Saturday, April 24, 2010

Raise High The Floorbeams, Carpenter

Traditionally, houses in Queensland were built for the hot climate. They raised the floor to let the cool air flow under the house and for the rooms above to catch more of a cooling breeze. I've been to houses here where, in the summer, you spend most of your time underneath the house rather than in it. People move couches down there and beer fridges and you still have laundry hanging or perhaps a car parked.
I suppose now that space is becoming more of a premium in Brisbane (and that there's air conditioning), people feel that they could be better using that space under the house so they are doing "Up and Unders"; raising the entire house so that the space underneath is of legal height to build an enclosed lower level, this making the house 2 stories.

3 comments:

Annie said...

on first glance. the builder's portaloo there on the right looked a bit like some interesting framework for under the house!

Julie said...

Umm ... I would think some of these might just creaaaak .. and fall to bits! Shows the value of the land is paramount really. I suppose value and proximity ... location ... location ... location ...

Anonymous said...

They weren't actually built like that to capture the breezes but because it was too expensive to level the land and build on the ground.. so they used stumps to compensate for unlevel ground.

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