Terraced houses built on an angle

[Ross85]

Hi everyone, I've just bought my first house with my partner. It's a Victorian mid-terrace, built in 1980 and it needs a fair amount of restoration doing, so no doubt I'll have many questions to ask on here over the years.

The first of which is related to the construction of our terrace. All of the terraces on our street are built at an angle to the left as you look at the front of the property. It's hard to explain, see the simple image I knocked up in MS Paint, which would be an birdseye view of the houses. It means that the rooms are not quite square on the inside. We've just removed all of the original lime plaster from the internal walls and I've noticed that there are significant gaps between the walls that join our neighbours and exterior walls. I'll attach another photo in a post below as the forum isn't letting me attach now. My mums partner said that all the walls are usually tied into each other on a building, can anyone think we this might be this way? The house is constructed with a double layer of solid red brick.

Thank you in advance for any advice offered.

 

[Zebra]

You don't mean 1980, do you? You mean 1890, I assume. :wink:
Why did you remove all the plaster?
I'm not sure about these gaps - do they go all the way through the wall, so you can see daylight from inside?

 

[MikeG]

I am not clear where the gaps are. Could you have another go at describing them, please. And do these gaps look as though they were built that way, or do they look like they are the result of structural movement?

Oh, and your parallelogram floor-plan is very common. Whenever I survey a building, some of the most critical dimensions are the diagonals. In older buildings it is rare to find two equal diagonal measurements in a room.

 

[Ross85]

Ah yes, 1890 not 1980!

The gaps appear to be there by design add there are no cracks in the brickwork. They run from the floor up to the ceilings in the corners of the house where the internal walls meet the external walls. I was wondering if maybe the walls are only tied into each other on the first layer of brick, not the internal layer.

The light I mentioned seeing is only in one of the corners upstairs, I suspect it's a roof issue. The roof was redone with concrete tiles are some stage, which annoyingly has caused a little sagging as the roof void is completely open, with two large purlins running the width of the house (no downward struts off of these).

It's just that my mum's partner mentioned adding some metal wall ties before replastering but I'm guessing it wasn't an accident that the gaps are there.

We removed the plaster because the damp surveyor said much of it was hollow and blown. There was evidence of past penetrating damp on the external walls, which have been fairly recently rendered presumably with a concrete mix.

 

[88v8]

Hello and welcome.

The wall that joins your neighbour is called the party wall.
The exterior walls should be completely tied in to the party wall. If there are gaps that's very odd.
Was it always a terrace? Or was it a standalone house that was added to?

Ivor

 

[Ross85]

Hey, sorry about the delay in replies, all of my posts needs to be approved before you can see them. Hopefully this is a temporary thing.

I've attached an image of the upstairs corner of the bedroom, where the party wall joins the external wall at the front of the property (thanks for the explanation of the wall names). You can see that the bricks are not attached to the party wall and don't appear to be broken away, so I assume it's intentional. Perhaps the outer layer of brick (it's two layers of solid, red brick) is tied into the party wall? As far as I'm aware it was always a terrace, as it's a long street of terraces, of which we're the fifth of the road.

Oh and I already posted a reply but it seems to have not been approved or just didn't get through but we removed the plaster as there was evidence of penetrating damp, which had caused hollow, blown plaster. The exterior had been re-rendered fairly recently before our purchase with a concrete based render, presumably to try and resolve the damp issues.

 

[stuart45]

Party walls were often badly tied in to the exterior walls because of the method of building them.
In theory all the masonry should be built up together, but in practice this rarely happens.
It's always been popular on site to build up the party walls first to joist high, and then when the joists were on take them up before the rest.
This was done as a 9 inch party wall takes a lot of bricks and mortar and it's much easier for the hoddies to get them there with the exterior walls down.
Even though some toothings were left at the ends the ties were often poor.

 

[stuart45]

double post

 

[MikeG]

Yikes! That's pretty poor workmanship, very well explained by Stuart.

If there are ties between the party wall and the outer wall, then it should be just a decorative and sound-transmission issue. I would suggest getting something thin and flat, such as a steel ruler, a hacksaw blade, or similar, and running it up and down the gap. If it hits steel, then there are ties, and that junction can be thought of as structurally sound. If you can't find ties, then I personally would be cutting out a brick from every 6th course and screwing a frame tie into place, before replacing the bricks.

Filling the gaps? Well, this may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I would use a foam gun to spray expanding foam as deep into the join as possible, but leave it an inch or so back from the surface, which I would then re-point.

As for the use of cement based render to deal with damp.......well, that's ignorance embodied in the fabric of your house, I'm afraid. Unless there is an obvious source of external damp (leaking gutter, raised ground level, toilet overflow, etc), then it is critical to remember that it is the inside of a house which is damper than the outside. Putting an impermeable render on the outside has just sealed that in. If the infernal stuff has to go anywhere, it really should go on the inside of the wall.*



*Note, I am not advocating this.

 

[CliffordPope]

it is critical to remember that it is the inside of a house which is damper than the outside[.

Not in driving rain!