Farming today compared to the old ways.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED, TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. Anyhow, today things are changing, and this change is affecting me and my family, and in a way in my old age, we are looking more at what the government can do for us, that is why I will be writing posts about the Australian Security System.

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/  

Farming today compared to the old way, My life my struggles, 

Hub Pages, DIY brickwork. and this article at this link, Farming today compared to the old way. 

                      Wheat farming the modern way.

Show off of Harvester machines and how harvesting is done today. But here we have to say that this photo is just an exaggeration because it is too crowded with machines. Anyhow, harvesting was a lot harder in the old times. As we are going to tell you in this blog and next blog. 

Farming today compared to the old way

Welcome to our article, Farming today compared to the old way. 

Dear readers, I need to explain that this original article has been posted in Hub Pages, but because it was too long, I have spilt it in two parts, and this is part one. I also need to point out that things are changing these days, so, what I am saying here can be different. I need to tell you that this article was written the first time in 2012.  

Anyhow, I want to talk about farming today compared to the old ways, because I can mentally see the great difference that it has made in our standard of living. So, I believe that today we are better off than we were before; but let me see how I can describe this difference. Anyhow, I am writing about my life story, so, I mentally compare the ways of life of today to the ways of life in the past when I was young; for this reason, I have become aware that there is a great difference; in fact, the difference is so great that it is worth writing an entire article to explain my personal point of view.

Anyhow, we must acknowledge that this modern wheat farming in Australia, and in other parts of the world, it has slashed the present cost of living a lot, and this helps us to live a better life. We believe that this has happened because of the new farming machines available to the farmers, and the fertilises available to them; so, farmers are able to produce wheat and other produce a lot cheaper than in the past, so, food has become cheaper, therefore, we are better off today in many ways.

In this article, we invite our readers to compare how different farming and farming life was at the time when I was young in the fifties, and, how hard was life then because most of us had to work hard just to earn enough to feed ourselves and our families.

This difference that we are talking about applies to the farmers and the public as well, because today it affects both in a beneficial way. So, there is a lot to be said about this great difference in cost and hardship or easiness, and this has happened during my life timelifetime. So, I believe that our standard of living has improved a lot, at least in the sense of being able to feed ourselves with wheat and other farm products, because the cost of farm products are more affordable today than in the past; so, let us compare the cost of living, perhaps for the sake of seeing where we have come from and how much we have improved since then.

Today we often wonder how easy it is to grow and harvest wheat, at least it seems so when we look at a video that shows harvest time in the wheat farms, we see a few harvester machines in a field collect the wheat in no time at all, and because of this speed of these wonderful combine harvester machine food is a lot cheaper today than it used to be; of course these machines are only part of the machinery that helps the farmers produce the wheat, because there are many more machines required. So, let us talk about some other machinery that the farmers require.

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Some farmers' machinery. 

Now let us talk about the farmer’s machinery and the benefit that has come from them; of course, this is due to the industrial revolution that has started a long time ago, and last century has reached the farming communities improving it a lot. It seems to me that the farming sector has been one of the last communities that has benefited from the industrial revolution, anyhow, that doesn’t matter how it has worked out, because today we are better off, so, let us talk about these machines. (To see some machines click on this link, Farming today compared to the old way.

We can say that the most important machine in the farms is the tractor, as this machine can be used in all sorts of farming, in wheat farming the tractor is followed by the harvester machine and other devices to till the soil and to sow the seeds, and all these machines put together make farming a lot easier today, therefore, wheat can be produced a lot cheaper, this of course helps keep the price of bread and other wheat made products down, since wheat is the main food elements required in the western world to prepare food, therefore, this new way of farming helps a great deal just about everybody, since wheat is one of the main ingredients to make foods for us to eat, and we require lots of it.

Of course, if we want to talk about farming there is more to say than just wheat farming, because there are many other things that the bloke on the land can produce, see this link here-under how Wikipedia explains farming.

Agriculture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dear readers, now that we have talked about these farmer’s machines, let us talk about wheat farming and the great benefit that we get from it; we must be happy about what is happening because it is a good thing for all of us; so, we want to point out that there is a great difference in the ways of living, and we are a lot better off today than we were when I was young, so, let us compare some of the benefits that we have achieved, since today the farmers can use these farm machines that the industrial revolution has made for us.

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Let us compare these benefits. 

Now, let us compare the great difference between today and the past. Now this comparison was true the day I wrote it the first time, anyhow, in Australia there are a few places that a 600g loaf of bread costs you just one dollar, we know that this bread is sold at a very special price from these supermarket, in order to get the customers to the shop, but we wonder and we do not know how it can be done so cheap but they do it anyhow, this very low price of bread is possible only because the farmer can produce the wheat cheap for a start.

Then, because the wheat is cheap the price of bread can be cheap, the supermarkets make it even cheaper to attract customers, because the supermarkets have a price war to attract customers on bread and also on milk, so, we can buy a loaf of bread for one dollar and we can buy a two litre bottled milk for two dollars, that works out at one dollar per litre, again how they can do it I do not know, but they do it anyhow; so, there is plenty of cheap wholesome food around for us to enjoy, thanks to the farmers and the supermarkets. (We hope that this will last for a long time, but I have my doubts). Anyhow, I must point out that in the past, the price of bread and milk was a lot dear, in fact there have been times, when people were struggling to feed themselves, as we will explain before we finish writing this article.

But even though bread and milk is cheap beyond compare, there are people that still complain about the cost of living today, I know that what I am talking about here are only a few items and a lot more are needed to live well. But for comparison’s sake let us show you how easily we can afford to buy bread and milk today, you see today, while I am writing this article for the first time, most people on the government old age pension in Australia receive about 700 dollars per fortnight, which would be about 50 dollars per day, they can easily afford to buy bread and milk and other food items.

Now that we have said how easy it is to buy bread and other staple food today, let us see how things were done in the past. You see, when I was young things were a lot harder than today, for sure we could not buy bread and milk as easy as we buy them today, because to produce these things took a lot more physical work than today, therefore, they were a lot more expensive, they were so because the way of producing them was different, in order to show you what we mean, we are going to describe how wheat farming was done at the time when I was young, and how hard it was for some people just to have something to eat, even if it was just a piece of bread and butter, bread and milk, or bread and tomatoes or other basic things that one could find in the fields if you were in the farms. Anyhow, let me describe how farming was done then, in this following sub-article, farming the old ways, so, we can have a better understanding of the whole issue, and be able to compare the past with the present way of farming.

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Farming the old way. 

Dear readers, to compare and explain how farming was done at the time when I was young, we are going to write here the way of farm life that was going on in those times; we know already that things have changed for the better since then, as we have written above, because of the tractor and new farming machinery that have come out since then, all due to the industrial revolution or progress; which we have experienced in the last hundred years or so, but when I was young there were a lot less advanced farming machine that could make farming easy, of course, the tractors were already there, but they were very expensive to buy for most of the small farmers, so, we had to do most things the old ways. Now let me tell you how life was in the farms of southern Italy in the early fifties and earlier.

It is a well-known fact that in those times and even now, there are two times during the year, when in the farms everybody is working hard and working very long hours; one of this was sowing time and the other is harvest time, let us start with sowing times. When I was young the working day at sowing time would start two hours before dawn, because we had to make the horses, mules and other animals ready for working in the fields, we had to feed them and water them as well, it had to be done in such a way that everything should be made ready to go into the fields at daybreak.

At that time of the year in the morning it was very cold and there are lots of frosty days, so, in the morning the outside temperature could be around zero or below, it is very hard then to harness the horses to the plough as everything one touches is so cold; but then when one gets going it is not so bad, because walking in the fields holding the plough in one hand and guiding the horses with the other hand is hard work and it makes one warm. This type of very hard work at sowing time goes on for about a month if the weather is good and perhaps it could be longer than a month. When the sowing is done then everything slows down again, but we had still to look after the farms’ animals and do other farming chores; see this article My farm life continues, where we describe what we did after sowing, and what we did during the winter time.

Now let us talk about harvest time, since this is the busiest time in the farms, because harvest time is when the farmers collect the fruits of their hard labour, so, there is no time to be wasted at harvest time, therefore, this was and is the most hectic time of the year for all the farmers, and it is a very worrying time too for the farmers, you see if something goes wrong all their work goes down the drain for the whole year, so to speak. Here we are talking about mostly how things were run in the farms when I was young.

Now let us say a few things about today farming, especially about wheat farming, because wheat is one of the most important produces that we need from farming, as we have already said at the beginning of this article. With wheat we make bread and pasta and other bakery products, therefore, it is the most important farm produce that we use. So, let us compare what is changed in wheat farming since I was young: 

Now this blog is becoming too long, so, we will continue this article in part two, where we describe, how wheat harvest was done in the fifties. See you then. 

To see more click on this link, Farming today compared to the old way

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The Australian social security system.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. Anyhow, today things are changing, and this change is affecting me and my family, and in a way in my old age, we are looking more at what the government can do for us, that is why I will be writing posts about the Australian Security System.

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/  

Farming today compared to the old way, My life my struggles, 

Hub Pages, DIY brickwork. and this article at this link, Australian Social Security . 

In Australia the government runs its own social security system, called Centrelink, they are supposed to look after all the people that for some reason need help from the government. But sometimes it does not work out that way, so, here we are looking at what could be done to improve the situation.  

Australian Social Security 

Australian Social Security

The Australian social security fails the farmers.

Welcome to our article,  Australian Social Security.  

Dear readers, today we want to talk about the Australian social security system, the benefits that we gain from this system, and also its failure to help the people in need, when they need help. To do that we are going to publish several blog, some of this blogs, may sound a bit outdated, but this is the easiest way to explain, our idealistic poit of view that may or may not be achieved. 

Anyhow, in this article about the “Australian Social Security”, we start by writing, why the Australian Social Security fails to help the farmers; then we will also discuss other things where they fail. But first let us discuss about the farmer, because as we have said in another article Farming Today Is Still a Risky Business, that we will publish here soon. 

You see, today the Australian Social Security system is helping lots of people, but it is not helping the farmers, even though the farmers really need help from the government. Therefore, we want to know why this is happening, and then, we can suggest how to avoid this happening again. We believe that the Social Security system in Australia must help anybody that needs help, at least the name itself suggests that. So, we are going to investigate and talk about this issue, in this article and the following articles.

Anyhow, our views are based on what was happening in Australia, about farming and the drought, so, the first question is; why the Australian Social Security system has failed to help the farmers. We believe that the Australian Social Security can do better than what it is doing now. So, let us see why the Australian social security is failing to help the farmers.

Now, what we are saying here is what we know, but, if you want to know more about the Australian Social Security system, you should follow these links, Social security in Australia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_security_in_Australia, Benefits and Payments - Australia.gov.au, and other links that can be found on the internet.

Anyhow, we believe that the Australian Social Security system that we call Centrelink, has failed to help the farmers, because it has not been planned to help them from the beginning, as we will explain as we go on writing these articles. Anyhow, we are talking about the drought and the farmers that are having a very hard time, so, we were saying that all this hardship can be minimized, if aids from the Social Security System was more readily available to the farmers, but it is not, so, the only thing that we can think about this failure, is why the social security has failed to help? Because it is not fair for the farmers, so, the present Social Security System needs to be fixed.

So, why the social security has failed to help? Once you ask that question and look for the reasons, you realize that in Australia not everybody is treated the same, from the current social security system. You see, people are treated different because they belong to different categories; there are: the-have and the-have-not; there are the workers that work for wages; there are the self-employed; there are the farmers, which we could say are self-employed, and others; anyhow, when people go to Centrelink the Social Security government agencies for help, the agencies do what they can according to where these groups of people belong, so, let us see some examples how this works. 

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How the Social Security works. 

Let us start from the working people; when people that work for a wage, become unemployed and they are not earning any money, they can go to Centrelink, where they can apply to receive the unemployment benefit from the government; this means that the government gives them some money, until they find another job to go to and can earn their living. This system is called Social Security unemployment benefits, or something like that, and it is good, it is like receiving a small wage to help you survive, so, it helps the workers when they don’t have a job and need financial help, which is good.

But the problem with this system is that all categories are not treated the same, which is not good. So, I believe that something needs to be done, to help anyone that needs help. You see, some categories may not receive help because they belong to a certain category, even if they earn no money and have no money, like the farmers, when there ia a drought, this is the problem with the Social Security system. 

You see, the farmers cannot turn to the government for help, because they are self-employed, and they are supposed to be rich, okay they are rich, because they own a lot of land, so, the assets test will exclude them from any government help; in this case there is no social security for the farmers. This is the reason why the social security system is failing the farmers, it is not set to help those people that cannot earn money even when they must work hard, in the hope they can earn their living.

But I believe that these people must be helped, because they are the backbone of the Australian economy, therefore, we cannot afford to lose them, so, the Social Security system needs to be adjusted to help them when they need help. They must be helped from the government, until the day that something else can replace the government help; like the collection of funds that we have suggested in our last article. Here we need also to say, that today farming is not regulated from the government, but some regulations may need to be placed; so that when things don’t work out, the government will be more willing to help the farmers.

Anyhow, we have worked out that today the farmers cannot be helped from Centrelink, because they are self-employed, and because they have too much property as assets. You see, the assets-test is the main problem here; but I believe that the assets-test in special cases should not override the income test completely, this suggestion does not apply only to the farmers, because the assets-test is also making life miserable to pensioners that own properties, when those properties cannot earn half the money the assets test believe they could.

So, in my views the assets test needs to be modified. Anyhow, we are going into details later, anyhow, it will become self-explained as we write more articles about it. We want to say now that there are issues that need to be fixed from the federal government. So, this farmer’s problem and the assets-test for pensioner, is going to be a real problem for the politicians, if they want to help the people that have voted for them at the elections.

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 Let us look at the political reasons. 

Anyhow, I want to point it out to you, that in our previous articles that we started to talk about assets-test and politics. Now, what is happening at the Australian federal government level is not right, they need to work better what the people need, and how the people are affected when they make their budgets, I believe that this is one of the reasons why Australia is having problems today, some of these political people that become treasurers are heartless and careless, they have made many mistakes that has affected the public adversely, some of these mistakes need to be fixed, the public is not going to forget easily what they have done, so, they are going to run the risk of losing their next elections, on this issue alone. But let us compare what is happening now to the past. I believe that in the past it was better, at least this is the way I have seen it happen.

Anyhow, in the past as far as I know there was no assets test in the seventies, it was introduced later to stop people that were abusing the system, also because the government needed more money. Now, let us try to see and discuss some of the reasons that apply today, which takes us to see that the federal government is greedy, because they want more money. So, here we need to look at who are the people that make these decisions.

Of course, they are the politicians that we send to Canberra parliament to govern us, since the government is formed from the political parties. Now it becomes evident that it is what these political parties represent, believe and preach that are going to make the future laws and budgets that parliament will pass, to govern Australia. 

In this group of articles that we are posting in this blog, we will have a blog called The Australian Political Parties, but our next blog will be, Farming today compared to the old way, to show our reader the importance of farming, and then follow with other blogs, like The Assets Test Problem. 

This is all in this blog, to see more click on this link, Australian Social Security 

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House renovating.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/  

Farming today compared to the old way, My life my struggles, 

Hub Pages, DIY brickwork. and this article at this link, House renovating

This timber house has been raised and renovated, it looks a lot better than before. You need to compare hou it was before to see the difference. To see all the photos click on this link,  House renovating. It takes a lot of work and money to renovate a house, but is worth doing, that is for sure. 

Welcome to our article, House renovating. 

Dear readers, today because some friends in the suburb that I live are going to renovate their house, we have this opportunity to talk about house renovating. Anyhow, here we want to point out that the timber houses in Australia can easily be renovated to various degrees, it all depends on what you want done, and how much money you can afford to spend, just look at this house that is being raised and renovated in Brisbane, look at the great difference of how this house looks now, and how it was before. Today this house looks like a new house, but it was an old house before these renovation works were done. So, in this article we are going to talk about this house renovations. 

House renovating needs tradesmen

Now, in this article we are going to talk about major renovations, so, it is not a DIY article. But 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. 

In this article, most of the work must be done from tradesmen, because we are 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 anyhow it can be done, and the outcome of it, is that it is cheaper than building a new house from scratch.

So, 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.

You have worked out what it could cost you and have decided to go ahead and do the job, so, now look for a firm that makes these plans; after that tell the person you have chosen to go ahead and make the plans for you, they should be able to tell you what the plans 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 on 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. In this article we are going to 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. 

( To see the photos that I am talking about in this article, click on this link, House renovating.)

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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 from the authorities. 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 then 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.

To see the photos that we are talking about, click on this link,  House renovating.

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

 To see more and the original article, click on this link,  House renovating. 

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D.I.Y. house repairs.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/  

Farming today compared to the old way, My life my struggles, 

Hub Pages, DIY brickwork. and this article at this link, D.I.W. house repairs. 

Dear readers, most old houses in Australia are made of timber, this photo above is a typical workers cottage in Brisbane, it is a saller version of the real Queens-lander, just because it is small and more affordable. Anyhow, this is how my house was like, when it was near new, today it is different.  

 

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

Dear readers, in this blog we are writing most of the text, and we are not uploading all the photos that were in our original article, to see the original article, click on the link above. Anyhow, in our DIY articles we have talked about, how to lay bricks in, DIY brickwork , and other articles about building, the last one, Bricklaying needs to be competitive. In this article, we want to talk about house repairs and renovations. Since we have talked about brickwork, concrete work and block work, but today we are going to change, it will be a mix up of trades including timber work.

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.     

 

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 now; 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 since I am a bricklayer, I knew what to do.  

But even though I knew what to do, because of the several set of 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 timer stringers were rotting away and some of the treads were just 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 very 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 very expensive and the timber is not of that grade that lasts a long time, as it used to be.

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, so, how we can achieve that?

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 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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Describing our step-by-step procedure. 

Now that we have bought the materials that we need to replace this set of 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 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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Other repairs or renovations. 

For instance here in Queensland most houses have a roof over their patio (veranda) most houses have too much space for verandas, (these are spaces that have a roof on them but they are open and have a handrail 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. Anyhow, this is just an example how easy it is to do some repairs or small alterations to these timber houses.

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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