This 1929 house would benefit more from another bedroom than this skinny carport with roller door. We plan on replacing the roller door with windows and the long side (currently breeze blocks) will be sheeted over with a steel lintel taking the load for a set of side windows. The car tracks will be removed and the fence continue to where the shrubs are in the photo, so it will lose its "carport" look.

The floor from front to back slopes by a total of half a besser block, so is perfectly workable as a bedroom "as is" (as a temporary fix) but our plan is to either build up the concrete floor to make it level or build it up one step higher. There are two steps from the house down into this room now. Building up the floor one step higher still gives legal head height.

My question is whether we leave it "as is" with a very gradual sloping floor (hardly noticeable) which our prospective tenant is happy with for his son, and have plans drawn up to have this approved by a certifier. My concern is that if we top up the slab without doing whatever is legally required to make it a bedroom, we may not get approval if we haven't done the correct preparation for making it a habitable room. I'm thinking we are best to allow the teenager to live on the very slighly sloping floor with a large rug until we know for sure what work is required to make the room legal.

Our pest chap has looked at it. I thought he would drill every ten inches or so, inject termite product and cap them, but he is talking about installing a barrier around this slab that can be topped up. We have our houses checked annually for termites, so this seems overkill for this one slab when the rest of the house is open to attack. The house is ashblock construction with timber floors and good access to the sub-floor area for regular checks.

I just don't want to spent money topping the slab or building up a timber floor only to find out that BCC requires it to be ripped out for termite preparation to be installed.

Our tenant is happy that his son live in it "as is" and we do what is required to make if officially a bedroom with his blessing when we get approval.

Any thoughts?
Attached Thumbnails



Read the full thread at RenovateForum.com...