How brick homes were built??

[rehabbingisgreen]

Does anyone by slim chance have a link to information that will show me how they built brick houses in the mid to late 1800's? I am wanting to know how the walls were built and how the joists, subfloors and trusses attached.

I appreciate any information. I've been hunting and can't find anything.

[brian89gp]

http://chestofbooks.com/architecture/Bu ... index.html

[TinyOldHouse]

An interesting search! From what I can gather from my house, wood strips were "bricked" into the inner wyeth (mine is a cavity wall construction), and the windows are nailed to those. The joists appear to be mortared into the wall as well... not sure about the trusses.

[rehabbingisgreen]

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

Oh fun reading! There is a lot of information there, thank you so much!!

[rehabbingisgreen]

An interesting search! From what I can gather from my house, wood strips were "bricked" into the inner wyeth (mine is a cavity wall construction), and the windows are nailed to those. The joists appear to be mortared into the wall as well... not sure about the trusses.

It's interesting to see how they built these houses. I've always been around stick built so I am a little intimidated by those brick beauties.

[Texas_Ranger]

I can only speak of European (precisely mostly Austrian) brick construction, but that's pretty straightforward. Window frames are secured with nailers, usually small strips of wood, I guess 1x2 and 6" long, mortared into the brick walls. Floor joists just rest in holes in the wall, kinda pockets.

Exterior walls are usually triple wythe solid with one row of stretchers and one row of runners on each course, alternating inside and out. On ground floor and in the basement of taller houses the walls are often quadruple wythe or even thicker, that means 2-3 feet in thickness! Sometimes they also used whatever fieldstones they found during cellar and foundation excavation, mixed in with the brick. My old High School had some huge rocks in the cellar walls, like 3 feet wide or more, almost a foot tall and lord knows ho far they extend into the wall.

Unless supported by brick arches, interior walls usually go all the way from the cellar up to the roof line or at least the attic. Our place here in Vienna is an exception to this rule, all single wythe interior brick walls are supported by steel i-beams along with some of the floor joists. Downside: if someone slams a door one floor below, everything in my room starts rocking a little, both the floor and the walls.

Typically there is at least one load bearing wall running roughly through the center of the house, usually parallel to the front. It's triple/quadruple wythe too and the chimneys are hidden inside (well, basically the flues are part of the wall).

The floors under all wet rooms (kitchens, bathrooms,...) as well as the cellar ceiling are usually vaulted brick ceilings (cellar ceilings are always brick, bathroom and kitchen floors not necessarily, but usually).

[brian89gp]

Texas_Ranger, what is the reson for the masonry interior walls and vaulted masonry ceilings? Sounds like a expensive (but well built) way of doing things.

[Texas_Ranger]

I can only assume this was an ancient fire code thing. Medieval homes were largely wood, log and frame construction with shingled roofs, and fires often wiped out entire cities. Shingle roofs were the first to be banned (around 1600 in Vienna if I recall correcty) but not everybody was able to afford tile or slate. I even read many people painted the shingle roofs red to make them look like tile.

In the 17th and 18th century there must have been a large shift towards masonry construction and even wooden stairs were banned, at least in larger houses. I only know one(!) pre-1980s house in Vienna with wooden stairs and I'm not sure whether they were a 1950s retrofit or not! All others are stone or terrazzo.

Attic floors had to be made as fire resistant as possible by using logs cut in half, round side up and pegged into each other with wooden pegs, covered with sand to give a total of almost 4" of solid wood rather than joists covered with boards. If the builder was particularly conscious, this method was used thoughout the house.

Considering where the vaulted brick ceilings were used I assume they were there because of moisture issues, people were worried that wooden ceilings might rot and fail (which they occasionally do underneath improperly retrofitted bathrooms).

[gil]

In Philadelphia during that period, the walls were raised two bricks widths thick. When the wall rose to the level of a floor, the joists were put in spanning the width of the house, which was usually 10 to 16 feet. Then the outer walls continued to rise until the next floor. Sub floors were tongue and groove boards nailed down directly on the joists and often that was the only floor. Interior walls were framed onto the exterior walls. Windows sat were framed into the brick opening and extended into the interior framing. Spacing and sizing of joists and walls studs was not standardized at all. My joists are 3 1/2 inches thick.

It is not unusual to see the front of one of these brick houses removed and rebuilt since the structure rests entirely on the side walls.