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When we bought our new, old house we were told that it was built in 1950. However, during the renovation I’ve run into what several folks, who seem to know what they’re talking about, have identified as chesnut flooring, cut nails used in tongue and groove pine panelling (possibly to avoid splitting?) and that old-style wiring that incorporates two separate conductors with the ceramic spools and tubes.
Any thoughts? Thanks.
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Replies
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The only trick I know is to look at the underside of the toilet tank lid. There is usually a date there. Not much help if the toilet has been replaced, but....
Rich Beckman
*I recently worked on one built in 1949 that has two separate wires with porcelin insulators. The switches were push button type, with a main switch at the panel being a throw type switch.Your stuff sounds an awful lot like 1950 vintage.James DuHamel
*Jack -- There's a neat page about wiring history at http://www.codecheck.com/wiring_history.htm
*If it has knob and tube wireing I would date it before the 50's
*Cut nails are still available today but were largly replaced by wire nails around the turn of the last century.American chestnut has been an extinct lumber species for about the same time i think.Knob and tube wiring was not commonly used after WW II. Few homes were built between 41 and 45. Not a large number of homes were built between 1931 and 1945.I'd guess your house was built in 1929.joe d
*Started in February, finished 29 November.The GC's name was Fred. He had 3 boys. Put them to work picking up nails after the days work was finished. The homebuyer was a little old lady who owned one of those monkeys that will fit in the palm of your hand. She invented the pink flamingo lawn ornament. If you go into the basement with an oak mallet and experiment, you'll find that you can play "auld lang syne" on the waterpipes.
*My house had knob & tube. It was built in 1937. Just a thought here.....couldn't you contact your county/city tax office and ask them what their records indicate? If you are paying property taxes, I'm sure records are being kept.From what you say (especially concerning chestnut), I would wager your home is not 1950's vintage. Chances may be good that someone on your street is an old coot who remembers when the homes were built in your area, and by whom. Check with your nosy neighbors.Davo.
*Cut nails were used in T&G to keep from splitting of the tongue. I don't think you can make much of that for dating the house. I was born in'29 and I remember stands of chestnut in western PA. The dead trees were high in tannins and stood a long time. Many were harvested in the 50s for wormy chestnut lumber or for tanwoood. I don't think it would be flooring grade by the 50s. Chestnut looks a lot like oak, but there are significant differences.Your wiring is the best hint. I would have said that it hadn't been used since the 20s but that might have depended on local practice. If spool and tube was gone by the 30s in your area, you are probably looking at the 20s. If I'd been an electrician in those days, I'd have used romex as soon as it was available.BJ
*One house we had was built in 1960 and had knob and tube (northern California), so it was still being used as late as that.County records aren't always helpful either. Our current house was dated "1950" in the MLS, because that's what county records showed. Then I found out that most county records were destroyed in a big fire in 1950, so any house in our area built before that is now dated 1950. Went with the nosy neighborhood coots strategy - house was built around the turn of the century. An arborist dated the cedar trees (not native to our area) as 100 years old, which helped confirm the nosy neighbors.Time to say "hey" over the back fence.
*Jack - While I could tell you more if you could post photographs, the bottom line is that the i physical evidenceis frequently not adequate to provide accurate dating of a house, unless it has defining period features, and you should go to the county deed office and see what has been recorded for the property. You may also get lucky with fire insurance maps (if they exist) such as the Sanborn maps, perhaps from your local historical society.Cut nails can be considered in the context of nail chronology when examined for how they were made - but only (realistically) for older (pre-civil war) buildings. For instance, the information that they might provide is that your house is "after 1850" which is not really useful. The big changes in nail technology that produced defining features (hand wrought, machine burrs same side, burrs opposite side, etc.) took place between around 1780 and 1830.The US chestnut blight started around the turn of the century but that doesn't help much either. Around here (central NJ) you don't find much chestnut used after around 1920 (and knob-and-tube after around the same date). Rich's method (toilet date) is perfect for most 20-century houses with original fixtures - it should get you to within one year or so of the date, although you have to be careful about your assumptions regarding whether fixtures are original.There are many other clues that could get you 'close' but not as close as deed research. If you can find a previous owner of record with an unusual name (i notJohn Smith) you might be able to find them today with an internet people search. They might be able to provide more information.Jeff
*Before phones, they used a City Register to keep track of everyone. The listings were arranged by name and address and are helpful to date the origin of a house (especially if you find the name of the first owner from the deed - that is a little more time consuming and you do a deed search by starting with your name and going back name by name, into the past, until it stops. Then if you are lucky you can date the construction of the building from the city register (they won't assign the street address # until the structure is occupied, so the first year listing may only have the name and no # - that's the year of construction).If you are in any kind of town you ought to be able to find the City Register (find the local historian, some towns have one on staff even if they are volunteer).If you don't find your house in the last year of the Register that they have in the library then you can look for the old phone books (some towns save those too, but here you REALLY need to know the name of the resident).The nice thing about city register and phone book is that you can find the occupant even if they were not officially the owner (renters and extended family are listed) - who ever could answer the door.The deed search is not so straight forward, and all of this is time consuming but really quite fun if you can take a day or two off work to go do it. Some companies will do this for a fee, like a detective, but I think it's more fun done yourself.
*Out here knob and tube was gone by the early 1920's, replaced by black pipe. Do you have access to rough framing anywhere? If so, measure the 2x lumber. A 2x4 was once actually 2" x 4". By the mid 20's, it was 2" x 3 5/8". Later that became 1 5/8" x 3 5/8", and now it's 1 1/2" x 3 1/2". Perhaps somebody else can give us better dates on when these changes were made, and who it is who gets to f--- around with the size of lumber, making trouble for everybody who has to remodel an older building.Another dating method: Look for wane on any of the rough framing. If you find some, you can get a sample from the last ring grown before the tree was cut down. That'll let you get a radiocarbon date for when the tree was cut. In the 19th and 20th centuries, radiocarbon is good to within just a few years. The only wild card is if the lumber was used. -- J.S.
*A few thoughts...County records are notoriously inaccurate. My, particulaly with older homes. Example: My house is listed as 1991. Since I was living there then, I'm pretty certain its wrong. The problem is that whoever was entering the info into a computer mistyped, or simply didn't believe, the house was built in 1891.We had cuts nails, true-dimensional lumber (that is 2x4s that measure 2x4) and some pine bracing that measures almost 24 inches across as well as the remnaints of tube-and-nob.We got lucky: The 75-year-old granddaughter of the builder was in town for a reunion, drove by the house and saw me rebuilding the front porch. She stopped, loaned me a bunch of early photos of the house (gave my wife a piece of china from the original house china) and also let us have copies of the old family records, which soon let us track the build date to 1891. She also later gave us an original oil painting of the original Lady of the House.Moral of the story: Start talkin' to the area's old-timers. See if there is a historical society in town and if the town has a Historic Preservation Commission. They may have documentation.
*Sounds like 20's or earlier. Is the knob-and-tube wiring secured within the walls (original) or only run in the attic and snaked (with no attachment) in the walls. In the later case, it would be a retrofit in the early 20th century onto a 19th century house. -David
*where is your house located ? we were still buying cut nails in wooden kegs in the '60's... nothing like a cut nail for t&g flooring & paneling
*You may want to look through the land registry for your property as well. On it the house will be listed along with the lot and tax records for each sale of the property. Also (If you're lucky) there will be disputes about the property lines. Our roof overhang is within a ft of the neighbours lot line, and it was disputed after the house was built. Guess the neighbours didn't like the building so close to the lot line. In any case that resulted in documentation of the building, the lot and the building's position on the lot back in 1918. While we were looking at out property in there, a lawyer pointed out that you could tell whenever new construction had taken place on the property since there would be either a tax hike (VERY significant) or a notice of assesment.Good luck in your research.
*Be careful what clues lead you to. For example My home that I'm building today has actual 2x4's that are two inches by four inches. (the price was the same if I took 2x4's or 1 1/2x 3 1/2 I went for the added srength of actual 2x4's. I can buy cut nails today and actually have an almost full barrel that I bought at a farm auction. I'm using tube and post wiring for a couple of push button switches just cause I like the idea! I also Have a pull chain toilet that I rescued that's going in the guest bathroom and The sink is a conversion of a turn of the century French porcelin.
*If the house was built with scrounged materials, you could guess forever......Gabe
*cast tubs and sinks have dates castin them
*Hey thanks, everyone, for all the info. I've exhausted most of your ideas except for the "old coot" one. There's a woman in her mid 80s living up the street who's at least the 3rd generation on her land. She'll know. Thanks, again.
*What style is your home? Craftsman bungalows weren't built after the war, and Ranchburgers weren't build before then. What sort of foundation does it have? A slab-on-grade would indicate a post war house. What kind of windows? Casements or double-hungs?What kind of trim does the house have inside? Does it have wide, substantial casings, or skinny little "ranch" style casings?What kind of heating system?A photo would be a huge help. Even an older home that has been extensively remodeled will still reek of the Gestalt of its origins.
*It can be hard to sort out the add ons and originals though...We have found 3 separate stovepipes, were they all original?? I doubt it. Our bathroom has cast dates in the toilet and tub, but the sink was substantially earlier. When was it built, remodeled, or was a sink salvaged?? Our greatest hints so far have been stuff we found we found in the crawlspace (Old license plates and bottles) the old guy down the road and the surveys etc. at city hall.
*Wiring and age:One of my houses, one of a block of similar ones, was built in 1943, supposedly to provide housing for people employed in the Richmond, CA shipbuilding industry. It had a single circuit for the entire house (admittedly a small one) of knob-and-tube wiring run as pairs in the ceiling. From these, pairs of wires dropped down through walls for receptacles and ceiling light switches.Another, built in 1917 not too far away, had the hot wire under the floor, and the neutral in the ceiling. From the hot wire, a wire ran up through a wall to a light switch, over to the ceiling fixture, and then to the neutral. In the reprinted 1902 Sears Roebuck catalog, single conductor was almost as expensive as 2+G Romex 50 years later, so I suppose they tried to save on material costs. Strangely enough, though, the central stairway had 3-way and 4-way switches, all wired knob-and-tube, to turn the lights on from several levels. Judging from materials and techniques, I guessed about 5 others had added wiring during its first 50 or so years.
*I always forget the middle boys name! Jeff
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When we bought our new, old house we were told that it was built in 1950. However, during the renovation I've run into what several folks, who seem to know what they're talking about, have identified as chesnut flooring, cut nails used in tongue and groove pine panelling (possibly to avoid splitting?) and that old-style wiring that incorporates two separate conductors with the ceramic spools and tubes.
Any thoughts? Thanks.