Timber housing is the traditional method here in New Zealand and this exciting episode we're
gonna discuss five ways that you can improve a timber house maybe you've just bought it in the
house while you're thinking about buying it's in the house oh there's a few improvements you can
make to increase the value and make sure that the house stays solid for a long time now one
of the main problems with timber houses in New Zealand in particular is the windows are often
not double glazed on this job we have retrofitted double glazing is a more obvious example here this
window usually has a window frame like this and then it has a sash in the middle that's
also a timber frame and it's usually hinged and then it just opens like that now what we did was
unscrewed the hinges took that panel out and West panel was out we just got aluminum panel
made and that itself has an opening hinge system so the advantage of that is you can just put the
aluminium panel in screw it and seal it completely around here well not the bottom you get a litte
drainage you can seal it completely around the sides and the top and then the opening mechanism
is within the aluminium and in some cases when the window is particularly bad you have to think
about reframing the window so this is a new so and this is a new frame and then the inserts gone in
between and in the pots in other cases instead of doing a timber window we've just replaced timber
altogether with aluminium frame and everything and use timber on the outside of the aluminium to
recreate that timber frame look so that's also an option when thinking about improving your windows
another way you can improve the value of timber houses with insulation as has been done here this
is underfloor insulation and there's a vapor barrier on the ground here to prevent moisture
from rising up and damaging the insulation because you lose a lot of heat coming from
the ground so it's good to have underfloor insulation and also in the roof space it's
very important to have like a higher grade of insulation in that roof space above the ceiling
and that will prevent you losing heat through the roof also the walls that's an option but
the walls are a bit more difficult because you have to either take the plaster board off the
inside or the weather boys off the outside now I mean I don't have to say much more to make clear
how difficult that is important thing to consider if you go down that road is usually you have to
go through the council because you're changing the way that the cladding system works there's
to be adequate ventilation and things like that so if you usually have to go through the council
when you've got timber as the exterior of your home the key is to keep moisture away from that
timber so you have to paint or stain yes to seal the timber in some way that will keep
the moisture out a lot of what happens when you buy timber houses is whoever selling it
will cover the place in pain just so it hides any blemishes and problems so what if you're buying a
house maybe have a little look around in the way the boards touch little areas that look dodgy
because a lot of times they can cover up a lot of rot so if you want to improve the house set
some that you can do you can replace where the boards and seal the way the boards well another
common problem with timber houses and to McLaren is that people put the cladding too close to the
ground so I put a box corner like this right down into the dirt and that ends up like a
like a wick of the candle and it just soaks up the moisture now moving on to the inside of a
timber house one of the advantages of having a semi framed house is that the walls can be
moved around pretty easily there's not much to them plus the water decides but a framing when
I was in Edinburgh that was not the case the homes over there all of them were built out of
stone and I'd see guys spend half the day just clearing and opening in order to put a door in
because it's solid stone I'm cutting through a smash with sledgehammers here in New Zealand you
pull off the possible on one side not possible on the other side and cut some studs out and
you can take a wall down and in under an hour so that's an advantage if you want to change
the layout on a home a lot of the older houses have separate rooms for dining super room for
kitchen a way to modernize and add value to the house is to open those areas up and create more
of a living area now another way to improve your timber home it's by putting on your roof on it
there's the timber homes here in New Zealand a lot of them are very old often the rooms don't look
like this they're windy so this is a roof that we recently redid that's another video as well but
what do you guys we've seen it's a good way of adding value to a property if you're a boda and
you want to renovate a house that's a good place to start because if you go out and get quotes for
it you'll find that they're very high and that's why rubes end up being neglected because people
don't want to pay for that cost but if you do it yourself you just have to pay for the materials
so out of all those five ways to improve your house on this job we're pretty much
doing every single one we've done the earth we're working on the weather
boys now there was a few cracks from the widow pool where water was seeping and
installations in the windows double guys we're not really moving any walls around
so those are five tips if you want to improve your timber house if you
don't want to improve it yourself you can get in touch with me and
I'll do it for you provided you're in the Oakland area mr. dream all right