Wood in Brick Walls

[MatthewC]

Well, this week I have been starting to address one of the known issues of our house - the high probability of damp/rot/woodworm in the floor of the lounge. I am not at all surprised that I found it, and am now making plans to replace a number of joists and floorboards as a result. However, what has surprised me is the discovery of a long piece of wood at the base of what I thought was a brick wall.
View attachment 1 I had not removed all of the plaster but you can see it running half the length of the wall at floor level.

Now, I have already found some wood in the walls, where it seems to have been used to help attach skirting boards or other wooden items, like this (note a short piece of wood still present and scroll down to see the bit of wood which I removed).
This is, I suppose, fair enough given that masonry drills and plastic wall plugs were not in common use then, although the effect of damp is quite obvious. But the issue is with an internal brick wall, and the wood extends the entire 12 foot length of the wall. The bottom course of bricks overhangs the wood, and it was hidden by mortar which of course now falls off. I haven't looked at the other side of the wall yet as the stairs are there. In fact the wood itself doesn't seem as bad a condition as other places and there may actually be some good wood there, in which case I will treat it and leave well alone; if not, I'm scuppered!

My question is WHY oh WHY have they done this? There is no suggestion anywhere else of timber frame construction in this 1840 house, and simple partitions are lath and plaster.

Matthew

http://houseintheenchantedforest.blogspot.com

 

[robgil]

Those bricks look to be an odd shape dont they?

 

[stephenh]

Your house looks, to me , to be a classic speculatively built 1840’s building.

A couple of points in no particular order :

In the 1840’s there were no Building Societies and building contractors offered clients their own private mortgages which they would later sell on in bulk to financial speculators who eventually formed themselves into Building Societies ( that’s a rough approximation !)
The ‘standard’ mortgage was of 30 yrs duration and so the contractor would build a house to last, say, 50 yrs as possibly he would have problems if he tried to build a 30yr house ( like Barretts and co. do today!). Quality control was not of the best.
I am always amazed that we expect a house built to last 50 yrs to be in good nick 150 yrs later…but I digress.
So your house was built to a certain standard but also down to a price.

Back to 1840.
The bricks would have been bought in bulk and unsorted. This was the cheapest way of buying bricks. The first job for the apprentice brickies would have been to sort the bricks and then the master brickie would come along and do all the external facework with the best bricks. In the meantime the apprentices would be knocking out the internal walls with all the ‘reject’ bricks ( sometimes not too well and not tied in to the external walls ). To keep the walls level the master brickie would stick the odd bit of timber in ( it’s only got to last 50 yrs…) and sometimes whack a piece down on the floor if he didn’t have time to lay the first row – which is usually what happens, even today.

If the timber is ok the usual way is to give it a couple of coats of Cuprinol, nail on some Expamet and carry on…….

I hope the above is of interest

Good luck

 

[Moo]

I hope the above is of interest

That must surely qualify as the understatement of the year!

 

[CatherineB]

Fascinating! I guess Stephen's post is a useful reminder that sometimes we do still "build 'em like we used to" - i.e. not all old houses were built to last!

 

[MatthewC]

Thanks Stephen. In fact our house is not quite normal as it is said to have been built as a school and converted into a pair of semis at some unknown time later in the 1800s. Today whilst removing some blown plaster, Jane found a brick archway in the front bedroom wall under the window, which is more evidence that indeed the house was remodelled. Presumably the lounge window extended much higher but the external side of this is hidden under stucco.

NB I am actually surprised that the condition of the house is so good, and of course very pleased as I was basing my budget on worst cases!

 

[stephenh]

Jane found a brick archway in the front bedroom wall under the window.!

Possibly a 'relieving' arch for the bay window opening below ?

 

[MatthewC]

Jane found a brick archway in the front bedroom wall under the window.!

Possibly a 'relieving' arch for the bay window opening below ?

You obviously know about this sort of stuff - That would be an arch to relieve the structural load but not be visible as such?

 

[biffvernon]

Those bricks. I don't know about Oxfordshire but if it were round my way I'd think they were older than 1840. And the colouring on some but not all of them suggests they may have been previously enjoyed.

 

[stephenh]

[/quote]That would be an arch to relieve the structural load but not be visible as such?[/quote]

yes indeed - possibly something like this ? :

http://chestofbooks.com/architecture/Building-Construction-V2/Relieving-Arches.html

fig. 121

Haven't got the hang of posting images on this site - sorry....

 

[AMc]

The rear bedroom in ours had been stripped of it's plaster but some of the laths were still in place. There were strips of wood inset into the brick work along the walls which had supports for the laths nailed to them - seemed like a perfectly sensible way to connect the wood to the wall in lieu of modern plugs and screws. Some of the old wood was friable where there had been leaks and was replaced - the rest left in situ. I don't know if it was common, but it made sense to me.
Rear extension is somewhere between 1800-1900 but we don't know when