patios or landings outside the main building, is to save space under the roof of the building itself; we do that, because it is cheaper and also easier to build, the Australian climate is hot and in most places dry, so, people like to live in the open, therefore, they don’t mind if the stairs and the landings are outside, therefore, a lot of the cheaper houses have these stairs and landings outside.

Now, because they are outside, they need more maintenance. Here we need to add that even though in Australia the climate is hot, and in most places dry, it is not so everywhere, so, those buildings that happen to be near the sea-side tend to receive too much rain, so, they need more maintenance that those building that are in a dry place. 

Anyhow, we know that timber building need more maintenance than concrete buildings, especially those parts of the building that are exposed to the weather, because the timber rots away easily when it becomes wet, so, those timber landing outside need more maintenance, they need to be painted every second year or there about, they need to be looked after and those nails that every now and then pop-up need to be driven and punched down, but that is not all, the worst part of it all, is that they rot easily and they need to be fixed.

This type of work must be done often, and it is better if we do them as soon as it is obvious that they need to be done, whether they require fixing or painting or both. Because when we don’t paint often enough, some flooring boards may start to rot away to the point where you need to replace them, sometimes this can be a few pieces of flooring boards, at other times most of them; anyhow today I have to fix this long landing, in this block of flats, which is like an open long balcony.

 

This is one typical affordable accommodation built in the sixties or there about, stairs and landings were built outside. This is one of the lending that I had to fix. See text hereunder. 

Today fixing this landing problem. 

Anyhow, today I have this problem to solve; the edge of this long landing that was fixed about fifteen years ago with hardwood timber, that was supposed to last a long time is again rotten, so, I need to fix it. I believe that the timber that I bought was not properly treated. I believe that this is the sign of the time, because of some shortage of good mature trees, the timber mills use any timber and some of this timber does not last as long as it used to last in the past.

Now if you look at the photo, this is not going to be an easy job, because there is this long steel hand rail on top of it and cannot be removed easily, as it would cost a lot to remove it and then replace it again; so, I have to try to remove the rotten timber from underneath a short section at a time, while at the same time I prop up that section of hand rail. As I have said this landing was renewed about fifteen years ago, and at the edge we used a larger piece of hardwood timber instead of the simple flooring boards, because we needed good grounds to attach the hand rail to it, anyhow, it has worked out all right for fifteen years, but now it needs replacing.

Today because the grounds have rotten a bit more, I have decided to use a larger piece of timber, so that it can bridge better the outside edge of the landing to the timber joists, the timber joists come from the building itself and in this case work as a cantilever, like a very long balcony in a concrete building. Now because the hardwood has rotten in a very short time, I am going to replace them with treated pine slipper, because they are cheaper, lighter and easier to nail, I know it is a new approach and most builders may not approve what I am going to do, but I am going to try, I believe that the sleepers will last at least as long as the hardwood did. Anyhow, we will see how it works out soon; and then we will see if they are going to last in a few years.

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Replacing the timber edge.  

I have started to work to replace the old hardwood landing edge, with these new pine slippers, it is going to be harder than I thought it would be; to remove the old edge is very hard because there is the hand rail in the way, but in any other way is going to be more costly, I know it is going to be a real struggle for me but I am stuck with it. You see, we don’t want to spend a lot of money on these landings of this old block of flats, because the building itself is becoming old and in fifteen to twenty years is going to be demolished and a brand-new building will be build. We are saying this because this is how these timber building usually last in Brisbane Australia, old timber building reach a stage when it becomes necessary to replace the existing building with a new one; very likely the new building will be a concrete building, nobody really knows, what it would be the right thing to build, in fifteen to twenty years’ time, because the local by laws may change and also the way we build changes continually.

Anyhow, the other day I have pulled up some of the old edging and I have set the first sleeper in place, but I still have to replace about another three of them, and also remove and replace any other timber that needs replacing and then paint at least what I have replaced; but really I am going to paint the entire landing and also the steel hand rail that is rusting, it is going to be a long job, since I am doing it a bit each time, when I have some times to spare. Anyhow, I believe that it is going to turn out all right.

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Other building things.   

Dear readers, I believe that I have written several DIY buildings articles, so, let us go back to see what we have done. In our last articles, D.I.W. house repairs,  we have talked about stairs repairs, and other things that we are going to review here. We have also written about, House renovating, where an entire house was renovated; and fixing old timber landing, of course, there other things that need to be done on timber building, if the owners feel like doing it, anyhow try to do some D.I.Y, you will be proud you did, you see, I did and every time I see what I have done, I am proud about it.

Anyhow, here I want to add another thing that can be done in these timber houses. For instance here in Queensland most houses have a roof over their patio (veranda) most houses have large verandas, (since these are spaces that have a roof on them but they are open and have a hand rail 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. 

I believe that I have said enough in this article, so, see you in our next article, where we are going to talk about how to buy and own a house, in our article, Friends are there to help. 

To see more click on this link,  Fixing the landing. 

See you soon.

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Friday, November 19, 2021

To renovate you need tradesmen.

WELCOME TO OUR GENERAL BLOG YOU ARE INVITED. Here, we will post articles about world issues, Australian issues, Italian issues. And we will post also my personal life story articles. 


The timber house in this photo is going to be raised, because the owners need more living space, so, they are building a few rooms under it. The workers have started, they have removed all the timber surrounding and now they are going to raise the house. so, let us try to follow their progress. 

 

Welcome to our article, House renovating. 

House renovating needs tradesmen

Dear readers, 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 several previous 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 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.

After that, look for a firm that makes these plans, and tell the person you have chosen to 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 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. So, let us 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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 Earth work and steel columns.  

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 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 work, 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 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 above. 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 blog, so, see you in our next article, where we are going to talk about, Fixing the landing. 

Anyhow, in this blog, I have not been able to upload the photos we are talking about, so, to see them as they appear in the original article click on this link, House renovating. 

 See you soon.

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Friday, November 12, 2021

D.I.Y. house repairs.

WELCOME TO OUR GENERAL BLOG YOU ARE INVITED. Here, we will post articles about world issues, Australian issues, Italian issues. And we will post also my personal life story articles. 



The timber houses in Australia are easy to renovate and repair, however, you still need to know how it is done. What you see in this photo, is an extension of this small house we call the cottage, in this case we had a carpenter to do this job, but smaller jobs the owners themselves can do it, if they know how.   
 

Welcome to our article, D.I.W. house repairs. 

Dear readers, timber houses repairs or renovations, can be done from the owners themselves, this article is another DIY article. In our previous articles, we have talked about, how to lay bricks, but in this article, we want to talk about house repairs and renovations. 

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.     

 


The old timber stairs were about to fall off their housing, and at the bottom they were rotten, so we had to replace them. So, we did replace them with concrete treads on galvanized steel stringers.  

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; 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 I knew what to do.  

But even though I knew what to do, because of the several 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 timber stringers were rotting away and some of the treads were 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 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 expensive and the timber does not lasts a long time, as it used to last.

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, we want a new set of stairs that are not expensive, they must last a long time, they are almost maintenance free. 

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 timber 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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This is the new set of stairs, concrete treads on steel stringers, they are different from the original one, but they will last a long time, and they are almost maintenance free. But let us describe how we did it. 

 

Describing our step-by-step procedure. 

Now that we have bought the materials for the 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 handrail, if I could keep it 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 center 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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There are other repairs or renovations that can be done, but 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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