Thread: Renovations from start to finish Part A

Originally Posted by silentC

The house I now live in didn't exist when you started this thread

Yes, and how is the cardboard box.......

Tell me about it, I've watched dozens of houses go up in the same time. It's been driving me spare - not to worry, bum up for the next few months should see us get somewhere.

Cheers

Hi Namtrak
I'd say dozens of houses, a coupla bridges & an internal freeway bypass (almost) in our fair city.
I've been following this thread since this time last year when we embarked on our kitchen & bathroom reno. Thanks to these forums, which were gone thru with a fine toothed comb, we finished both projects a month ago. Both worked out great. SWMBO is as happy as. Now we are embarking on our next project - landscaping, garden, front fence & 9 x 12m shed in the back yard.
As Big Kev used to say.......
I wish you the best on your adventures

Now we are really getting somewhere. I have the subfloor down and we are working on the frames at the moment, with plans for the roof to go on next Wednesday.

With the subfloor, I got in an excavator to dig 58 holes 450 by 600 deep. I had to dig have a dozen by hand, and I also had to clean every one out by hand as well. Meaning there is no loose soil left in the bottom of the hole.

I then fixed the stumps to the bearers, with 'Homeguard' a similar product to Termimesh, in between the bearers and the stumps. Then using carjacks I levelled the bearers off before filling the holes with concrete - all by hand. I would have used a mini-crete truck, but I wanted to be able to spend time making sure each bearer was level and square, and I just figured that doing it by hand I wouldn't go too far wrong.

I am now working on fixing timber battens to the inside of the steel joists, this is to fix the timber floor to. I was hoping I could fix straight to the steel, but it seems using the secret nail profile, means that the nails would jsut skew off the top of the joists.

You can also see the first of the frames ready to go up.

POSTSCRIPT: These pictures are lost - oops

The bearers are set at around 1.3m and the joists are 450 centres, I am still researching some decking fixings. I managed to get some cleats which nail into the side of the joist and then fix to the side of the decking board, however they are too weak to fix into the hardwood.

A tradesman's fright,a handymans delight

Originally Posted by silentC

Received our Owner Builder course in the mail last night. Cost $95. Study at home and complete a 4 page 'exam' (half is multiple choice). It's approved by Fair Trading, which is all I care about.

Going through similar process at the moment myself, only for an entire house. We're going with a kit home (2 actually), which is not an option for you, but will save us a heap. We are building a 39 square house and it will cost about $160,000.

mmm I did an owner builders course in 1983. By 1984 I had finished the course and the house as well. The house came as part of the course and total cost was $42K. The exam was set by the shire building inspector at house/course completion. Got a pass on the second go.

I always found that cutting wood and laying bricks built it quicker than talking and writing.

And now we've got up a real head of steam.

The frames went up over two days. And I've even started laying some of Studleys flooring. The trusses are set for next Wednesday and roofing on Thursday.

Had a few 14 hour days in a row now - may take some time off in April, if I'm lucky.

Trusses have gone up. All was well, except for a couple of frames (not trusses but sort of middle supports) which were about 200mm lower than they should have been. Threw us out of wack for an hour or so.

There are still a few fittings to go such as, triple grips and cyclone ties.

For the owner builder, unless you've had experience putting up trusses then I would seriously consider having someone with experience with you. This has been the most complex piece so far (largely because of the extra valleys and hips), and I was grateful for the services of a builder for the day.

A small prize (well maybe not) but kudos to anyone who can spot the 300mm error. Not the one I referred to earlier but another one.

Cheers

And I might add I am the only person in South Eastern Australia currently praying for no rain

Well Namtak
Its good to see the progress you are making I started my extension about nov 2004 about the time I found these forums and I have been watching your progress with interest

As i remember getting the trusses up, was quiet a hard job for me and the misses and kids but we managed to get them up on top.


keep up the good work

cheers

The roof is all but on, and I guess there are some lessons here for the OB punter. At the end of the day, it will still work out cheaper than getting in a specialised roofing team, but I think some of the dramas may have been avoided.

First things first, I had two sets of blokes working. One removing the old iron, fascia, gutters etc and starting to replace the new iron. And the other set, (who were roofing plumbers who were mainly plumbers and did the roofing as an afterthought) who started working on the fascia and gutters. At the end of the first day we had replaced 70 percent of the fascias and gutters and and 25 percent of the iron.

The issues at this stage were matching in the height of the of the new gutters and fascia with the existing. Took some time because of the cantilevered trusses which were set to match, but seemed out by about 50mm.

The following day we started to continue, when around 11am we realised the big problem. Remember we had been working in very thick smoke from the North East fires, but around 11am the smoke had cleared and then we realised we had two different coloured roofs!!

A quick call to the supplier confirmed that we had ordered the correct colours, and indeed the correct fascia, gutter, roofing screws and valleys were correct, however the roofing iron was BLUE not GREY. It was very hard to pick up, as the photo from the front shows, but once the light was okay it stood out like dogs balls. I will try and get another pic.

The supplier was around in a shot, and we had the new iron rolled the following morning and delivered by 7:30am. We decided to plow on and leave the odd coloured bit until the new year.

However, problems continued!! As we finished, we were going to re-use the old gutter to patch the balance of the gutters and the old ridge capping - when we figured out that both were a different profile (ever so slightly, but enough) It turns out the mob we bought the existing roof off roll their own iron with their own profiles. I guess at qualified roofer, or proper builder may have figured that stuff out earlier, but thems the breaks. Hopefully I can figure out a deal with the supplier as I will be out of pocket by about $1500 once the roof is finished. I will aim for them to replace the bit that we have left and also leave the roofing iron (wrong colour) which we haven't used yet. That would be nice for the shed!!

We have started putting in the doors and windows as per the pics.

Namtrak,
gutters, ridgecap and bargecapping are a real trap as everyone seems to roll their own profile. I've got offcuts from all the major players in my area so I can match them. Maybe at the end of your project you could post a heap of tips/hints in the relevant section titled "traps for the new owner builder" (hopefully you won't have too many to post)

Mick

Hello namtrak,It certainly doesn't worry me much at all but seen you asked if anyone could spot anything unusual in one of the pictures.The only thing that I noticed with a quick look was that the pitching beam is about two or three hundred mm back from the birdmouth.Is that what you are referring to?Everything is looking good and I hope it all turns out just the way you expected.You certainly approached the job very professionally (costing,scheduling,etc)and deserve to get a good result as I'm sure you will do.Regards Terry

Originally Posted by Terry1

.............was that the pitching beam is about two or three hundred mm back from the birdmouth.Is that what you are referring to?........

Right on the money, another thing that took us a couple of hours to figure out. I reckon the estimator for the truss mob mucked it up, as they took the measurements after the sub floor was laid down. Anyway, they gave me some specs on how to strengthen up the trusses with some laminated beams and whatnot - no biggie. Good spot!

Ah, Coopers Ale. A man with taste.

Good thread namtrak. I just read through it and it would be very informative for prospective owner builders. I'll be following with interest.

I'll be doing a reno on my kitchen shortly and I'm thinking about the same island bench on locking castors. Could you tell me how big they are?