Remodeling an oooold house

[Jim Dwight]

Our current house is about 50 years old and the oldest I've ever owned. I like it but more for the lot than the house (it's on a lake). It has been added onto several times and had a lot of work done by somebody who didn't know what they were doing (probably the first and only other homeowner). A good bit of the house has no grounds, there were a dozen or so electrical boxes in the crawl space with no cover, they left exterior brick inside walls when they added on, put brick around wiring and plumbing when putting up a chimney, etc.. Our walls are also ballon framed but they had diagonal bracing. I doubt the homeowner did the framing but if he did he was better at that. It is OK. Probably the silliest thing was insulating between roof rafters when the ceiling of the room is flat. It fell down and there is a ridge vent to let air on the backside of it even when it was up so we effectively had no insulation.

I admire you for having the patience to deal with these sort of issues. I will get this house fixed up but I would prefer to be in a newer house without these issues.

I am confident the extra wall serves no structural purpose. 3/4 siding should be good enough for lateral bracing but if you remove that, you need diagonal bracing or sheet goods for bracing.

[Wayne Lomman]

The University of Wisconsin has done a lot of research on old timber buildings. Mostly rural buildings but the technique may be known to them. The info on their side is extensive and includes copies of original blueprints. It's well worth a look for general interest in what was done with timber. Cheers

[Tom Hammond]

Wayne: These are in all the exterior walls of the original house. I have to pull them out along with the nailing strips so we can insulate.

[Tom Hammond]

Stew: When the house was built, it had hundreds of acres of property so sound deadening is probably not it. No record it was ever anything but a residence. The boards are tongue and groove like a siding or flooring material.

[Mel Fulks]

I don't see an answer to my question about the nails used.

[Stew Hagerty]

Stew: When the house was built, it had hundreds of acres of property so sound deadening is probably not it. No record it was ever anything but a residence. The boards are tongue and groove like a siding or flooring material.

In that case Tom, I would have to conclude that is almost certainly to reduce air infiltration. While you would get some minimal structural benefit, in the form of resistance to racking, I would have to agree that there are much better (and easier!) methods of achieving the same effect, such as diagonal bracing.
Since you have ruled out sound deadening, that really only leaves air infiltration and some modest insulation properties due to dual airspaces and the R-value of the wood itself.
I think you have yourself a home with fairly advanced design & construction methods, not to mention the expense of cutting and planing in the tongues & grooves all those hundreds of small boards.

[Tom M King]

One 1780 house that I've done some work on, near here, has not only the exterior walls, but all the interior walls filled with bricks.

[Charles Lent]

I've seen many 1700's houses in the Southern end of the Hudson Valley of New York with bricks lining all the exterior wall stud cavities.
This area was heavy with brick manufacturing in the late 1700's and 1800's, so I've always assumed that they did this for insulation, but wondered why they didn't just make the whole house from brick. Because the brick yards were just around the corner in many cases, it would seem like the wood would have been more costly to build with. I'm a retired fireman and have never seen the double cavity design that the OP has in his walls.

Charley

[Tom Hammond]

Mel:

The nails in the original part of the house are mostly Type B square cut nails. I had to go look to be sure before I answered. There's thousands of them... and the darn things are still hellish to pull out even after all these years. There are some of the round-head Type A, but probably no more than about 10% of what we've pulled. The studs are all oak... and when I looked close at the attic stair stringers... walnut. What the...?!

[Mel Fulks]

Thanks,Tom. Cut nails begin in US around 1800 and round head are later. Balloon framing is generally considered a little later than 1816. Since the house seems to have additions you might still find different constructions and nail types. 1816 is pretty early for Ohio and access to varied materials was nothing like what the coast had. The weakness of cut nails ,compared to wrought, is enough that wrought nails were still being made at least to 1820's and being re-used. I think the unusual construction detail might be "overkill" due to causiousness about new-fangled balloon framing. Walnut is a strong and durable exterior wood as well as beautiful interior material and even porch decking has been found made of it. Please keep us informed !

[Steve Peterson]

I would venture that this is an early attempt at creating a "Shear Panel" designed to resist lateral forces.

One diagonal 1x4 brace would probably prevent racking better than all of those tiny horizontal boards.

Steve

[Mel Fulks]

I'm sure you are right, Steve. But we've all seen "overkill" that was really less efficient than standard methods.