I’ve just started a renovation on an old farm house. The owner is to do a good share of the demolition and to his surprise when he cleaned the walls of the lath and plaster he found mortored brick filling all ther cavities on the exterior walls. The best answer I’ve found for this is to dispel flying projectiles from irate neighbors. Someone mentioned insulation but it has to be wholly inadequate. Unless you count the heating of the brick mass and storing it. The plan was to strip and then update wiring and inslation and cover w/sheetrock, tape and be done with it. The owner is getting cold feet in his desire to remove the brick and wants to build out the wall 1″and put in rigid foam. I hesitating because I’m not sure if this would be adequate but he doesn’t want to pay me the extra cash and the task to his seems daunting. I’m looking for feedback as I don’t want to do all the work to finish the room and end up w/ poor insulation or worst yet moisture problems. Any thoughts?
Thanks!
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Sounds like a reasonably typical doublebrick built home (lots of variation in the way they were built depending on the area). The brick walls are structural. Does that look familiar given the house?
The plaster on wooden lathes installed over thin strapping on top of the wall are very common as well. As far as insulating this...
You either built in an inch or two and put insulation on the inside or you insulate on the outside and put stucco or siding over it.
Personally, I would rather sacrifice a few inches on the inside.
Even if you only put an inch of foam on the inside at least you can make sure the air sealing on that house is really really good. That will make a huge difference. Of course, 2" or 3" would be better.
The house is a wood frame sstructure w/ wood siding which is now covered w/ aluminum. The bick isn't structural but it certainly was done well, to the extent of cutting bricks to fit around the diagonal bracing. The structure was alone at the top of a hillside so spreading fire wasn't an issue, and it was certainly was a lot of work for a fire stop.
My problem is I worry about creating a moisture problem with inadequate insulation ie: R of 7.2 for the 1" of rigid which in turn would block off the heat from reaching the mass of the brick. then the warm moist air would condense somewhere in the stud space and create problems over time.
R-7 will be totally inadequate unless you're in a really moderate climate. I would persuade him to get the bricks out of there. The added cost and difficulty of electrical, plumbing, HVAC, etc. would probably outweigh the cost of the removal and disposal, and the added fuel bills over time certainly will. It's almost summer... find a high school kid who needs a job and show them the bricks.
and show them the bricks
Then hand him a sledge hammer and cold chisel, grab a can, a newspaper, a chair, and just watch. My kind of work in action.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
Oh yah.
Check out http://www.oldhouseweb.com/
and
http://www.oldhousejournal.com/index.shtml
In densely populated Providence, RI many houses have brick in the side walls. This was to slow the house-to-house spread of fire back in the day when the fire companies were horse drawn. In terms of insulation the brick conducts heat much better than air, but could be blocking some drafts. Its not clear why a farm house would have had these concerns.If you've really hit the bonus you'll find a single layer of brick in your internal walls. Makes snaking new electrical a #$% joy.eric