home repairs

[dzcook]

ok have a problem that i think might be beyond me
have old house in nth qld demolished old bathroom but years of water seapage has rotted the ajoining wall and floor studs and bearers think i will have to replace them
was thinking of ( bolting screwing nailing ?? ) 1 to 2 mtr replacement pieces of bearers alongside current bearers ( i also think some of the damage might of been white ants as well ) would this work ?? would i also need to remove all the old timber as well ?
anyway thks

[journeyman Mick]

Before you spend any money, if you suspect you have termites get it checked out first. If you have any rot (fungi) in timber it should all be removed as bolting another piece alongside will merely infect the new piece with it as well. If you need to replace any bearers or joists you will need to replace a complete section between supports (ie bearers need to be replaced from post to post, joists from bearer to bearer) you can't replace just a small section. Well you can, if you reinforce it all, there are ways to do it but for an owner builder it will be much safer to replace more rather than less. Unless you have extensive bathroom renovation and waterproof membrane application experience I strongly recommend that you engage licensed tradespeople for the structural and waterproofing work otherwise you may find yourself spending another $10k - $15k 5 years down the track. Until recently leaking bathrooms were the no.1 cause of complaints to the building tribunal ever since it was set up.

Mick

[dzcook]

thks
no there where termites in hse ages ago but damage was never repaired the rm will not be a bathroom hope fully will be a spare bed room someday
there is a lot of damage under the hse bearers only just connecting to stumps etc ( new steel stumps installed long before i bought the hse ) am thinking the job may well be beyond my capabilitties and added problem is hse is hertiage listed are of town ( wasnt when i bought but came in a couple of yrs down the track ) so makes it even harder to work on lol
to do as u suggested replace whole beams would mean replaceing most of the bearers which i think would be a major job thou perhaps in long run might be cheaper