The Australian housing industry

 You are here; http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk

This type of houses were being built in the sixties, they could have been low-set or high-set. Today this house has been raised and renewed. You see you can do a lot of things with these timber houses. You could even move them to another address.

Welcome to our article, Australian building industry 

Building houses in the sixties

Dear readers, when I came to Australia in the sixties, I ended up working in the building industry, we were working mainly on fixing old houses, or building new houses from scratch, units and warehouses, so, I ended up learning how lots of building things were done, in the end I became a bricklayer, and have worked most of my life as a bricklayer. So, later I am going to write a few articles about, D.I.Y. Brickwork. So, this is the last blog that I label as Frank life story, our next blog will be labelled, D.I.Y. building works.   

We believe that the Australian housing and building industry, is one of the major employment industries in Australia, you can say that this is so in other countries. But I believe that in other countries building new houses is not as important as it is in Australia. One of the reasons for this is that Australia is a new country, and it needs emigrants. In the sixties Australia was taking emigrants in a regulated way, now because the population was growing steadily also accommodation needed to grow steadily, therefore, new houses were built to keep a steady balance. This building of new houses gives opportunities for the newcomers to be employed, since there is manual work involved, therefore, a healthy cycle is created; but even with these opportunities the building industry has its ups and down, as we know. So, let us talk about it and try to make sense, if we can. 

Working in the building industry

As I have said, when I came to Australia from Italy, I ended up working in the building industry. Now let me explain this working position, working on building in Australia is a temporary job, because even the employer is subject to the same opportunities of work and he cannot help it, therefore, one is never sure what is going to happen next, when the job you are working on is finished, therefore, there were concerns about our employment status, so, we kept asking ourselves, whether our employer would get another job to do, before we finished the one we were doing, but even though we were thinking that, we still worked hard to finish the job on hand, as soon as possible, because to find work you had to be competitive.

Well I should say that although this small Italian builder did lots of small jobs, it did work out all right most times, so, we were able to move from one job to another all-around Brisbane and to other close by town/s. Of course, this would cause worries if you had no transport of your own and you had to rely on some friends or the employer to take you on the work site, where the building was going to be built, but we managed somehow.

Anyhow, it was a good job with good opportunities to learn and improve your knowledge of building something yourself. You see, in those times we could improve our working and earning position more easily than today; it was possible then because a lot of things were simple, and therefore, they could be done just by using your common sense. Of course, there were always inspections from local authorities to follow, but once you knew what it was required they were easy to follow, if you used your brains diligently, therefore, we should say that we had more opportunities then compared to today opportunities. I believe that it was so, because the building we were building were small houses, so, if you were a tradesman, you most likely could be the builder as well.

Learning how to earn and save money

Whatever you do in life, the most important thing is; Earning and saving money. In my case, because there was uncertainty of not having a permanent job in the building industry, we soon learned that whatever money we earned from our job, we had to save some, otherwise we could have problems soon or later; so, this disadvantage that we had in this job pushed most of us building workers to become good at saving money, because we wanted to feel safe and independent.

So, let me talk about money. In Australia because the economy is based on capitalism the more money you can earn and save the better off you are; of course, this is also true to most other part of the world, but in Australia seems to be more so, because it is a new country, and people rely more on what they can earn than anywhere else in the world. This is because there are not existing reach families that live on the earnings of the properties that have been passed down from generation to generations. Therefore, in Australia is mostly up to yourself, if you want to get richer, you should try harder to earn and save money. 

Anyhow, I believe that I have said enough about this money business; so, let me go back to tell you, my progress in the building industry and what I did to become a tradesman.

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Working for this builder

Working and learning with this small Italian builder

Now let me go back to when I started work with this Italian builder, who was a bricklayer and concrete worker, we were working on houses and because there was not enough bricklaying work on these houses, as they were mostly built with timber, we were building only the foundations, the concrete stumps and some brickwork as the base of the house. Of course, we did also some jobs under the existing houses and this has given me an opportunity to learn many things about those old houses in Brisbane.

Anyhow, let me describe what we did to prepare a base for a new timber house, which would be setting on concrete stumps and some brick walls. First of all, we went to set up the site, if it was not set up from the builder or carpenter that was building the timber house. This setting up required that we should fix some timber frame to the ground with pegs and per the measurement in the plan. These timber frames are called profiles, and they are marked accurately to the measurement on the plan, so that we had the right measurement to go by, to start digging the foundations for the stumps and brick walls.

Then we had to dig the foundations and this was mostly my job as I was the labor and I was pretty good at digging, this may seem hard to believe but even digging one has to be an expert to do a good job, as the shape and depth of the foundations is important to do a good job. Just to show you what I mean to dig a hole for a new concrete stump, 20x20 centimetres as most stumps were supposed to be; the hole for this stump should be in exactly the right place, it should be at least sixty centimetres deep in natural ground and at the bottom should have a circumference of at least 40 centimetres or more. These were the average specifications then, unless it was stated otherwise. I know this because I have dug several hundreds of them if not thousands.

Now, I believe that I have said enough in this shortened article, if you want to know more you can link to this article, Australian building industry. 

See you in our next article, which is going to be about working and building affordable houses.

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This blog is, old man-lifeworks

The Australian building industry  

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

Building affordable houses 

See you soon.

---------------------------

I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

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Working in the building industry

You are here; http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk, 

The building industry needs many tradesmen, the most important are the carpenters and the bricklayers, to become a good tradesman is takes about 5 years. I am saying this because I want to write a D.I.Y. brickwork, to tell you how to lay bricks. in our future blogs.  

Working in the Australia building industry 

From our article, Is Australia the land of opportunity? (part 2)

Welcome to our blog, working in the building industry. 

As I have said in my previous articles, my first job in Australia was in the building industry, because I ended up working as a bricklayer’s labor, but I lost that job for a couple of reasons. I believe that I lost the first job, because I didn’t know English and at the same time, I had no experience in the sort of work we were doing, and for that reason I could not guess what they wanted me to do next. After that I had another job which ended very much the same way; but then one day suddenly a small Italian builder needed a labor and he knew that I was available, so he came to fetch me and asked if I would be interested to work for him, and this is how I ended up working in the building industry, I worked for this builder for about two years, but then he went on holiday to Italy for a long time, therefore, he temporary closed down the business, but by then the Italian building community new about me, so, in a few days I had another job to go to, always in the building industry with another builder or contractors working as a labor.

You see in those times there was a lot more work for people wanting to work, but at the same time we knew that we had to work hard because there was a lot of competition going on even in those days, so, what could we say if we work hard for it, we would always find somebody that would give us work, because we earned our wage plus a bit more for the employer. This is how I understood the ways of earning your living in this capitalist society, which is based on competition and you are paid with what you deliver. Now, we have to say that this capitalist way is very good, if the workers are not pushed beyond their physical capacity. But let us compare that with our present times.   

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Compare the old ways with the new

Here we want to compare the opportunities that we had, when we came in Australia in the sixties as emigrant, to the opportunities of the illegal migrants that arrive by boat uninvited.

So, we need to compare what we had to do to come to Australia in the sixties, with what is happening today with illegal emigration, to spot the reasons why things don’t work as good as they used to work, for the emigrants.

You see, when I and the other emigrants wanted to come to Australia during the sixties, we had to be screened before we could have a visa that would allow us to come to Australia and work.

This screening was strict, as they did not want anybody that could become sick, so, we had to go through a medical check, and there was another stricter check about being legally of good character, even if you had ever had trouble with the police, in fact, they were so strict about this that if one had been involved with the communist party, by saying that you would vote for the communist party, you would not be allowed to come to Australia.

I hope that I have explained how strict they were then, before they gave you a visa to come to work in Australia. Anyhow, I can say that this screening the emigrants was a good thing after all, because after that it was a lot easier when you were in Australia, since they knew everything that they needed to know, so, the authorities were more relaxed. As I have said, when I went to the unemployment office even though I did not speak much English they did everything possible to find me a job, and if they could not find us a job soon enough, they would pay us the unemployment benefit.

Anyhow, from my own experience, I can say that anyone that has come to Australia and has seen Australia the same way that I have seen it, they know that Australia is a great country to live in; and if there is somebody that does not like Australia, it must be because they have their own personal problems and they are home sick, or they are unwilling to work hard.

Today Australia does not seem to be as good as it was when I came to Australia, because there are more unemployed people, and it is hard for people to find permanent work. But in my eyes, it is still okay, you need to be more patient until you find a job.

But my impression about Australia is this; anyone that sees Australia the way that I saw it when I came here, would fall in love with the Australian ways of living. Now we can say that today it is not as good as it used to be, but we are still good compared to other countries. So, we want to conclude this article by saying that Australia can be still the land of opportunities, if the people that come here come with the intention of working hard, as we have been working in the past, they should not come with the intention of ripping us off, because they want to have an easy life for themselves.

Now, because today a lot of things are different, most of all the difference that exists between screened legal emigrant, and those emigrants that come illegally and the authorities don’t know anything about them. So, a comparison between these emigrants is not possible. Therefore, measuring the opportunities that exist is not possible either.  

Anyhow this article is becoming too long, so, see you next time with another article called; Australian building industry, where we will be continuing to tell you my life story and what I have done in Australia to earn a living. See you there.

--------------------------------------- 

This blog is, old man-lifeworks

Working in the building industry  

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

The Australian building industry 

See you soon.

---------------------------

I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

------------------------------------------

 

Australia was the land of opportunities

 You are here; http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk 

The map of Australia, that was the far away land that I migrated to a long time ago. I believe that in those times there were better opportunities then today. Because most of us were able to start a new way of life. But anyhow these are things of the past. Today we can only talk about what we have done. 

Work opportunity in Australia 

Welcome to our article part one, Is Australia the land of opportunity?

Dear readers, when I came to Australia in the early sixties, there were good opportunities to work. 

Anyhow, I feel that today is different, but I suppose that every one of us feels different, you see, whether we are emigrant, or we have been born here we have our own story to tell, and everyone has a different story and views of the past, according to our life experiences and the work that we did; but let me tell you my personal story. 

If I were to use only my personal experience in Australia as a standard, we must say that Australia opportunities today are not as good as they used to be, because things have changed since I came to Australia. Now if we want to compare the fewer opportunities that are available today, with what used to be available in the sixties, you can use my life story, to compare with what is available today.

Anyhow, everybody in the wide world thinks that Australia is still the land of opportunities, and that is the reason why people are trying to migrate to Australia; but, are those opportunities still there, one may ask? Or is it a myth now, and the opportunities that existed in the past, are a lot less than they used to be, especially for those unskilled people that are coming to Australia.

Having been a migrant myself a long time ago in the early sixties, and being lucky to find some relative that helped me to settle in Australia, I know that migrating to another country is not easy, especially if there is no one waiting for you and help you when you arrive, and it is even harder if you don’t speak the language of the country you are migrating to, but today there is a great movement of people throughout the world that migrate from one country to another, and a lot of people want to come to Australia, they even risk their lives during their journey, boarding boats that can break up and disintegrate in the ocean, and they can drown, because there is no help.

Therefore, when I see people migrating today like desperado that want to reach Australia at all cost, I go back mentally to the times when I legally migrated, and think what I could have done if there had been no one to help me when I arrived in Australia. Just to think about it makes me shudder, so, to see these people that come illegally knowing that they may not be welcome here make me wonder how desperate they are, to try to migrate at all cost.

Looking at what is happening today, we know that the entire world has problems with people migrating to other countries like Australia. Here in Australia we are upset to see people coming in by boats, and we want to stop them, or send them back where they came from. Now, I need to say that in Europe is even worse with people coming in from North Africa every day, they are so many that is hard to count them, and we guess and say that the same amount of people that migrate illegally to Australia in a year may migrate to Europe in a week or even less than that.

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Anyhow, let us talk if Australia is still the land of opportunities.

If I use my personal experience as a standard, then I can say that today in Australia work opportunities are not as good as they used to be. But then not everything is as it seems to me, because my judgment is that of a single person and therefore, I might be wrong.

There are many things that have changed since then, because of the progress humanity has made and continues to make; therefore, working opportunities have changed, so, today it is a lot harder to find a manual job; this is due to the fact that we do not need as many hands to do a job as we used to in the past, because the work is being done from machines, therefore, people that have no skills and rely on their physical strength are not required. For this reason, there are less jobs available, but if people have a trade or have studied there are working opportunities for them.

Now that we have explained how we see today working opportunities, allow me to go back to the days when I came to Australia, so , let me tell you my experience when I came to Australia, because this is the way that we can compare the work opportunity situation.

I have been told there have been times in Australia when everybody had a job, so, there was no unemployment at all, and employers had not enough employees and they would go down to the wharf when the ships arrived and select a few people that seemed good enough for them to do their jobs, therefore, in those days there were no unemployed people, but unfortunately those times do not last long, as I said working opportunities go up and down.

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But, what opportunities were available in Australia in the sixties?

When I arrived in Australia in March 1961 my relative and friends were all working, at the same time they were telling me that there were not many job vacancies available, so, I had to be patient until a job was available. But what sort of work I could do they were not sure just we had to wait and see, what I knew about working for other people was that if a job was offered to me I had to work hard, since in my country when we hired workers to work in our family farm, we expected them to work hard so that they would earn their pay, therefore, I was in my right frame of mind to go out and work hard, whatever job was offered. I have said this, because it is necessary to understand that whoever attempts to migrate to another country, he/she must be ready to work hard if they want to succeed, and it all boils down to this that you need to do a fair work day for fair daily pay.

Beside my willingness to work I was also young and fit enough to do any manual job that I was offered, the only problem was that I didn't speak English.  but even although I had very little English, things turned out all right in the end, perhaps this is another reason why people think that Australia is still the land of opportunities.

For me when I came to Australia I was still thinking the Italian ways, so, I was thinking that when you go to an Italian office if you want something done quickly you need to know somebody in there, otherwise before your turn comes the office hours are over and you have to come back the day after, so, I was wondering how could we succeed in these Australian offices, since I didn’t speak English and my friend was just a little bit better than me.

Anyhow we waited our turn and soon we were being interviewed from this middle aged man that seemed to have so much patience and understanding of the situation, he slowly worked out what we wanted by asking and repeating what we did not understand, and he noted everything down as he asked me many things to see what sort of job I could do, I remember even now that one of his questions was if I were afraid of heights and I said no, as I was going up some tall trees to prune them, he also asked if I knew anything about building or building maintenance, here again I said yes as we sometimes repair some farm building. I believe that these two things gave me the first job in the building industry, as I was called one day to go to work for the first time in Australia. My first job was that of a bricklayer labour, and we were working on a chimney stack in the brickwork's where bricks are made, which I managed to hold for a couple of weeks, until a bigger gang came and I became a bit confused in the middle of all those people, and I lost my first job for lack of knowledge or lack of understanding English. But anyhow I had my first work experience and I was sure that soon there was going to be another one.

Anyhow, I need to say that Australia is a great country to be in, because people are given their opportunities as they deserve, if you are willing to work hard for it.

And in the unemployment offices the officers are just great people to deal with, or at least they were when I came to Australia in the sixties. 

Anyhow this blog is long enough, so, in my next blog , I am going to talk about how I ended up working in the Australian building industry for good.

----------------------------------- 

This blog is, old man-lifeworks

Australia was the land of opportunities 

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

The Australian building industry 

See you soon.

---------------------------

I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

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These wooden houses need some care

 You are here; http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk

Here is one typical timber house, they are good affordable family houses that most small to average families own. Most of these houses are set on a block of land  about 400 to 800 square meters, so, people can have their own small garden. In the front yard people plant flowers, in the back yard you can have a lawn, and a kitchen garden. So they are very popular.    

These wooden houses need some care 

Welcome to our blog (4) These wooden houses need some care. Link to Australian houses in Brisbane

Dear readers, in our previous articles we have talked about, the Queenslander house, which is a large house built for the hot and humid clime of Australia. Now we want to talk about the rest of the timber houses and their maintenance. You see, these timber houses need maintenance and care. For those people that have not lived-in timber houses before, they should ask questions about them before they get involved in owning one of these houses. The first question that will come to their mind is: are these houses safe to live in and how long these houses can last? And then, what maintenance they require? So, let me try to explain this timber housing situation.

Timber houses need more maintenance than masonry houses; because you need to paint them for the timber to last longer, otherwise the timber on the outside walls will slowly rot away, but then, there are also some advantages, because if you want to change something it can be done easily and it is cheaper than if you have a masonry house, therefore, it is a lot cheaper to do some alterations, so, it can work well after all.

Having said that we need to say that these wooden houses are safe to live-in, but they have some problems of their own, apart that they need to be painted for the external timber to last longer, they have some vermin enemies everywhere in the houses, because the timber is more vermin friendly than masonry and bricks and cement, but the normal vermin are not a big problem for the house structure itself.

The greatest enemy of these wooden houses are the termites, or white ants as some of us calls them; The white ants can destroy entire buildings by eating the wood from the inside, a lot of times people don’t even know that the white ants are there eating their houses away while they are living in them; you see, unless you know what you are looking for, it is hard to see any sign of them from the outside. So, one day suddenly we find out by putting pressure on a spot where the white ants have eaten the wood from inside, everything starts collapsing inward and where there was a wall now there is a big hole.

Therefore, it is worthwhile to learn how to recognize the signs if there are white ants; and call an expert to check the building if you are going to buy it.

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How to defend our homes from these pests

The white ant problem

There are a few things that we can do to prevent this pest destroy our homes; the first thing that we can do is to check that there is a barrier that stops the white ants to enter your building, for instance if your house is a high-set house on stumps, check that at the top of the stumps there is a metallic ant capping; this metallic ant capping is usually a large galvanized round dish or square of metal and it is bent down at the edges so that any crawling insect will find it difficult to enter your house that way; we hope you can see the picture? The ant capping prevents also the white ants to enter through the timber stump itself, if the stump has been infested with white ants, because when they reach the top of the stump, they cannot eat through the metal capping and so they cannot enter that way, of course there are a lot of different buildings and a lot of different ways to set a barrier; but sometimes the white ants find their way around.

Now there are ways that we should be looking for if there are white ants; here the first thing that we have to keep in mind is that white ants eat everything from inside and they don’t like to be exposed outside for long, so, the first thing one can do is to tap on anything that is made of wood; if the wood sounds hollow then the white ants may have eaten the inside, so, a complete check is needed to see what is the cause; another way to look for white ants signs is that if they are forced to go outside to move from one place to another, they will construct a tunnel, so that they can go up and down without being seen, so, we must look for any of these signs anywhere under the building. Experts have told me that the white ants need moisture, so, they have to travel to the ground to get the moisture and then they go up again their tunnel to eat the timber; now if the building is solid and there is no other way for the ants to go up they will construct their tunnel from the ground up, so, we should be looking for signs to see if there are ants tunnel constructed, and if there are tunnels, it means that there are white ants, therefore you need a pest control expert to poison these pests, and you need him fast. 

In Australia this is the enemy number one of the timber houses, since they eat the timer. to see more details click on this link  Australian houses in Brisbane, there are more details. 

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Some natural enemies of the white ants

White ants have very few enemies because they live and hide inside the timber, but there are some natural enemies in their natural habitat, a couple of which are pictured here. As I said before, we need to learn the signs how to spot the white ants, then do something if you find that they are there, otherwise they could eat your house away quickly.

Hereunder we have pasted two links about termites that Huber’s have written for you to check them out.

How to Control Termites Naturally

Termite Control

Good luck to all timber house owners. 

Dear readers, my intention here is that I am going to write several articles about houses, how to own them, how to maintain them and how to build them, because that is what I have done during my life. But first, let us talk about Australia and ask; is Australia the land of opportunities? Where I will be talking about the opportunities that I had in the house building industry. So, see you in our next article.

------------------------------------------- 

This blog is, old man-lifeworks

These wooden houses need some care 

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

Australia was the land of opportunities 

See you soon.

---------------------------

I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

------------------------------------------

Australia wooden houses

 You are here; http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com, 

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk

This is what is called the Queenslander house, it is a large house sitting on stumps, with fretwork and veranda surrounding the house. It is built like that to catch the breeze in hot summer days, and shade the center of the house from direct sunshine. To see more, click on the link below.     

Welcome to our blog (3), Australian houses in Brisbane

Let us talk about the convenient wooden houses in Brisbane and Australia. For us Italian migrants that had lived in solid masonry buildings, even if some of them were rustic buildings; when we arrived in Australia at the beginning it seemed strange that in Brisbane lots of houses were made of wood, and most of them were set on wooden stumps, but then we started thinking that they were still good to live in, so, we got used to live in them rather quickly.

So, we had to forget about our native town of Genzano di Lucania, since now we were living in Australia, the Australian way, after all, as the saying goes, when you are in Rome do what the Romans do. But then, what were the reasons and why these houses were made of wood, or as the locals called it, they were made of timber.

So, this question arises, why these houses were made of timber and not masonry? If we use logic reasoning there is no difference whether houses are made of timber or masonry, if they can give the people that live in them that filling of safety and privacy that we aspect from them.

Having said that now let us see or guess the reasons why these houses were made of timber, and why they were set on wooden stumps.

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This house here is called the workers cottage. You can say that it is a much smaller version of the Queenslander house, it still is off the ground, it still has some verandas, but is is smaller. 

The wooden houses on stumps

The wooden houses on stumps of Brisbane and Australia

As we have said, in Brisbane a lot of houses are made of timber, but not only are they made of timber, they are set on wooden stumps. So, let us see the reasons why they were made this way.

From what we have heard from the locals, we can conclude that there were several reasons why the houses were made of timber. The first reason is that when the first settlers started to build Brisbane, there were plenty of trees that could be cut down and make good timber to build those houses. And then the people that came to live in Brisbane and Australia had good knowledge how to use timber, since they came by boats, and because the boats of those days were mostly made of timber, there were always carpenters and carpenter tools on board, in case the boat needed repairs, so, to use timber and build timber houses was the easiest way for them, since they had the knowledge the tools and plenty of timber in the woods surrounding Brisbane, and other parts of Australia that needed houses.

At the beginning the houses were simple shelters, but as the time went by they became better, because the builders became aware of what would work better in this climate, you see, here around Brisbane and northward, when the wet season comes the ground becomes too wet for the houses to stand on the ground, in hot summer days everything becomes too hot and there were lots of vermin on the ground, so, they found a way how to build houses that would avoid most of these problems; that is why the houses on stumps became a necessity, of course slowly they became even better and even pretty, that is how the Queenslander house was born, which is a large house with verandas around them that keeps the weather and the hot sun off the main walls of the house. One can see these pretty Queensland houses if you look around even today.

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The Queenslander houses

The Queenslander House

The Queenslander house is a large timber house; some of them are pretty and they serve the inhabitant well, as they have been built to take the advantage of the hot climate in Brisbane and north Queensland regions. Now since I have been working in these houses to maintain them, let me describe them to you in more details. As anyone can guess there are a few different types of these houses, but here we are talking about the large Queenslander and the workers cottage, which is a small and cheaper version of the large Queenslander.

As we have said, when the first settlers arrived here, there were plenty of trees around to make timber, a lot of this timber is called hardwood, which as the name suggests is hard and very strong, some of this timber are even stronger and longer lasting than the European oak or other strong European woods. So, the houses were strong and secure, the only natural enemy of these houses were the white ants (termites), which can eat through the wood and destroy the houses. The termites are native to Australia and if we go up north in Australia, we can see strange mounts of earth springing up from the ground, these is how the white ants live, they eat wood from the inside, and they make these mounts of earth.

So, as you can see this was another reason why the houses were built on stumps. The stumps were made of whole sections of trees that are resistant to rot; of course, the white ants were still able to eat those stumps, but they were treated with special paints and at the top they had a capping of metal that would make a barrier to the white ants if they came from the inside the stump, and a barrier to the other ants or crawling insect from the outside.

We can say that some of these timber houses have been made pretty, because timber can be cut to different shapes easily, so, they were prettier compared to the house made of masonry, which is awfully expensive to decorate them with masonry, so, the houses are usually square boxes with a roof at the top.

Decorative fretwork was easy to make with timber, so, most houses had some decorations in them, in one way or the other. Now I can go on telling you how these houses were made, but that would be hard to do, so, I am going to search the Internet for photos that can show you what I mean, about fretwork and other timber names, anyhow there are a lot of names given to these pieces of timber that is hard for me to name and for the readers to understand what is meant by that name.

Anyhow, I believe this blog is long enough, so, see you in our next blog, where we are going to talk about, these wooden houses need some care. See you soon.

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This blog is, old man-lifeworks

Australian wooden houses 

IS TO BE CONTINUED WITH

These wooden houses need some care

See you soon.

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I believe that on the internet, it is  helpful if we keep our personal links handy, so that we can visit our sites from anywhere we are. These links hereunder are some of my links, feel free to visit them. 

 http://manneedsgod.co.uk

http://frankmenchise.com

http://diybrickwork.com 

https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/prayersofreconciliation/

https://sites.google.com/site/godintheuniverse/

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