Insulating A Double Brick Farm House

Recently we completed a bathroom renovation on an old farm house, when the old bathroom had been completely stripped we discovered that the farmhouse was built out of double brick.

What is double brick? Double brick is a way homes were constructed a century ago before the invention of conventional insulation. Instead of building a stud wall and then bricking a single row of brick on the outside the house, the home was built by bricking the outside walls first and to make the brick strong enough they would built the brick in multiple layers giving it strength and making the brick wall thicker.

The lath and plaster was then installed on the inside of the brick, there was usually barn board or strips of wood that were used to build the brick outside walls left on the wall to give something to attach the lath and plaster too. The multiple layers of brick acted as a natural wind break for the cold winter winds, it also acted like an oven, when the home was heated from the inside it would reflect the heat back in making the heating the home a lot easier then other homes built at the same time.

The big problem once you have discovered that the home is double brick is how or if you will try to insulate the walls. Depending on the finishes, the window build outs and the amount of room you have it can be tricky to accomplish this without causing a lot of headaches and work for yourself.

With the bathroom renovation what we choose to do is to add SM sheets of foam on attached directly to the inside of the walls, affixing them to the existing barn board. The depth of the insulation would be determined by how much it would affect the overall inside dimensions. We settled on 1 inch of foam. Even through 1" of foam is not a tremendous amount of insulation it works quiet well when combined with the double brick. It is also a fairly inexpensive way to insulate a wall without losing a lot of space in a room like an old bathroom that is already short on space.

When working on old homes you have to be creative, not everything is simple or easy.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

What is balloon framing?

Q:

What is balloon framing?

A:

Balloon framing is a type of framing that was popular around the turn of the century before modern building techniques and technologies came into the construction industry.

Balloon framing is when the walls of the home are constructed with stud walls that start at the foundation of the home (the first floor) and run continuously up vertically until they meet the roof framing. This can mean that the studs that run vertically are one piece and could be 20 feet long with no breaks or joints.

The modern way to build walls are to construct with wood studs that are tall enough to make the ceiling height, then the floor is framed on top of these studs. Then you frame the stud walls on top of that framed floor until you reach the roof. The roof framing sits on top of the second story walls.

Balloon framing with it’s one piece studs running up to the roof framing are constructed first, then the floors are built after it, you attached the floor joist for the 1st and 2nd floor framing to the side of the one piece studs, usually they are just nailed to the side of the studs.

In balloon framing they never used headers over windows or doors; this is because most of the weight was transferred straight to the foundation from the roof through the one piece studs. Older homes were typically built with small openings to minimize the risk of having too much weight above the opening with the lack of headers. If you see larger openings that are original to an older home then they typically have the windows built into the home so that they help transfer weight through them.

Balloon framed walls usually are re-enforced with  1 inch wood material nailed to the inside of the alls and also to the outside of the building. This is because they didn’t have or use plywood at the time. Walls where then covered with lath and plaster, with all of this material it usually reduced the amount of movement in the walls to a minimum.

When renovating a home with balloon framing you have to be very careful that you support the weight of what’s above if you plan to make a bigger opening and have to install a header.

The best thing to do is to hire a professional to do the work so that nobody gets hurt or you don’t permanently damage a part of the home.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.