Replace or restore sole plates

[GerryC]

I am currently restoring a 16c timber framed house (not listed)and having finally removed all the ghastly plasterboard and tongue and groove covering every surface I am now left with a conundrum. The timber frame is on the whole in really good condition but some of the external wall sole plates are in a pretty bad state. The vertical timbers are rotten at the bottom and are no longer jointed into the sole plates. The soles plates seem to be made up of several different sections of timbers and are very loose (would come away with my hand with little effort). This is particularly bad at the front of the house where the wattle and daub has been removed and replaced with wooden laths plus metal laths and cement render.

We now want to repair the frame so it is structually sound (and will last for my lifetime) and then insulate and render with lime.

My dilema is how the repairs to the timber frame are carried out. Having had a timber frame specialiast to see the house today and several Conservation architects there seems to be two trains of thought:-

1. Conserve as much of the timberframe as possible by using alternative methods to splicing in new timber. This would include using additional oak lengths as a brace to reconnect the vertical timbers to the sole plates. Other areas would then be repaired using blacksmith made braces on the outside which would then be covered in the render. This would conserve as much of the old timbers as possible without it looking like a new timber frame house.

2. Dig under the current stone plinth adding some underpining, rebuild the stone plinth where necessary, splicing new oak into the vertical timbers and creating new joints to a new oak sole plate

Being new to timber framing I am lost as to which method is better - do I conserve as much of the timber frame as possible even though it is badly rotten or do I opt for new timber to strenghten the current frame?

Any help would be much appreciated. :?

Hi there, I will be taking the wattle and daub off a wall on my cottage at some point in the not to distant future and have not done this before. Mine is 17th century listed so i will have to keep all the material and re-use it. Can you offer any tips / wisdom re doing this? I find it hard to imagine reusing the wattles which seem very dry, wafer like, and i wonder when one re-constitues daub what % of the orginal space it covers and what % of new daub one needs to obtain/make? ATB, Gerry Cavander, Oakington

 

[Cubist]

Hi Gerry,
It's highly unlikely that your, or any other CO, will insist that you re-use any materials that are clearly no longer fit for purpose. 'Like for like' would then become the mantra applied and no-one would be able to recover and re-use the daub as it will likely disintegrate as the walls are taken down. The wattle panels are likely to have degraded significantly and it's unlikely too that much of these will survive, however, these are fairly easy to reconstruct provided you have access to appropriate material. Oftentimes hazel rods were used for this purpose as after coppicing the newer shoots can reach 6-8 feet in a single growing season and you may find a local landowner who would be happy for you to harvest what may be needed from any hedgerows that may have been re-laid a year or two ago - I certainly would! The daub itself is fairly straightforward, but messy, to make and again the materials needed are quite inexpensive and readily available,

 

[GerryC]

Hi Gerry,
It's highly unlikely that your, or any other CO, will insist that you re-use any materials that are clearly no longer fit for purpose. 'Like for like' would then become the mantra applied and no-one would be able to recover and re-use the daub as it will likely disintegrate as the walls are taken down. The wattle panels are likely to have degraded significantly and it's unlikely too that much of these will survive, however, these are fairly easy to reconstruct provided you have access to appropriate material. Oftentimes hazel rods were used for this purpose as after coppicing the newer shoots can reach 6-8 feet in a single growing season and you may find a local landowner who would be happy for you to harvest what may be needed from any hedgerows that may have been re-laid a year or two ago - I certainly would! The daub itself is fairly straightforward, but messy, to make and again the materials needed are quite inexpensive and readily available,

Thanks Steve, from the limited specimens I've seen i thought i should not expect the wattles to be reusedabel after taking them down and have already talked to locals including CO re sources ... i have some basket willow in my back garden too. But surprised by your saying daub can't be reconstituted ... I've created it from scratch for a training project but never reconstituted old daub myself, but there are loads of books and websites that say you should reconstitute and its easy to do so - just break down and then add water and a bit more straw... (I did try it with a ball of clay from garden - nice hard round ball, broke down add water then left it to dry ad twas the same. Am i missing something?

 

[Cubist]

Am i missing something?

Not really. It's just a thoroughgoing PITA separating the old daub from all the other unwanted rubbish and prepping/breaking it down for it to be added to a new mix.

I'm not sure about basket willow though. While it would work when woven in as the screen structure the principal ribs/skeleton may need to be up to an inch or more in diameter. Look for shallow holes drilled into the posts and beams as these were often used to secure the wattle in place using just the tensile strength of the ribs before the daub was applied.