Syndey Blue gum

[KrisK]

Hi Guys

We need to look at replacing our timberflooring. After removing all the skirting and picture railing we've found the floor is shot. It is FAR from level and very wonky. Most of the picture railing timber was eaten out by termites (and now removed) and the floor is much the same.

It's an oregon floor, but is Kauri in the other room and just MDF in the hall way.

Sydney Blue Gum looks really nice.

Does anyone know roughly what I'm looking at in material cost for say 2 rooms at 4x4 plus a 6x1 hall way?

Further, given the floor isn't level and the floor joists are damaged (termite evidence is apparently on most of them) what is the best bet here? Once the floor is up, is replacing them a huge job?

Thanks

 

[RumpledElf]

Looky looky, someone with exactly the same problems as we have

Our floors were baltic, all level except the worst room where some idiot replaced the baltic with chipboard and didn't replace the joist. We've got two rooms of floors up now - very different subfloors so it will depend what quality of subfloor you have as to how easy it will be to fix.

We have one room with subwalls, bearers and joists. Actually, 4 out of the 5 timber floored rooms in the house are like this. If you have this, dead easy. Just take out the flakey termite poo ridden matchwood remnants of your joists and chuck em, and replace them with either hardwood or termite treated pine in the same size. Skew nail into the bearers (we had half our joists eaten by termites but the other half and the bearers are fine). If the bearers are gone, do the same with those - joists and bearers are probably 45x90 timber. Can't get termite capping under bearers that are lying directly on dwarf walls, so you might want to get the house thoroughly treated for termites. Incidentally if you get a professional to remove what is left of your boards they will come up clean and they might buy them off you, without the "special tool" that we don't have, you break the boards as you pull them up. Tradie wouldn't tell us what the special tool is but we are getting $1.50 a metre for the boards and he does the work no charge.

Our other room is a bodge job with no dwarf walls, no bearers and the joists just sitting on the ground. None of the joists have termite damage but a lot of them have rot. If you've got a room like that, you're screwed. Unless you're willing to raise the floor to get better airflow by putting something under the joists and replacing the bad ones (which is what we are doing) your best bet in this case is to get some professionals out to do the floor in cement.

Boral is one of the bigger sellers of timber flooring. A call to them should get you the prices, it might even be on their site somewhere.

http://www.boral.com.au/Article/Timber_Timber_Flooring_-_Uninail.asp?AUD=homeGarden_TimberFlooring

You want the 19mm stuff. It isn't cheap - solid timber ranges from $50-120 a square metre depending on species. Then you need someone to install it - I wouldn't be installing something so expensive DIY, I'd be too scared of screwing it up. You still need to get it sanded and polished, $20-25 a square metre (although I was just quoted $450 for a 3x4 room which is $37/sqm).

We are replacing all our damaged floors with termite-treated particleboard ($16sqm) and going over the top with laminate flooring ($11-50/sqm depending on quality, this will be a rental so we're leaning towards the cheap end).

Treated pine 45x90 for joists are only a couple of dollars a metre.

ETA: to get the floor level, chock up the bearers or joists with bits of cement sheeting.

 

[yorke]

Hi Guys


Does anyone know roughly what I'm looking at in material cost for say 2 rooms at 4x4 plus a 6x1 hall way?

Timber plus $20 a meter for adhesive, sanding and finishing.
Can get nice timber for around $30.sqm + delivery

 

[KrisK]

Thanks guys!! Wow, so informative. So I got my head under there and most of the bearers are sitting on lumps of wood and some on bricks.. its quite dodgy.

There is about 8-9 of headroom before the floor and the earth, so as suggested I think its best to truck in some gravel and fill the empty space with concrete. Seems to be cheaper/easier and at least we can do something about the termites (Kordon) before we lay our floor. We can then fill up the existing wall vents (they dont work anyway) and should be able to do something about damp whilst we are at it (could inject chemical damp proofing whilst the floor is up)

I think by teh time I muck around getting new timber in the floor plus leveling it, creating peirs and all the mucking around its easier for someone to come in and lay concrete. There is only about 30sqm in total so I dont think the concrete would be exy

 

[Rockstar]

Can get nice timber for around $30.sqm + delivery

OMG! We are paying over $60/sqm in our neck of the woods.