Home renovations

[pink poodle]

It seems that a few people on here have experience with home renovations and there are others with abundant trade experiences too, so I thought perhaps a thread to share handy tips for getting things done around the house might not be out of place.

To get the ball rolling, I am likely to be engaging in renovations again soon. I have sold a house I renovated about 12 years ago and am currently looking to pick up a bottom of the barrel ugly duckling...

I looked at a cottage a few days ago that is around 100 years old. It really appealed to me - location, style, price and layout were all on the money. But then I crawled underneath and holy wow powers batman!!! Rising damp like a mofo. I mean epic! Rotted bearers, collapsed piers, mortar dissolving everywhere, and rotted out floor boards (tragic as the boards were a particular highlight of this house). Has anyone ever successfully arrested and repaired their house from such an abomination? Was there an ongoing issue or maintenance schedule? If demolished, is a new house in the same location likely to suffer the same fate? What kind of costs are we talking?

 

[hifiandmtb]

Have you identified the root cause of the rising damp? Until you have, you won't know how hard it is to fix.

 

[pink poodle]

Have you identified the root cause of the rising damp? Until you have, you won't know how hard it is to fix.

I have a few suspicions (height of house from ground, insufficient ventilation underneath, neighbouring block is up hill and almost all concrete, soil in the area has high clayand it is an area of town known for it. This place may end up in the too hard basket.

 

[Freediver]

That sounds like my place before I bought it. I wish I hadn't. Building from scratch is easy, renovating can be a nightmare. Without seeing it it's hard to know exactly what's wrong and the extent of the damage.

Fixing drainage can be pretty pricey if you have to get in the earthmovers and it can be backbreaking if you don't but you might be lucky and find its just guttering or spouting that needs repair. Rotten sub floor isn't so bad, still not cheap but easy work once you've dug your stump holes. Note that I said once you've dug stump holes, digging under a house is a prick.

Repointing isn't so hard and mortar is pretty cheap but if it's bad enough to need to get a bricky in then up goes your costs again.

Floorboards are easy to replace, polish and they are pretty easy to source second hand but even then can be expensive, depending on species.

What about things like the roof, wiring, rest of the plumbing and of course the kitchen and bathroom.

If the price reflects the amount of blood, sweat, tears and oxfords you have to put in then it could be a fun project if it doesn't then steer clear. Get a really good idea of what it's going to cost to bring up to scratch and compare that to what similar renovated houses go for. The money isn't in it in inner Melbourne anymore. The last few years you would have got a better return just sitting in one while it rots around you and then reselling.

 

[pink poodle]

I've often found it difficult to get trades peeps to quote on jobs (work around here has been a bit easy for them over the last decade) on houses I own, I can't see it being any easier for a place i dont own.

Agent claims house is rewired and replumbed. I'm dubious.

 

[Mr Crudley]

I have a friend that has a terrace house at Newtown that had rising damp. It is pretty involved to treat it and the professionals charge mucho spendola.

There is a kit and I think how-tos on YouTube for it. Appeared to work for him but took a few months. You drill holes into the affected areas and fill it up with the treatment.

Lots of risk and if you go ahead then the pricing has to be low enough. It is for most renovations you need spare $$$ on hand and ready. Things usually go wrong in one from or another only the price varies.


Sent from my F5121 using Tapatalk

 

[Freediver]

Is that rewired and replumbed in that new fangled gal pipe and steel cased wiring 1952 style or more recent.
I've got no idea about drainage laws in NSW but down here point of discharge is taken pretty seriously. Water shouldn't be flowing from a neighbours off their hard surfaces anywhere other than the stormwater drain. If that's the problem then getting the council to force them to fix it shouldn't be too hard. It might be an easy fix that costs you nothing and something that brings the price down.

 

[wesdadude]

My folks are renovators. If you've got lots of time on your hands there's plenty of shows on 9life where people encounter all sorts of issues all the time.

 

[flamin'trek]

How hard can it be to fix? Buy it!

No matter what your estimate, allow some contingency. No personal experience with damp, but from some what I've seen in English restoration/renovation shows it tends to go further than you can see.

I'd possibly take it on, but not with a full time job. Using your labour is the biggest cost saver. I've just completed a major room re-jig up stairs. Cost about $35k and I did all but electrical, a couple of Windows, the carpet and wardrobe doors. Reckon I wouldn't have got much change out of $60-80k if someone did the work for me.

 

[Boom King]

Have you identified the root cause of the rising damp? Until you have, you won't know how hard it is to fix.

I have a few suspicions (height of house from ground, insufficient ventilation underneath, neighbouring block is up hill and almost all concrete, soil in the area has high clayand it is an area of town known for it. This place may end up in the too hard basket.

I'm with Hifi, you need to identify the cause to get an idea of cost of fix. Check over the property thoroughly, make sure all gutters and down pipes are flowing to storm water. Anything that isn't can provide a lot of water for damp issues in clay areas.

Re-stumping won't be that difficult as you need to pull the floor and sub floor out anyway, so can go in from the top. Re pointing and adding a moisture membrane to the brickwork isn't that hard either.

The main issue is where the water is coming from and what's necessary to stop it?

 

[sane]

make sure all gutters and down pipes are flowing to storm water. Anything that isn't can provide a lot of water for damp issues in clay areas.

The main issue is where the water is coming from and what's necessary to stop it?

About 15 years ago we bought an old weatherboard terrace. It smelled vaguely damp but it had been renovated in the late 80s to the point where the back had been opened out & the bathroom was moved to the centre of the house. We figured the hard work had been done & we could just strip some shite wallpaper & polish the floorboords.

As it turns out, the when the new central bathroom was built on a new slab, the 2 stormwater pipes coming off the big new open plan rear both ran under the bathroom slab. Instead of connecting these pipes to the stormwater, these pipes simply ended under the middle of the house. Everytime it had rained in the previous 15 years the run off had flooded under the house. The crappy clay soil expanded & the space under the house disappeared. Water rotted all the bearers & we ended up essentially rebuilding the entire original bit of the house.

When we were looking to buy we used to talk about renovation crimes, all the stupid stuff people had done to places. We barely noticed the damp but it turned out to be one of the biggest crimes, completely illegal, but there's nothing you can do about it at that stage.

We are very happy with the area these days & that really is the main thing, but could've engaged a bit more buyer beware at the time.

 

[Boom King]

About 15 years ago we bought an old weatherboard terrace. It smelled vaguely damp but it had been renovated in the late 80s to the point where the back had been opened out & the bathroom was moved to the centre of the house. We figured the hard work had been done & we could just strip some shite wallpaper & polish the floorboords.

As it turns out, the when the new central bathroom was built on a new slab, the 2 stormwater pipes coming off the big new open plan rear both ran under the bathroom slab. Instead of connecting these pipes to the stormwater, these pipes simply ended under the middle of the house. Everytime it had rained in the previous 15 years the run off had flooded under the house. The crappy clay soil expanded & the space under the house disappeared. Water rotted all the bearers & we ended up essentially rebuilding the entire original bit of the house.

When we were looking to buy we used to talk about renovation crimes, all the stupid stuff people had done to places. We barely noticed the damp but it turned out to be one of the biggest crimes, completely illegal, but there's nothing you can do about it at that stage.

We are very happy with the area these days & that really is the main thing, but could've engaged a bit more buyer beware at the time.

Yep, everything can be fixed but it's nice to be able to make an informed decision at the point of purchase.

 

[richie_gt]

I looked at a cottage a few days ago that is around 100 years old. It really appealed to me - location, style, price and layout were all on the money. But then I crawled underneath and holy wow powers batman!!! Rising damp like a mofo. I mean epic! Rotted bearers, collapsed piers, mortar dissolving everywhere, and rotted out floor boards (tragic as the boards were a particular highlight of this house). Has anyone ever successfully arrested and repaired their house from such an abomination? Was there an ongoing issue or maintenance schedule? If demolished, is a new house in the same location likely to suffer the same fate? What kind of costs are we talking?

I bought a run down semi detached house in Sydney a couple of years back. One thing which we did was get an building inspection, not to tell us it was run down but to see if the 'bones' were ok and it was worth saving. We found a bloke who went over the place for us and gave us a basic estimate of costs to rectify the issues (as he saw it).

Our place was literally wet when we bought it, the roof was an absolute mess and it was put down to 'falling damp' rather than rising damp - first thing we did was replace the iron roof with new colorbond - the place practically dried up within a week or so...phew!

One of my boundary walls is against my neighbours driveway and we had some damp problems from that - I had stripped the internal wall of render and repaired it then a few months later we had some really wet weather and the wall ended up suffering some bad rising damp. I had a damp specialist look at it and he quoted damp course injections at $100 per linear metre + GST. I ended up getting it done cheaper because I helped him out to do it when he had some cancelled jobs, I also had to rip all the render on the walls I had done (at his recommendation) and he gave me some stuff to put in the render mix. It seems to have done the trick as I haven't suffered the same issues since. Got him to look at another small patch of damp at the rear of my place and he told me to paint over it lol, purely because we can't isolate what's causing it!

I guess if you can fix the issues you can put a cost on it and get it sorted, rising damp seems to be a hard one to tackle unless you know what the source of the issue is!