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Former Thuringowa region

Guide 6: Alterations to Your House

Starting Out

Before you start making plans you should first check whether your house is entered on the Queensland Heritage Register. There are only a handful of houses in Townsville listed this way, however, requirements of the Townsville City Plan may necessitate getting cultural heritage approval as part of your application for Development Approval under the Queensland Building Act.

You should check whether your house is entered on the Townsville City Council's Local Heritage Database as the Council offers assistance and advice to owners of properties on this database.

You should also read Guides 1 and 2 of this series which cover topics on conserving and tracing the history of the Townsville House. The conservation principles, processes and practices laid down in the Burra Charter, are described in Guide 1, ie. Maintenance, Restoration, Reconstruction and Adaption, should be used as the guide in planning alterations.


Townsville house requiring maintenance.	Fully restored Townsville house "Wolverton" West End.

Restumping

Timber or concrete stumps support most traditional timber Townsville Houses. Some earlier houses were supported on brick piers, although in Townsville this is fairly rare.

The stump and its galvanised iron ant cap formed an effective deterrent to termites and ensured dry conditions within the house during flooding and tropical downpours. Being raised above the ground also gave the occupants a feeling of protection against intrusion by snakes and other animals, particularly at night. An added bonus is that in Townsville's hot summers, air can circulate under the house producing cooler conditions in the house.

Older houses were quite low to the ground but gradually the height above ground increased until the space under became useable for storage or a semi-enclosed laundry area. Vehicles are also parked underneath the house in the space between stumps, where cross braces do not interfere.

Many older houses may have already been restumped using square or round concrete stumps, and more recently steel posts, because the bottom of the original timber stumps had rotted causing the floor structure to drop and the house to become uneven.

Timber stumps should be inspected for rot or termite damage and concrete stumps should be inspected for "concrete cancer", the result of reinforcing bars rusting and expanding, causing the concrete to crack away. Ant caps should also be inspected for their intactness and any breaching by termites can be found if mud galleries are evident around the caps.

If new stumps are required, as a general rule you should match the material and size of the originals, ie round durability class 1 hardwood to replace round timber stumps, reinforced square concrete to replace square concrete posts.

If the house is to be raised, please consult with an architect as raising can often destroy the proportions of the house and its setting in the streetscape.

Also reinstate or replace the ant caps, anchor bolt tie down brackets and any cross bracing and timber screens or battens between stumps, as applicable.

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Floors

Structural floor framing of the typical Townsville House consists of hardwood bearers and joists which carry hardwood tongue and groove (tandg) flooring in the main body of the house and shot edged hardwood boards on verandahs. Older houses usually have 6 inch softwood tandg boards (commonly hoop pine) in the main body of the house. Verandah joists are laid with a slight slope to the outside so that floors drain properly.

Floors of rooms usually were only lightly sanded and were covered with carpet or patterned 'lino' on several layers of newspaper underlay. Sometimes floors of some rooms were sanded smooth and finished with a clear copal varnish. Often carpet or lino squares were used and a border about 1 foot wide was left at the edges of the room and this was painted with a black japan stain. Verandah boards were usually left unfinished.

Inspect the structural timbers and floor boards for damage and cut out rotted sections and replace with new or second hand timber to match the existing.

Common practice these days is to rip up the old floor coverings and polish the floors, including verandahs, with a clear polyurethane finish. This may not necessarily be the best thing to do, the reason being that heavy floor sanding required for polyurethane finishes can sometimes expose the tongues of the tandg boards or worse still, expose any borer or termite damage below the surface. Think to the future, as new polished floors very quickly become old and worn, requiring heavy sanding again to remove all the polyurethane. A 3/4 inch thick floor board which has been heavily sanded twice could have up to a 1/4 inch removed from its thickness.

It may be better to relay floor coverings to previously covered floor areas or repolish the floors using one of the commercially available oil based floor varnishes.

To prolong the life of floors that are polished, it is possible to lay traditional rugs or carpets in the heavy wear areas while still maintaining the attractiveness of the newly polished timber floors.

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Walls, Doors, and Windows

Timber wall frames of most Townsville Houses are sawn hardwood, while some early 1900's houses in Townsville have a Silky Oak frame.

Wall studs were tenoned into the top plates above and floor bearers below, and nailed. Externally, walls were clad with hardwood weatherboards or chamfer-boards and internally were lined with beaded tandg boards laid horizontally. Sometimes to save money the external cladding was left off altogether, except over external windows and doors where it was required to weatherproof the heads. Internally, non-loadbearing stud framed walls were constructed on top of the floor boards. After about 1910, internal walls and walls exposed on the inside of open verandahs were constructed using the post and belt rail system and lined with softwood vee-jointed (vj) tandg boarding laid vertically, twice nailed top and bottom onto the sides of top plates and floor bearers and to the belt rails. Skirting boards were not widely used except in the grander houses.

Internal Door
South Townsville

Picture rail
V J Lining
Fretwork Ventilation Panel
Transpane
Top rail
Top panel
Midrail
Pressed Steel Rimlock
Stile
Bottom panels
Mullion
Bottom rail
Skirting

Doors and windows were standard sized components produced in a joinery workshop and fitted on the job between accurately set out studs and posts.

Doors are either panelled or boarded. Panelled doors in the late 1800s and early 1900s usually have four panels, and three panelled doors are more common in houses built after 1918. Boarded doors with ledged and braced frames were used on the more austere houses. External doors usually have a boarded bottom section on the frame with either glass panels or timber louvres in the top section. Doors leading from the main rooms onto the verandahs are usually French door pairs, with a timber panelled bottom section and patterned cast glass panels above. Some doors have opening fanlights above the doors and fretwork ventilation panels are common above internal doorways.

French doors on verandah
South Townsville

Top plate
V J lining
Timber brace
Head tensioned through jamb stud
Fanlight
Belt rail
Clear colour cast patterned glass panels
Green colour cast patterned glass panels
Pressed steel rimlock
Solid timber panel
Threshold
Shot edge hard flooring

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Windows consist of many types, however double hung sashes, casements and adjustable timber louvres made of Silky Oak are the most common. Window glazing is usually thin small sheets of float or patterned cast glass held into the frame with metal sprigs and putty. Unprotected windows are usually covered by a sunshade, either timber framed and ripple iron sheeted or fabricated galvanised iron hoods in a variety of designs.

You should retain the existing doors and windows in your house, including any accompanying hardware and iron-mongery. If for any reason some of these are damaged beyond repair, then it may be possible to obtain matching secondhand items cheaply from a demolition yard. It does not matter if an exact match cannot be obtained. New doors and windows could also be made to match existing using suitable substitute joinery timbers.

Side Window
South Townsville

Quad guttering
Chamferboards on outside of studs over window
Ripple iron and timber sunshade
Casement windows coloured glass in small panels
Exposed wall studs, chamferboards on inside

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Roofs

Roof shapes of the typical Townsville House come in a variety of forms, generally steeply pitched, hipped or gabled roofs, or a combination of these. In older houses the verandah roofs are usually separate from the main roof and laid at a flatter pitch. Some are curved or bullnosed. Other houses have the verandahs under the main roof. Sometimes other separate roofs covered kitchens or bathrooms at the back and sides of houses.

Roof Corner Detail
South Townsville

Acroteria
Gutter bracket
G I quad guttering
Timber fascia
Verandah plate
Roof batten
Rafter
Corner post
Silkey Oak "Merry Widow" blinds

Roof framing consists of hardwood beams, rafters, battens and ceiling joists nailed together. Roofs were originally sheeted using short lengths of corrugated galvanised iron, which were lapped down the roof and fixed with lead head galvanised nails. Spring head galvanised nails are used on later roofs. Nowadays many of the original roofs which had rusted away have been resheeted using corrugated zincalume steel sheets in single lengths from ridge to gutter.

Ridge cappings, hip flashings, barge flashings and valley flashings are used to bridge the gap at the change in direction of the roof sheetings and are generally formed up out of galvanised iron sheet, bent and scribed to fit into the corrugations of the roof sheeting. Gutters are generally ogee or quad types held on with spike brackets. Downpipes are 3 inch round pipes formed out of galvanised iron with a folded seam on the outside placed closest to the wall or post to which they are fixed using strap brackets. Other rainwater goods found on some Townsville Houses include gable rolls, roof ventilators, finials, acroteria and other ornate crestings.

Side Gable Roof
Sturt Street

Timber finial
Ornamental cresting

If your roof is leaking or is in a deteriorated condition, sometimes repair is not always possible and it may be necessary to replace the roof sheetings and rainwater goods. While the roof sheeting is off, it is a good idea to upgrade the strength of the roof framing to withstand cyclonic wind conditions by improving the bracing and the joint strength of members for tie down. You also should consider introducing insulation under the new roof to improve the comfort level within the house.

Where part replacement is taking place, eg. one side of the roof only, be aware of the problems of dissimilar metals. Electrolysis can occur if water discharges off new zincalume roof sheeting into the original galvanised iron gutters and downpipes, causing them to corrode.

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Kitchens and Bathrooms

As part of the alterations to your Townsville House you may feel it is necessary to upgrade the kitchen and bathroom areas to make them more efficient and liveable and to satisfy the needs of today's lifestyle. There is nothing wrong with this, but don't discard original cupboards, fixtures and fittings without first investigating their worth or the possibility of their reuse in your plans. Be careful to ensure that planned new kitchens or bathrooms do not adversely affect the structure or fabric of the house. For example, if you desire a larger kitchen it may be better to relocate the kitchen to a larger room rather than pulling down walls to enlarge existing rooms.

Painting and Decorating

The traditional timber Townsville House was generally painted throughout, externally and internally, the exceptions being the roof sheeting and the underside of the exposed floor framing. The paint helped to preserve the timber and most have been repainted a number of times. Many older houses were painted using solvent borne linseed oil paint made with lead based pigments. Other paints contained a red oxide base. Red lead was used to prime bare timber and galvanised iron. Today's paints are either oil based solvent borne (enamels) or water based latex (acrylics), with the colours obtained by adding tinters to a dark or light base, and these are available in various gloss levels.

Choosing the colour scheme can be an agonising process and can be influenced by many things including personal taste, current fashion, price, etc. There are no rules, but there are trends which can be identified by looking at lots of different houses from different periods. One way is to find the original colour scheme for your house by looking at old photographs or by taking paint scrapings and matching the colours against a paint manufacturer's colour system. Even old black and white photographs enable you to distinguish which elements on the house are painted with dark colours from those which are light or medium tones. It is just as important to get this balance right as it is to choose the right colours. It is not necessary to paint your house using only so called heritage colours.

Repainting your house inside and out is a task which needs to be undertaken every ten years or thereabouts. Preparation of the surfaces, ie. washing down, stripping back, sanding and filling, is more important than the painting itself. Be careful when preparing surfaces which have lead based paint applied to them as the dust (sanding) and fumes (burning off) are toxic. If the lead paint is stable it is better to leave it and repaint over it. If it does require removal then stripping with chemicals is the recommended method. Paint companies produce detailed data sheets with recommendations on preparation and repainting over existing surfaces including the number and types of priming (undercoats) and finishing coats.

Decorating the interior of rooms can be challenging and includes not only the paint colours on walls, ceilings and doors, etc, but also the floor coverings, joinery cupboards and benches, plumbing and light fittings, window curtains and blinds and furniture. Townsville has a very sunny climate and the glare is intense, so don't be afraid to use dark colours in the rooms of the house. You will very quickly become accustomed to the feeling of relaxation and coolness that darker colours can create.

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Electrical Work

Most of the traditional timber Townsville Houses will require rewiring for practical and safety reasons, if this has not already been done. Old houses have small switchboards with little safety protection, deteriorated rubber coated wiring and few power and lighting points.

Rewiring needs to be carried out by a licenced electrician who is required to provide certification of the electrical services on completion. Timber houses usually have single skin wall linings so exposed wiring in rooms is sometimes unavoidable. Plan the route of new wiring carefully with your electrician to minimise exposed wiring and avoid cutting new holes through walls, floors and ceilings. Surface mount wiring in the secondary rooms on the back side of the timber wall lining. Purpose made pine channel mouldings are available and are used to cover the exposed wiring. Try to run wiring vertically on the face of posts and studs either up from under the floor or down from the ceiling. Avoid running horizontally across walls. Try to mount new light switches in adjacent rooms back to back to share one mounting block and one cover moulding, likewise with power outlets if possible. Reuse any interesting early fittings, especially ornate glass light fittings, as appropriate. You can often find early light shades in speciality secondhand shops which suit the period of your house. The old bakelite light switches and power outlets usually on timber mounting blocks which you may find in the house are probably not suitable for reuse. Electrical manufacturers have a range of reproduction heritage fittings which could be considered, however the use of modern fittings does not necessarily look out of place.

The switchboard should also be modernised and should include circuit breakers, not fuses, and a residual current device. You should also install smoke detectors throughout the house, hardwired back to the switchboard.

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