House building (8)
Welcome to my hub,
House building in Brisbane;
House building in Brisbane
House building in Brisbane
House building in Brisbane
Dear readers, in
this hub we are going to talk about building work, because this is what I did
when I came to Australia; so, we are going to talk about House building in
Brisbane in the sixties; Brick bases under timber houses, and, Working as a
brickies labour. Now as you can see we are taking about the old way of building
house, but it does not matter if it is the old way of doing things, because
building houses is just building houses and it does not matter when we have
done that, as the same way can be used again and again, so there is still
something that we could learn from it; anyhow, we would also like to help those
people that are reading our hub, in the hope of finding their modern dream
home, therefore they are looking also for modern houses, so we are going to
place a few links within this hub, just in case they are looking for modern
houses, but let us continue our main article about building house in Brisbane in
the sixties.
What we are going
to talk about next might seem strange to people that live in the old continent
of Europe as over there most houses are made of masonry, as the timber over
there is more expansive than in Australia. Of course there might also be other
good reasons why they are made of masonry, perhaps it is because of the colder
climate, you see thick walls of masonry would absorb the heat during summer and
act as storage of this heat by releasing it slowly during the colder months,
and perhaps other reasons as well, anyhow houses over there would be built
mostly from masons bricklayer and concreters, and the carpenters would only
play a smaller part than they do in Australia, as the carpenters would be
building some formwork and the roofs only, when the roofs were made of timber,
because even the roofs sometimes are made of concrete.
Therefore when we
the European migrants that came to Australia in the sixties, we thought this is
strange to live in timber houses, and we have to say that we had a real
surprise to see that the carpenter played the role of builders, when houses
were being built, because in the sixties most houses here were mainly made of timber,
we are saying this here just to compare houses building, between the old
continent and Australia in those times, and we are not saying that this was
good or bad practice, since we soon accepted the way of life we found and we
thought there must be a good reason for it.
So, we all did what
we had to do in whatever employment we found, and those of us who ended up
working in the building industry just did what we were told to do. But as we
all know just about everything changes with time and also the building of house
would slowly change, as we will see later on even this sort of building houses with
timber would slowly change even here. Now that we have made this comparison,
let us go back to what I was doing myself in helping to build these houses; this
help will become self-explained as we keep writing what we were doing. Therefore let us talk about how most houses
were being built by teams of workers, because that is how we were building
houses in South East Queensland in the sixties.
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Modern house building
Dear readers, in this hub we would like to talk about, my
own life story and how I ended up working in the building industry, so I am not
going to say much about new housing, however if you came across this hub
because you were looking for a modern house, or other ideas about building
them, I am going to post here a few links, so that you could find our hub
useful in this regard also.
New Home Builders Brisbane
McCarthy Homes: Home Builders
Here are the links as I have said; I hope you find
what you are looking for.
House building in the sixties
House building in Brisbane in the sixties
In the sixties and
seventies most houses building were done from teams of subcontractors, who had
their own team of building workers, even if they were only a small team of two
or three people, like the team I was working with, which had two tradesman and
one labour as myself, as we have already explained in the previous hub. Now let
me go over very briefly what sort of teams were there; first of all there would
be the concreters and bricklayers, which usually could be the same team, as we
were mostly building small houses that did not have a lot to do with these
trades, as the main work would be for the carpenters, therefore there would be
carpenter team, then the roof, the electrician and the plumber and the
plasters. The work of the builder, which most times was the leading carpenter;
because he had the largest job, so, he not only would build the timber frame of
the house, but also would organise all the teams in a way that would be
appropriate, so that they were not in each other way while they were working
and finally do all the finishing work required.
In those times to
be a builder of these standalone houses on an approved block of land was easy,
as long as you were a building tradesman and had some knowledge of building and
you had the money to build them, or you had a lender that would give you money
to build, you had this opportunity to build one of these houses, of course
there were local authority inspections to be had while we were building and at
the end of it, but if you knew what you were doing it was easy to pass. So
there were so many house builders around that would hire these teams of
building workers as we were.
I need to say that
there are good reasons to believe that the building industry in Australia is
one of the main driving forces of the economy, since it employs lots of new
comers that are willing to do some hard physical work to earn their living, you
see you don’t need to be a very learned person to work on the building, all you
need is some common knowledge of things and enough English to understand what
is wanted from you if you know what you are doing, or you work with some people
that speak your native language and they explain to you what you need to do.
I believe that in
the sixties and seventies there were very good opportunities to work on
building houses in the building industry, because the price of the houses were
more affordable than they are today. Just looking back at those prices we could
say that one of those cheaper houses would be worth about four time the average
wage of a person working full time for a year, so people would be able to
afford them, and therefore those builders that were building them were able to
sell their houses soon enough at a decent profit that would enable them to
build other house.
As we all know
everything changes with the passing of time and there are usually good reasons
for them to change, as we usually become aware when we look back at the changes
that have taken place. So let us look at what has taken place in the houses and
other building accommodations in the building industry.
You see, as we have
said, in the beginning houses in Brisbane were mostly made of timber and they
were set on timber stumps, then in the sixties because the timber stumps would
rot or they would be attacked by white ants they gave way to concrete stumps,
and also some brick walls under the house. Then from just a brick wall in front
of the house they changed to a full brick base and some concrete stumps or
steel posts, then came the era of the brick veneer and finally concrete and
cavity bricks, today, as I am editing this article I have to point out that
building apartments is very different than in the sixties, as they are mostly
made of reinforced concrete.
Now that we have
said a few things about the history of house building in Brisbane, let us talk
about my contribution in the building industry and what I did during the
earlier part of my working building houses. If I remember right in my last hub
I was talking about how we were concreting the stumps for a new house, and we
also had laid the foundations for some brickwork, therefore now, let us talk
about the brickwork base under the house.
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Brick based houses
Brick base under timber houses
As we have already
mentioned before, there were many type of houses being built in those times and
some of them had a brick base or just the front wall under the house built in
bricks. So, this was another job that we did with our small team of bricklayer
and concrete workers.
In order to be
efficient and competitive a small team that lays bricks needs to be made of two
bricklayers and a labour, of course there can be any sort of teams and larger
teams that can work well with a different number of people, but anyhow this is
what was like then and as I said our team had two bricklayer and a labour as
myself.
Now that I have
explained my position let us start working so that I can describe how things
work out and who does what and how it should be done. It is usually the leader
of the bricklayer team that decides from where to start. But if he is not there
then it is up to whoever is there to start getting ready where the bricklayers
have to start. This is not hard to know because to lay bricks you need to start
from the lowest part of the foundation, So when I was working as a labour I
would get ready the bricks and the combo boards, at the lowest point of the
foundation, so that when the bricklayer had to start all I had to do to start
them going was to give them fresh mixed mortar on these combo boards, and then
continue to supply them with brick and mortar as required, I suppose that it is
hard work for the labour and also for the bricklayer, because at the end of the
day one has to handle so many bricks, since in a day a bricklayer on a normal
wall is supposed to lay on average up to 500 face bricks, or up to a thousand
common bricks, of course this is just wishful thinking and most times we didn’t
but we had to try to get there. This is how the team usually works, but now let
me break it down and describe to you what the labour does and then what the
bricklayers have to do, as I know all this because later I became and worked as
a bricklayer for decades myself, but now let us talk about what the
bricklayers’ labour has to do.
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Working as a bricklayer labour
What do you do when you are working as a brickies
labour?
The brickies labour
job is hard work as I have said above and it is also a semiskilled work, since
he has got to know how to go about to supply mortar and bricks to the
bricklayer at the right time in the right place. It is obvious that he has to
have at his disposition a mixer to mix mortar and two wheelbarrows and
sometimes other small devises to help him achieve that.
Here I need to point
out that to start a new job it is very hard, as the ground on the site is not
flat and generally there are hips of dirt around the foundations where the
brick or block walls are going to be built, so, the labour needs first of all
to flatten the ground a bit so that the mortar boards and the bricks can be
positioned at the right distance from the foundation, usually this is about 60
centimetre plus from the walls that are being built, so that the bricklayers
have enough room to move and at the same time they can reach the bricks and the
mortar boards without walking; in order to achieve that there needs to be one
mortar boards and then one stack of bricks and again one mortar board and
another stack of brick and so on for the whole length of the wall being built.
Now that we have made it ready and the bricklayers are going to start to lay
bricks soon, let me prepare the mortar, which some people may call cement or
combo.
Preparing or mixing
the mortar
Here again there
are rules to follow how to mix good mortar, so, one has to keep in mind first
of all what sort of material is available and can be delivered on the local
site, because quantity and quality may vary a bit with the locality. Anyhow let
us assume that for this job a load of brickies loam has been delivered on the
site; in this case this brickies loam has some lumps in it, so it needs to be
screened before or after mixing the mortar, as I have already screened some of
it I am ready to mix it now.
So I start the
mixer and put in some clean water, and a small measure of mortar mix (this is a
chemical that helps the mortar to be more workable) then I put in say a shovel
full of Portland cement and four shovels full of brickies loam, this is how we
usually mix mortar to lay bricks, it is one part of cement to four parts of
loam by volume, therefore for bigger batches you can have say; three shovels
full of cement and twelve shovelful of loam and so on. Of course sometimes
these quantities can vary, if for instance it is written in the specifications
that the mortar has to be made with different amount of materials.
Anyhow let me go
back to this batch of mortar that I have just mixed to the right consistency;
Now, I take the wheelbarrow near the mixer and tip the mortar in the
wheelbarrow, and then take the wheelbarrow with the mortar near the mortar
boards, here I wet the mortar boards before I place the mortar on them and
finally I am ready for the bricklayers to get started. From now on I have to
make sure that the bricklayers have always enough mortar and bricks, otherwise
the bricklayers will we shouting at me Bricks! Or combo! (Or mortar!)
Dear readers if I
have missed a few things you just have to use your own common sense to get
everything going the right way, you see most things on the building site is
just plain common sense.
I believe that I
have said enough in this hub and although there is a lot to be said about the
bricklayer, how they are going to lay the bricks for this brick base, I am
going to leave it for next hub, which we are going to call, DIY brickwork, here
I will try to explain it in as many details as I can how to build a house base
with bricks, in fact we are going to write a group of articles about
bricklaying and other building trades, here I hope that I can line them up in
such a way that would make it easy to follow them. Anyhow, see you soon in our
next hub, DIY brickwork.
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