Discover how to renovate homes, businesses, and other structures
- for Building Owners, Managers or Budding Tradesmen/women
- evaluate, prioritise and plan the renovation of a building or part of a building; then enact that plan by undertaking the work, managing the work, or both.
Building renovation projects can range in size, cost, complexity, and complexity. Before beginning any such undertakings, these considerations should be carefully taken into account.
Any project can cause problems for a building manager or homeowner. It can be more disruptive the longer it takes to finish. Make sure everyone involved is aware of the deadline that must be met and give significant thought to what constitutes an acceptable amount of interruption.
Any project must be realistically conceived and executed to obtain a beneficial result while working within the limitations of the financial and other resources available, and with a comfortable margin of error.
Realize Reality Right Now!
Remodeling projects frequently don’t go as planned. This is due to the fact that when you work on a project, there are always going to be unpredictable forces at play. Never rule out the unexpected.
Spend more time and money than you initially believe is necessary to be prepared for the unexpected. In this way, you may prepare for the unexpected and will be pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t happen.
Lesson Structure
There are 10 lessons in this course:
- Introduction to Building Renovation Projects
- What & why are you renovating?
- How Do You Judge what is Worth Doing?
- Where to Begin?
- What Rooms to Renovate
- Manage Risks and Avoid Surprises
- Gathering the Facts
- What are the costs?
- Dealing with Subcontractors and Tradesmen
- Selecting Tradesmen
- Safety on a site
- Core Structural and Site Works
- Moisture problems
- Fire damage
- Foundations
- Load-bearing beams
- Repairing damaged walls or roofs
- Replacing/Repairing Roofs and Floors
- Roof Coverings
- Roof Repair Jobs
- Replacing Slates
- Replacing Tiles
- Repairing Flashings
- Temporary Roofs
- Cleaning and Painting
- Floors
- Floor repair jobs
- How to Replace a Suspended Timber Floor
- Cleaning & Staining
- Coverings
- Doors, Windows and Walls
- Wall Maintenance
- Repair Jobs
- Windows
- Choosing Materials
- Types of Window
- How to Repair Broken Window Glass
- Doors
- Considerations
- Types of Doors
- How to Hang a Door
- Adjusting Existing Doors
- Plastering
- Tools
- Plastering
- Plasterboards
- Cutting Plasterboard
- Fixing Plasterboards to Walls
- Jointing Plasterboard
- How to Repair Holes in Plasterboard
- How to Repair Cracks
- Fixing Plasterboard to Ceilings
- How to Plaster Over Plasterboards
- Finishing Outside Corners
- Tiles
- Tiling Tools
- Floors
- How to Tile a Wall
- Carpentry Reno
- Carpentry tools
- Power tools
- Choosing wood
- Buying wood
- Working with wood
- Cutting & joining
- Fixing joints
- Finishing
- Applying Woodwork Skills
- Painting
- Painting tools
- Paint Work
- Before Painting
- Sanding
- Preparing to Paint
- What to Paint a Surface With
- Getting ready to paint
- Using Brushes
- Cleaning & Storage of Brushes
- Using Rollers
- Cleaning & Storage of Rollers
- Sprayers (spray painting)
- Plumbing Basics
- Roof Plumbing and Guttering
- Water supply
- Plumbing tools
- Plumbing fittings
- Earth bonding
- Sanitary appliances
- Electrical Basics
- What is electricity?
- Basic home electrics
- Tools
- Other Tools
- Basic Wiring Jobs
- Solar Power
- Energy Ratings
- Renovating a Room
- Planning a Room Renovation
- A Schedule of Works
- Planning Time
- Drawing up a Budget
- Project Management
- Choosing Materials and Appliances
- Special Project
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school’s tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims
- Establish the type and extent of work necessary for a building renovation project.
- Describe how to identify and prioritise the most critical structural flaws in the early phases of any building renovation.
- Provide examples of historic building renovations or repairs that can be made to floors and roofs.
- Describe the various ways that doors and windows can be updated or repaired during a building or room refurbishment.
- Describe the process of doing tiling and plastering work.
- Describe the equipment, procedures, and applications used in carpentry work during building repairs and renovations.
- Justify the choice and use of paints in the interior and exterior decoration of buildings.
- Why plumbing is important in renovation projects
- Describe the electrical work involved in a building refurbishment.
- Design, oversee, or carry out the renovation of a room.
WHY TAKE THIS COURSE?
- You might want to remodel your own home or maybe your workplace. The benefits of doing it yourself include greater control over the process, cost savings, and a tremendous sense of accomplishment once the task is accomplished.
- Developing your renovation skills can help you get a better job. It may assist you in obtaining employment in the building or property management sectors, or it may serve as the groundwork for starting your own small service business.
- You could just want to become a better handyman so you can handle more of the routine maintenance at home or at work, saving money and time by not having to call a craftsman to mend a broken floor or wall or fix a malfunctioning door.
Learn how to do things like hang a door.
The first step in replacing a door is to gather dimensions. It is preferable to avoid relying on the current door’s measurements because they may have been planned to fit differently on each side. The door frame measurement is preferable. To determine whether the frame is square, use a spirit level to check it. Before taking measurements, you can attempt correcting it if it has shifted. To pull the frame in, you can add more screws or nails, tighten the screws already in the jamb, or both.
Once you have your measurements, take 4mm off the length and 4mm off the breadth to leave a 2mm space on each of the door’s four sides. You now have your precise door size. The bottom rail needs to have a wider gap if the floor is going to be covered in a raised surface, like carpet.
Generally speaking, it is a good idea to get a door that is slightly bigger than you require because the frame will have probably moved a little. This will give you the opportunity to remove some wood from the door to guarantee a tight fit. But, you must be careful not to remove too much or the door’s structural integrity would be compromised. Only a few millimetres can be removed from flat doors.
Once you have your door and the required measurements, you must plane the edges to make the necessary height and width modifications. Plane the bottom edge to slightly shorten the door. Top, slightly thin it, and plane one edge up (opposite the hinged edge). Make sure the door is firmly held before planning, for as by clamping it to a workbench. When you have the door’s height or width measured, draw a line there. Make sure your hand plane’s blade is sharp, and make sure it is straight and set to only remove thin shavings.
It is advisable to start at one edge’s centre and plane outward towards one corner before repeating the process on the opposite side. To prevent splintering the bottom edge of the door, place the plane at a small angle facing inward. Do the same on the other side by flipping the door over. Next, plane the edge’s midpoint. A belt sander might be more useful to remove bigger amounts, but you actually need to know how to operate one. They can pull off a lot of wood quickly because of their strength.
When your door is prepared to hang, you will require assistance. Use wedges to hold the door in place after positioning it in the frame. Take it down, and if more planning is required, do so. If you are satisfied with how the door fits, measure the door’s hinges. Top hinges are positioned somewhere between 130 and 200mm from the top of the door and have a narrower gap. Typically, bottom hinges are located between 170 and 260mm from the ground. A centre hinge will be required for heavy doors.
Put the door back in the frame and support it with wedges as before. Mark the top and bottom positions of the hinges on the door and frame by taking the hinges and holding them flat on the door stile. To square off the markings surrounding the door’s hanging stile and the interior of the jamb, remove the door. To make your housing, use a hand saw to cut out the marks you made on the wood. The housing’s depth ought to match the flange’s depth on the hinge. You’ll need to box it if you unintentionally remove too much wood. Use countersunk screws to secure the hinges to the door after they are in position.
The top hinge’s flange should then be pushed into its housing after you wedge the door at a right angle to the frame. Screw in one screw to hold it in place, but don’t tighten it all the way. Once the second hinge slips into its housing and is secured with a screw, adjust the floor wedge. After tightening the first screw in each hinge, check to see if the door can open and close freely. Install the remaining screws if necessary. If not, take the door off and make more changes.
Modifying Current Doors
Adjusting existing doors that have become stuck or are binding is sometimes essential. Examine the frame first. There are various reasons why it might not be aligned. You could try striking the door jamb with a lump hammer or rubber mallet while protecting the door frame with a straight edge. If there is no correction, you might be able to tighten the screws that are already in the top or bottom of the door frame. If not, you can add a few more screws to the framework beneath the jamb and through it. If that doesn’t work, your last chance might be to chisel a small portion of the frame itself. It may be necessary to remove and reinstall the door jambs if the frame is noticeably out of line.
If the frame is sound, you might need to adjust the doors. When attempting to plane a door, try to ascertain its type, such as a panel door or flush door, and its material. Certain doors, such as those with plastic coverings, cannot be planed. If the bottom rail is very shallow, you risk planning into the filling of the door. To make modifications, locate the areas marked on the door’s edge. The door is stuck in the frame, as seen here. Remove the door from the frame, clamp it to a bench, and plane the edge. In many circumstances, you may be able to make modifications by sanding the edge of the door rather than plane it. Either by hand or with an orbital sander, you may finish this. To pinpoint the precise location of the sticking door, inspect once more for marks on the floor or door frame.
After planning or sanding, if the doors have been painted, you will need to touch them up. To avoid having to sand down or peel off your new paintwork, make sure you have the right paint for the job and account for the thickness of the paint finish when prepping the door.
Reminder: Doors swell more during high humidity periods, such as the winter, therefore take care not to remove too much because the door will contract during periods of low humidity. Timber doors might need to have a sealer applied to them to stop swelling.
The advantages of taking this course
Those who are interested in learning how to renovate buildings for themselves or for a living should find this course to be helpful. Also, it will be helpful to people who already run a property development company and want to expand their skills.
Enroll in this course if you want to:
- Look for approaches to enhance a current remodelling company.
- Boost your employability in the building and maintenance industries.
- Become more knowledgeable about the practical elements of remodelling a building.
- Purchase a house with the intention of renovating it.
This course can be taken individually or as part of a learning package with other 100-hour modules.