Converting a 3 story 1850 victorian into a commercial office buildingIt is a balloned framed structure with brick inbetween all the studs “nogging”. Anyone with experience dealing with this situation?
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Welcome to BT
I dont have any experience with the nogging but here is a thread ( 78333.1 )where the OP'er mentions it and maybe he has some experience with it.
Address your post to WNYGuy and maybe you can get some help.
Doug
What is Nogging?
Did you see the thread that WNYGuy is running on the Italianitte house? he shows some pictures of it. Look at the link that I provided up above, scroll through and you'll see a pic of it.
Its basically brick laid up fairly tight in between the studs. Dont know if it was a whether tight solution or what? I've never seen it in houses here in the Midwest, seems to be more common out east.
Doug
Oh, so that's what it's called ;)
I saw it in a recent remodel we were doing. We were gutting two first floor rooms down to the framing in an older house... maybe 90ish years old, and we had planned on insulating the exterior walls, however we found "nogging" that ran clear up through the second floor. Couldn't take it out because we couldn't disturb the rooms above.
I've found out that brick nogging was used for insulation in houses in the 1800's. Early attempt using straw and paper insulation caused rodent infestations and brick was cheep in those days. Plus with no sheathing it did stop the wind. With an R value of 1 it's not very efficient plus adds an increadable amount of weight to the foundation.
The idea comes from Europe. Dutch style houses where wood beams were exposed and decorative brick and or stucco was installed inbetween.
Your information sounds right. Will you be saving the bricks? Antique bricks can be handy to have if you do much restoration work.
If the bricks are mortared in place, that's just lime/sand mortar and will come off pretty easily.
For installations like this, it's possible they used bricks that, due to their location in the kiln during firing, aren't has "hard" as ones they'd use for the exterior of a brick building. Maybe not as likely by the 1860s when production techniques had advanced quite a bit.
Allen
My experience (which is limited, but seems to be in common with others in old houses) is that ALL interior bricks are softer than the ones used in an exposed area. That is the interior wyeths of brick, which are covered by either plaster (inside) or the exterior bricks are all much less uniform and fairly soft. My house is 1901 which is substaintially later than 1860.So I would expect noggin bricks to also be soft, and consequently might not be useful for repairs.BTW, I've heard the phrase 'salmon bricks' used to refer to these soft bricks. I don't know if that is just from the color (they seem to vary a bit) or what.
Yes, I understand that to be the case, which is why I also assumed so with the nogging.
Also, I believe you're correct about the salmon-color. The hard-fired bricks (the ones nearer the heat source in the kiln) are generally darker red, and the softer ones more orangey or salmon-colored. Sometimes they were called "sammies."
Sometimes the bricks nearest the heat would partially turn to glass. These were used decoratively as "glazed headers" in some brick patterns.
Years ago I experimented with making hand-made bricks, using various local clays dug from the ground or exposed along roadsides. Made my own brick mold, and built my own kiln, fired with wood and coal. The final bricks I pulled out varied from essentially "fired adobe" to melted globs of glass. Definitely an art to the whole process!
Allen
I just re-read your post, and reallized your point about the time-frame. Even by 1900, it seems there was quite a lot of temperature variation during the firing. Interesting. My research has concentrated mostly on pre-Civil War materials and methods.
Allen
So that's what the brick -fill-in-between-the-stud-bays- is called.
Someone must have been using his noggin when he invented that.
brick filled stud bays..
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Thanks for the link. I've confirmed it's not structural so its all coming out.
The only experience I have with nogging is having lived in a house with it for several years, but...common sense would tell me that in a balloon framed building, it might act as a firestop?
It will be interesting to see what the real builders have to say.
It was put in place as a fire stop in the ballon frame ( so fire would not travel from 1st floor to the roof ) 2x blocking would do the same thing .Not as long of a fire rating though.