Structure
Your Garage – A Fire Risk?

How big a fire risk is your garage? Well in my garage there are the following fuel sources 50 Litres of Petrol. (in the car fuel tank) A litre of white spirit. A litre turps substitute. 2 x 5kg gas…
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Placing Your House On The Block – 10 Things To Consider

There’s lots to think about when you are positioning a house on a block. Here are some things that you should consider when comparing blocks and then deciding how to place your house, Statutory Limits There are usually the following…
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What’s On The Roof?

A METAL ROOF This covers zincalume, galvanised steel and colorbond. Following are a few thoughts: In general a metal roof is noisier as you can hear the rain (which I like) They are fairly light so they don’t put as…
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Upstairs and Downstairs

In my first 35 years living in England I always lived in 2 storey homes. I was never that keen on stairs for the following reasons: During that time I thought that the worst job around the house, when helping…
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House Style or Fashion Victim

Appearance is very much a matter of taste with different people liking different styles, there no right solution. If I put up a picture of something as the way to go than more people would think I was wrong, than…
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Timber or Steel Frame

The most common frame for the standard brick veneer house uses timber. Steel frames however are becoming much more common. . . . So why should you choose one or the other? Advantages of Timber Well understood by builders; Cheaper;…
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Rendered Foam Walls

This addendum was added to an original Post from 2014 as there has been a lot of publicity recently (late February 2019) about foam panels and certification has been removed from certain types of panels. A particular issue for apartment…
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Will Your Roof Take Solar Panels?

Plenty of people are thinking about solar panels as they can save a lot of money. But is your roof strong enough? In the old days a house roof had a good factor of safety so they could take the…
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What are balustrades and why are they important for safety in your home?

Guest post by James Andrew If you have invested in buying a property, you want it to look good and you want it to be a safe place. The last thing you want to happen is for someone to get hurt while…
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Floor Loadings

One of the things with blogging about houses is you can’t stop looking at buildings. I was on holiday in Cairns a couple of weeks ago and looking out of my hotel saw this balcony. What a great idea to have…
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