Remodeling an oooold house

[Bob Vaughan]

Maybe some sort of fire stop?

[Tom Hammond]

Scott:

That is true... but in new construction, I got blocked on everything. So I checked... in all 88 counties, new construction requires permits to be pulled by licensed contractors. Not the same for remodeling existing structures, though.

[Tom Hammond]

I took some pics when I was at the house last night. Here's what I'm talking about.

[Wayne Lomman]

Tom, I can't think of a reason other than draft exclusion. It doesn't perform any fire control - in fact it assists fire as there do not appear to be any draft boards between the studs. Are you going to leave them in or do you have an alternative use for them? Cheers

[Rich Engelhardt]

@ George -- - -Road Trip!!!

[Scott Besaw]

Thanks Tom, I didn't know that. I moved my house and added on, but it was not new construction. My brother-in-law built new 16 years ago and pulled all his permits and we built the house. Must of changed some things. You have a nice looking house. Old houses are interesting to work on and frustrating. Good luck with the house.

That is true... but in new construction, I got blocked on everything. So I checked... in all 88 counties, new construction requires permits to be pulled by licensed contractors. Not the same for remodeling existing structures, though.[/QUOTE]

[Rodger Kanis]

Wow! All those little boards add up to a LOT of extra hand-sawing done back in 1817!

[Robby Tacheny]

Can you check the history of the house? Maybe it was used as a boarding house, hospital, or tuberculosis ward, etc at one time and maybe this was done for sound proofing or as another specific reason? Based on the history maybe you can discover the reason? Does your town have a historical society? Have you checked with them?

From what I can tell from your pictures, it may have had major additions 2 or 3 times. Do the additions have the same treatment or just the "main" space?

Robby

[Stew Hagerty]

I took some pics when I was at the house last night. Here's what I'm talking about.

Tom, I can't think of a reason other than draft exclusion. It doesn't perform any fire control - in fact it assists fire as there do not appear to be any draft boards between the studs. Are you going to leave them in or do you have an alternative use for them? Cheers

Can you check the history of the house? Maybe it was used as a boarding house, hospital, or tuberculosis ward, etc at one time and maybe this was done for sound proofing or as another specific reason? Based on the history maybe you finds the reason? Does your town have a historical society? Have you checked with them?

From what I can tell from your pictures, it may have had major additions 2 or 3 times. Do the additions have the same treatment or just the "main" space?

Robby

WOW! As Roger said, "All those little boards add up to a LOT of extra hand-sawing done back in 1817! ". Not to mention that it looks like the studs are rabbeted. Are they?

As a former General Contractor, I can definitively say that I have never seen or heard of anything like this before. But I did find this photo. It may be similar to yours.

Balloon Construction.jpg

I suppose is could be to help drafts, but I don't know about sound deadening... I have no context as to the location. If it is close to a road, or neighbors I suppose it could be possible.

If I had to guess, just based on a few minutes of research & thought, I'd have to lean towards a combination of structural and draft/insulation.

[Robert Engel]

Hope all goes well. My biggest fear would be finding major structural issues like foundation (every wall is probably load bearing).
Hiring an engineer is where the $$'s start flying out the window. Hope that doesn't happen to you.

[Bill McNiel]

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

[Malcolm McLeod]

I did a lot of research on timber framing before building our house. There was a LOT of comparing timber to balloon in available references, and it was common to point out the lack of fire stops and thus huge fire hazard in balloon frames. As others point out, this doesn't look like fire stops (far from it). And I suspect only a rank novice installer would have expected much shear resistance. ....My vote would be draft or noise reduction?

Also, I recall that balloon framing only came into practice after ~1830, when mass-produced nails became affordable. Are the nails hand cut? If so, and 1817-build is correct, you might have one of very earliest examples of balloon framing.

Good luck and enjoy!

Edit: A simple 1x brace, angled from bottom plate (or beam) to the top of a corner stud and let in to the studs, would have provided much, much more shear strength - - and at SIGNIFICANTLY less cost than these 'mid-stud' boards.

[Mel Fulks]

Are there both machine made and hand wrought nails in the house? I'm wondering if they were trying to build in a way that allowed the use of more of the cheaper but weaker cut nails.

[Ed Labadie]

My house is balloon construction, there was nothing like that in the walls.

When the time comes to insulate, you will have to have the sill areas spray foamed, there is no other way to seal them up.

Ed

[Robby Tacheny]

This is why I wonder if there was a purpose to those boards. Purposes that come to mind:

For noise:
In a boarding house, you may want extra noise barriers in the wall so that you can sleep. In a hospital environment, you might not want to hear the person next door coughing. In a brothel. . . well you know.

For Thermal Properties:
As an attempt at cutting down on drafts? Are these in exterior walls too?

For early walls:
Is it possible this house was built using those interior boards as early walls, with the purpose being that later they would lathe/plaster over them? Like maybe they ran out of money or materials.

For protection:
If your house were just a few years older, there were many wars/skirmishes happening between 1810 and 1820 that could have affected your area.

I highly recommend consulting someone who has knowledge of period building techniques in your area and may also know the local history. You might be looking at significant example of early architecture or possibly an attempt to modify the house for a particular event.

Robby