Hi everyone. This is a fantastic group and I've learned a lot just by
googling. Thanks for the help I've already taken from the archives!

I am currently renovating (will be my own gc and will probably do a lot
of the grunt work) a circa 1900 terraced (row) house in Sydney,
Australia. It is doubled storied at the front, with a single story run
of three small rooms out the back. It shares a common wall with one
neighbouring house, but has a 3 foot wide walkway between us and the
next house on the other side. I am planning to convert the three small
single storied rooms at the back into one long narrow kitchen/dining
area (rooms are only about 9 foot wide). I am waiting for the
engineers's drawings & calculations before I have any walls removed.

These three rooms will need a new skillion roof (colorbond corrugated
metal, as is common in Australia) to replace the current one. It does
not currently leak, but is obviously on it's last legs. The city has
told me that if I am putting a new roof on, then I will need to raise
the lower end of the skillion as it is no longer of legal height,
HOWEVER, heritage restrictions in my area also require me to match the
angle of the lower storied skillion with the upper story roof. In
effect, I will need to raise my side of the brick party wall (high side
of the skillion) to match the height of the neighbours' wall, which is
about 6 rows of bricks higher than I currently have. My freestanding
wall on the opposite side of the room will have to be raised about 3
rows of brick. Then I put on the new (pine) timber roof frame and the
new colorbond roof. The weight of the colourbond is about 1 oz per
square foot.

My questions a

1)How long will the mortar in the new rows of bricks take to cure? How
long must we wait, after the bricks are layed, before we can put a load
on them, i.e. bolt the new roof frame onto the walls and put the new
roof on?

2)How do I know if I need a new roof frame, or should I just assume that
I do? Can I just reuse the old one? FYI, Cost will not be the primary
driving factor in making my decisions on this job - I want the job done
right, but I don't want to waste money unnecessarily.

Thank you for any helpful advice you may have,

Suzie Egg.

Quest 1: At 72 hours you should have 80 to 90% of the ultimate strength
in the mortar. A week would be more than enough to wait.

Quest 2: Since you have an engineer involved I'd solicit his opinion on
the need for new roof framing. It's difficult to assess without seeing it.

Check your roofing weight. For 1 sq. of flat steel to weigh 1 oz it can
only be 12/(489*16)=0.0015 inches thick. Corrugated steel would be even
thinner.

RB

eggs wrote:
Hi everyone. This is a fantastic group and I've learned a lot just by
googling. Thanks for the help I've already taken from the archives!

I am currently renovating (will be my own gc and will probably do a lot
of the grunt work) a circa 1900 terraced (row) house in Sydney,
Australia. It is doubled storied at the front, with a single story run
of three small rooms out the back. It shares a common wall with one
neighbouring house, but has a 3 foot wide walkway between us and the
next house on the other side. I am planning to convert the three small
single storied rooms at the back into one long narrow kitchen/dining
area (rooms are only about 9 foot wide). I am waiting for the
engineers's drawings & calculations before I have any walls removed.

These three rooms will need a new skillion roof (colorbond corrugated
metal, as is common in Australia) to replace the current one. It does
not currently leak, but is obviously on it's last legs. The city has
told me that if I am putting a new roof on, then I will need to raise
the lower end of the skillion as it is no longer of legal height,
HOWEVER, heritage restrictions in my area also require me to match the
angle of the lower storied skillion with the upper story roof. In
effect, I will need to raise my side of the brick party wall (high side
of the skillion) to match the height of the neighbours' wall, which is
about 6 rows of bricks higher than I currently have. My freestanding
wall on the opposite side of the room will have to be raised about 3
rows of brick. Then I put on the new (pine) timber roof frame and the
new colorbond roof. The weight of the colourbond is about 1 oz per
square foot.

My questions a

1)How long will the mortar in the new rows of bricks take to cure? How
long must we wait, after the bricks are layed, before we can put a load
on them, i.e. bolt the new roof frame onto the walls and put the new
roof on?

2)How do I know if I need a new roof frame, or should I just assume that
I do? Can I just reuse the old one? FYI, Cost will not be the primary
driving factor in making my decisions on this job - I want the job done
right, but I don't want to waste money unnecessarily.

Thank you for any helpful advice you may have,

Suzie Egg.

"RB" wrote in message
...
Quest 1: At 72 hours you should have 80 to 90% of the ultimate
strength
in the mortar. A week would be more than enough to wait.

Quest 2: Since you have an engineer involved I'd solicit his opinion
on
the need for new roof framing. It's difficult to assess without
seeing it.

Check your roofing weight. For 1 sq. of flat steel to weigh 1 oz it
can
only be 12/(489*16)=0.0015 inches thick. Corrugated steel would be
even
thinner.

RB

Thank you. To be honest, I pulled the weight calculation off a sheet
from the Aussie version of Home Depot (Bunnings), but I would certainly
check it out properly before actually installing anything. The steel
sheeting is very thin, maybe 2 mm thick. As it is, it is illegal in New
South Wales (the state Sydney is in) to do roofing work yourself - it
must be done by a licensed plumber. I will therefore need to get a
plumber in for the day to bolt the roof down, so the calculations will
be done properly before the install. I am currently at the rip-out
stage of my job, tearing out the old kitchen, masonite wall sheets, etc,
and I won't really know what the roof frame is like until I have taken
the ceiling down (heavily bowed masonite sheets). I'm pulling up the
lino and pulling down the ceiling today, so I should have more clues by
then end of the day.

I am mainly concerned about the length of time I will need to let the
bricks dry before re-roofing, as I am trying to get a realistic time
frame for getting each of the jobs done, so I don't end up with a
disorganized mess on my hands. As the roof does not actually leak at
the moment, it is possible that we may get the rough work done on the
building (interior wall removal & patch, new windows, doors, wiring,
plumbing, etc) and then get an occupation certificate from the city with
the old roof still on. We could then install the new roof sheeting as a
simple replacement job after the certificate is issued, leaving the
walls at their current height. Remember, the lowest wall height is only
3 bricks lower than the current standard - it's not like anyone is
banging their head on anything. The city can only make us change the
wall height if we are doing new roofing work, and they will only know we
are doing this if they do a final inspection after the roof is on. It
would be inconvenient to do this as a seperate job however, and I won't
even know if it is possible until I have looked at the current roof
frame to see if it is reuseable. So I guess I should stop typing, get
up off my butt, and go rip that masonite down!

Thanks again for your help,

Suzie Egg.