Heritage and Character Housing - Townsville City Council

a laundry and eventually as a garage space for vehicles.Many older houses have been restumped using square or roundconcrete stumps, and more recently steel posts.Timber stumps should be inspected for rot or termite damage andconcrete stumps should be inspected for ‘concrete cancer’, the resultof reinforcing bars rusting and expanding, causing the concrete tocrack away. Ant caps should also be inspected for their intactness.Breaching by termites is evident from mud galleries around the caps.If new stumps are required, try to match the material and size to theoriginals; for example round durability Class 1 hardwood to replaceround timber stumps, or reinforced square concrete to replace squareconcrete posts. Reinstate or replace ant caps, anchor bolt tie downbrackets and any cross bracing, timber screens or battens betweenstumps as required.FloorsStructural floor framing consists of hardwood bearers and joists.Internal floorboards were hardwood tongue and groove with shotedged hardwood boards used on verandahs. Internally, older housescommonly have six inch hoop pine tongue and groove boards.Verandah joists slope slightly to the outside, allowing drainage.Usually, floors were only lightly sanded, covered with several layersof newspaper underlay, and topped with carpet or patterned 'lino'.Some floors were sanded smooth and finished with a clear copalvarnish. Often carpet or lino squares were used and a one-foot wideedge border was left, that was painted with a black Japan stain.Verandah boards were usually left unfinished.Inspect the structural timbers and floorboards for damage. Unsoundstructural timbers should be wholly replaced. Floorboards can bepatched by removing the damaged section and replacing with new orsecond hand timber to match the existing.Removing floor coverings and treating boards, including verandahs,with a clear polyurethane finish is now popular. Be cautious, as theheavy sanding required for these finishes could expose the tonguesof the tongue and groove boards or worse still, expose borer ortermite damage. Think to the future; new finishes can quickly becomeworn, and a re-finish will require more heavy sanding to remove thepolyurethane. A three-quarter inch thick floor board which has beenheavily sanded twice could have up to a quarter inch of woodremoved.Consider re-laying floor coverings over previously covered areas, orrepolish the floors using a commercially available oil based floorvarnish. To prolong the life of polished floors, try placing traditionalrugs or carpets in heavy wear areas to maintain the attractiveness ofnewly polished timber.Walls, doors and windowsMost timber walled Townsville houses have a hardwood frame, whilesome early 1900s houses have a silky oak frame.Wall studs were tenoned into mortised top plates and floor bearers,Heritage and Character Housing Information Guide 41