I am presently replacing a window in a house. I was peeking behind the beveled siding to see how the sheathing was holding up and noticed that the sheathing was not ply but 1/2 drywall with tar paper over it. The house was built in 1945, and seems to be holding up fine so far.
Does anyone else know if this was a common practice back then, and would you leave it since it seems fine and not damaged by water or seismic events.
Thanks.
Replies
If it ain't broke (especially after 58 years) don't fix it. 'Holding up fine so far' after that length of time is not good luck; whoever built that thing did something right and you screw around with it at your own risk.
Short story: To spiff up the Brooklyn Bridge for its 100th Birthday Party a while ago (good grief, was it really 25 years ago??), some pencil pusher decided it'd be a good idea to check the condition of the main suspension cables that hold the whole thing up. You know, like, it's a hundert years old, after all...? So they sent a couple of guys up to cut open the protective material on the cable and take a look.
The workers reported back to their boss: Not only was the original galvanized IRON cable completely free of rust, it was still bright and shiny. This after hanging in the air for a hundred years over a body of salt water, one of the more corrosive elements our lovely planet produces naturally (the East River is not a river; it's an arm of the Atlantic Ocean). BUT...
They didn't know how to re-do the protective covering, which had been done by ship riggers a hundred years before. The iron cable had been parcelled (wrapped in pine-tar-soaked canvas); served (overlaid with a continuous winding of tarred marline); and tarred over all. They finally had to call in traditional riggers who worked as volunteers for maritime museums to re-do the stuff the city's bridge maintenance crew had cut open. Even they had problems to find material to match the quality of the original.
Moral of the story? See my opening line....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Some Drywallers I worked with told me about some buildings they rocked which had "exterior Drywall" on the outside. I don't know if it was actually "exterior" or just moisture resistant or just 5/8 fire-x but it was on a group of two story condos. Metal framing.
I don't know the spec name of the stuff, but there's a type of gypsum board used commonly around here as exterior sheathing on an impressively large portion of new commercial construction. The stuff has a grey paper on it rather than white. It's screwed on, taped with 'red tape', and I've never seen it tarped or protected from weather during the phase in which it is exposed. The exterior finishes laid over it include all sorts of things; frequently a synthetic parging is put directly on top of it to simulate stucco or concrete construction; others lay brick veneer as I MJLONIGO remarked.
I haven't seen this stuff used on residential; but I don't know why not. (Usually the answer to a question like that is $$$$, though!)
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Edited 8/4/2003 10:12:09 AM ET by Dinosaur
Dinosaur,
Except for the fact that the Brooklyn Bridge is over 100 years old and there are cables on it, nothing in your story is based on actual fact. The galvanized steel wires of the cables were coated with linseed oil and wrapped with a strand of wire rope after hydraulic banding. The Brooklyn Bridge was the first bridge to use steel wires (the material of the future as per John Roebling). Red lead paint (from Wyoming) was applied and then the finish coat of light brown. NYCDOT crews regularly repair damage to the wire rope on all three of the East river suspenion bridges. Wedging the cables open for any old bridge is standard practice during an extensive rehabilitation. No cuts are involved in inspecting wire rope, as that defeats the point.
No ship riggers, no tar, marline, or any other maritime museum gift shop workers were involved or hurt in the history of the bridge. Otherwise, it's a good story....that's not a mistake, it's rustic
Your info sounds quite believable; I got mine from a rigger I knew at South Street Seaport who said he knew one of the guys who said he worked on the bridge. Never had any reason to doubt it before now.
BTW, Frank (my source) most certainly did not work in anybody's 'gift shop'--he weighed 300 pounds, cursed and spit tobacco juice continuously, and was an ex-jarhead. He is also the guy that taught me the Molly Hogan splice and the Liverpool Eye Splice. If you wanna swap sea stories, I'll tell you about the time during hurricane what's-er-name on the Sheila Moran when we busted the hawser and I put in a Molly Hogan one-handed standing on the back deck with water up to my armpits. Still got the King's Point tee-shirt with the grease stains on it to prove it.
Maybe I got the wrong bridge?
CRS strikes again. WTFK?
I do remember being on the FDR drive just north of Fulton Street for the fireworks display, tho. Couldn't see the last 15 minutes of the show; the smoke was so thick the bridge disappeared....Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Just kidding about the gift shop thing. But you believed a tale about saving the Brooklyn Bridge from a ship rigger? I'm surprised he didn't offer you the keys to the bridge for a small price! I love the Seaport. It is the sole remaining part of the Manhattan my father and uncles grew up on and shared so many cool stories. I also have many fond memories watching Moran company tugs plying all sorts of stuff (okay, usually garbage scows) along the Hudson and the East/Harlem Rivers. As a kid, I thought any tug that didn't have the maroon paint and M on the stack was for training or something.
What I described is pretty much how all cables are spun. Now, the Williamsburg had people on edge when the cables were wedged open (the traffic was stopped) because there were many visible wires broken and the builders used ungalvanized steel wire as a cost savings (among several that plague the bridge). The cable turned out fine, and the broken wires turned out to be misrepresentative of the cables as they were localized breaks near pigeon nests. Not only were these easily fixed, but the hydraulic banding allowed the wires to still support load at midspan despite the breaks at the anchorages. That is why the design competition to replace the bridge quietly went away and the rehabilitation design went to another consultant.
...that's not a mistake, it's rustic
Edited 8/5/2003 8:15:30 AM ET by Bungalow Jeff
Don't know if you knew the SS Seaport before it 'grew up' and got big time; back when Bernie and the X-Seaman's institute played for free every Tuesday night; back before it cost $4.95 (that price is 20 years old, BTW; I don't want to think about what it costs now) for a slice of pizza on the third floor of 'Pier 17' and you had to watch where you put your feet when you walked on the original pier 17 if you didn't want to take a swim. This was when Sloppy Louies was really sloppy and the Blue Plate Special cost 2 bucks.
I wonder what it looks like today; last time I was there was over 15 years ago when I went back to NYC for my grandmother's funeral. Is Carmines still there? How about the schooner Pioneer and the Lettie G? Lettie G Howard had some major rot and worm problems; seemed as though the administration was more interested in food courts and so forth than in putting money into the boats. Hope that's changed. I trained on the Pioneer under Capt. Diane G; got my first official sea-time on her and parlayed that into a z-card and a job as a deckhand/cook working for Turecamo. Went on from there to sail as mate and finally captain for various companies up and down the east coast. Worked the garbage scows too- whew!!
Finally quit one night anchored just outside the Whitestone Bridge when I'd had enough crap from the crazy relief captain; called the dispatcher and told him to send me a launch and a chief mate for Crazy Joe. Never went back. Home to the mountains and life's been good these last 15 years. Now if I can save my kid from my About 2BX wife, maybe I can buy a real boat--with a gaff rig--and show him the world....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
You may have year or two on me! I was 17 when the Seaport was "renewed". I worked for a co-owner of Carmines. I remember it took off that first summer and things fell apart when the first winter came and tourists were not willing to go off of the regular tour routes. Then the Wall Street crowd realized that it was a convenient drinking spot. Eventually, it became established enough for the tourists, but during the Wall Street period, there were complaints about the actual Seaport activities and a request to move the fish market was raised to the Mayor's office!!
Most of the Pier 17 area is not much different from any other mall now. Sharper Image, J. Crew and several other unimpressive shops. I do not know too much about the condition of the ships, but I think they have benefitted from some work funded by the Seaport income.
The Chelsea Pier complex took the reuse to an entirely different level. Golf driving range, hockey rink, micro-brewery, gyms, rock climbing. Except for the river walks and parks, Pier 17 and the Chelsea Piers are the only part of the Manhattan waterfront redeveloped into anything useful. ...that's not a mistake, it's rustic
Jaysus Maree and Joseff and Christt on a Bicycle--I didn't know about Chelsea docks getting Yuppie-ized...and I'm almost sorry I asked.
I remember the 'wall street period' as you put it. We had to pull more than one drunken, 25-year-old, instant millionaire stock broker out of the East River when we were hosing the tourist garbage off the decks with firehoses at 4am. I knew they wanted to move the fish market; I had doubts they'd get away with it--the mafia has run that for years and they're a tough nut to crack, even today.
I may have known you when you were working at Carmines. I used to go in after we tied up Pioneer or the Andrew Fletcher for the night and have a beer and a plate of spaghetti with red clam sauce. It was a great place to hang out--until the yuppies took over. My only bitch was that they didn't serve Guinness; so we drank Rolling Rock--not the same thing at all, but it washed down the spaghetti. At least when the yuppies started filling the place we could have the satisfaction of cutting the line ahead of them; because we were 'regulars', the kid at the door always found a place for us at the bar within a few minutes. Was that kid you? Tall and skinny, blond hair? If you were him, thanks again--twenty-five or so years later....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
No, that wasn't me. I never worked the restaurant. The owner had a tons of businesses, he just liked to give his good employees a heads up about his new undertakings. Fishing yuppies out of the river, now that's got to be more trouble than it's worth between the attitude and subsequent mess they would make....that's not a mistake, it's rustic
could be a fire code thing!
We are currently building a three story (66,000 sf) school here in New York..The whole building is wrapped in 1/2" exterior grade gyp board..and a brick facade..
USG makes the stuff and basically the paper facing has been treated to be weather resistant..however, you really shouldn't leave it exposed for more than a month..
It's pretty common for commerical buildings to use it around here...
If it's OK after all these years it's probably not regular SR. There are exterior grades.
We've used ####lot of type X 5/8 in fire code situations like condos and apts.
Excellence is its own reward!
The material is called gyplap, used often where fire code insists on it. Still used on metal framed studs in light commercial work and some residential.
trimhead-- On a few older houses around here ( on older, I mean built in the 50'sor 6o's in this case) , I've seen a drywall product kind of like you describe. It has a black tarpaper skin on the outside which I guess is supposed to give it some water resistance. I've seen it in varying conditions- if water does get to it, it will fall apart. Kinda on the same subject, I've also seen 5/16" plywood sheathing ( yes, I typed that right ) on a number of development-style cape cods in my area. It was used on both the exterior walls AND ROOF! My dad said builders used this stuff before codes were developed to cover plywood.
There is a three story office/apartment building going up near me that is using a type of gypsum called "DensGlass".
http://www.gp.com/gypsum/sheathing/
The building is constructed of light gauge steel framing and sheathed in the following order: plywood (don't know the thickness), 5/8" DensGlass, Tyvek, RMax Insulation board, with some type of membrane around the windows covered with small sections of plywood and with all the RMax strapped by 1x3 boards waiting for the siding, whatever that is going to be.
Since the description of DensGlass indicates that it doesn't need a housewrap, I assume that somehow Portland's building code must require it even though the DensGlass and the foil backed RMax both appear to be impermeable barriers.
I am thinking about using the DensGlass on my shop rather than regular gypsum board. I did a quick Google scan and came up with about $18/sheet for 5/8" 10' sheets, but haven't talked to my local supplier yet.
CaseyR-- Without knowing your local codes, my guess is that the DensGlass is being used as some sort of fire resistant barrier. If there already is plywood sheathing for structural strength, I don't know what else it could be for. The building codes get into some weird stuff when its a commercial building.
Just finished an addition on my house in Chicago. The code requires 5/8" gypsum board exterior sheathing. The builder did use plywood on the corners. He said the inspectors usually ok this to stiffen the structure.