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Welcome to our blog, Affordable Rentals
and this post, Australia wooden houses
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DEAR READERS, IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR OUR RENTAL POST, NOW IT WILL BE AFTER THIS POST.
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Australia wooden houses
A large Queen-slander, note the pretty design, all the open space on the verandas and also all the open space under the house, which could be used in very hot summer days to catch the breeze and stay in the shade.
This is a typical smaller version of the houses, sometimes they are called workers cottages, because they were made for people that could not afford the more typical Queenslander
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Some fret works that can be found in and outside those old houses, there is a lot more than what we are showing here, but this will give you some ideas, about what we are talking about.
The Australian wooden houses
Welcome to our post,
Australia wooden houses in Brisbane
Here we are talking
about the Australian house in general, as seen from the eyes of a new comer. When
we came to Australia in the early sixties, we found that the houses here were
made of timber, which were very different from the houses we had left in
Europe; but we found also that they were convenient and perhaps even pretty.
You see, for us
Italian migrants that had lived all our lives in solid masonry buildings, when
we arrived in Australia at the beginning it seemed a strange thing that in
Brisbane lots of houses were made of wood and most of them were set on wooden
stumps, but then we started thinking that after all they were still good to
live in anyhow, so, we got used to live in them rather quickly.
So, we had to
forget about how we used to live in our motherland and also my native town of Genzano
di Lucania since we were living now in Australia the Australian way, after
all as the saying goes, when you are in Rome do what the Romans do, and we did
that; but then, what were the reasons and why these houses were made of wood,
or to use another word for wood how the locals called it here, they were made
of timber.
So as you can see,
this question arises, why these houses were made of timber and not masonry? And
then try to see if they were better or worse that the houses made of bricks or
masonry. If we use logic reasoning there is no difference whether houses are
made of timber or masonry, as long as they are able to give the people that
live in them that filling of safety and privacy that we aspect from them, when
we live in our own home.
Having said that
now let us see or guess the reasons why these houses were made of timber, and
why they were set on wooden stumps.
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Wooden houses on stumps
The wooden houses
on stumps of Brisbane and/or Australia
As we have already
said above in Brisbane a lot of houses are/were made of timber, but not only
are they made of timber, they are set on wooden stumps. So let us see the
reasons why they were made this way.
From what
explanations we have heard, and also by using our own imagination and
intelligence one can come to the conclusion that there were several reasons why
houses here were made of timber. The first reason is that when the first
settlers started to build Brisbane, there were plenty of trees that could be
cut down and make very good timber to build those houses; and then the people that came to live in
Brisbane and Australia had a very good knowledge of how to use timber, since
they came by boats and in the boats of those days, there were always carpenters
and carpenter tools on board, so to build timber houses was the easiest way for
them, since they had the knowledge the tools and plenty of timber in the woods
surrounding Brisbane ,an also other parts of Australia that needed houses.
At the beginning
the houses were just simple shelters, but as the time
went by they became better and better, because the builders also became aware
that here around Brisbane and northward when the wet season comes the ground
becomes too wet for the houses to stand on the ground, in hot summer days
everything becomes too hot and there were lots of vermin on the ground, so they
found a way how to build houses that would avoid most of these problems; that
is why in those times the houses on stumps became a necessity, of course slowly
they became even better and even pretty, that is how the Queenslander house was
born, which is a large house with verandas around them that keeps the weather
and the hot sun off the main walls of the house. One can see these pretty
Queensland houses if you look around even today.
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The Queenslander houses
The Queenslander
House
The Queenslander
house is a large timber house; some of them are pretty too and they serve the
inhabitant very well, as they have been built to take the advantage of the hot
climate in Brisbane and north Queensland regions. Now since I have been working
in these houses to maintain them, let me describe them to you a bit more in
details. As anyone can guess there are a few different types of these houses,
but here to make it easier we are talking about the large real Queenslander and
the workers cottage, which is a small and cheaper version of the real
Queenslander.
As we have already
said above in this hub, when the first settlers arrived here, there were plenty
of trees around to make timber, a lot of this timber is called hardwood, which
as the name suggests is hard and very strong, some of this timber are even
stronger and longer lasting than the European oak or other strong European woods. So the houses were strong and
secure, the only natural real enemy of these houses were the white ants
(termites), which are able to eat through the wood and destroy the houses. The
termites are native to Australia and if one goes up north in Australia one
could see strange ground made mounts of earth springing up from the ground,
these is how the white ants live, they eat wood from the inside and they make
these mounts of earth.
So as you can see
this was another reason why the houses were built on stumps. The stumps were
made of whole sections of trees that are very resistant to rot; of course the
white ants could still be able to eat those stumps, but they were treated with
some paints and at the top they all had a capping of metal that would make a
barrier to the white ants if they came from the inside of the stump and also a
barrier to the other ants or crawling insect from the outside.
We have to say that
some of these timber houses have been made also pretty, because timber can be
cut to different shapes easily, so they were somehow pretty compared to the
house made of masonry, which would be very expensive to decorate them with
masonry, so the houses are usually square boxes with a roof at the top.
Decorative fretwork was easy to make with timber
and a lot of these houses had some decorations, in them in one way or the
other. Now I can go on telling you how these houses were made, but that would
be hard to do, so I am going to search the Internet for photos that could show
you what I mean, about fretwork and other timber names, anyhow there are a lot
of names given to these pieces of timber that would be hard for me to name and
for the readers to understand what is meant by that particular name. So I am
going to leave it to your imagination, once you see some photos of the houses
and the fretwork in them.
Anyhow I think that
I have said enough in this post, so see you in our next post called, these
wooden houses need some care.
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Affordable Rentals
Australia wooden houses
Affordable Rentals
Australia wooden houses
IS TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, wooden houses need more care
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