Single brick/solid wall construction

[jonathan.squires]

All

After being refused some further borrowing on our house due to a portion being single skinned it has thrown up an anomaly. Having researched a single brick wall is around 4 inches wide whilst a still lid brick wall is around 9 inches wide. After measuring the front and back walls these seem to fit into the required width to be a solid brick wall, and after removing plaster for various jobs this would seem to be the case. However on the gable end of property the ground floor also seems to be wide enough to be be solid was but on inspection appears to be a single skin of brick with a later addition of concrete block work.. the first floor however seems to have a much thinner wall around 6 inches wide which seems to be single brick. I can’t find out any information on this building method or wether it is safe/mortgageable or how it could be rectified .. any thoughts on this? Had anyone experienced this issue ?

 

[Stevers]

Some photos would help to add context. Age of building, size of gable end, original purpose of building, is this part of the building a conversion, extension etc.? Not unusual for the likes of outside loos, lean-to coal holes and store rooms to be single skin, but these are usually extensions to a more solidly constructed building.

 

[malcolm]

I've heard mortgage lenders can get fussy about half brick walls.

The normal brick wall is built with headers and stretchers (headers are bricks going through the wall and stretchers are bricks on each side in a double course of bricks). That sort of wall ends up about 9 inches of brick thick.

I have half brick (4.5 inch) walls in the gables in my loft. Should anyone get fussy they could be taken down and rebuilt as a 9 inch wall but they have worked for 100 years so I'm not in any hurry to do that. Photos would be useful.