I have a wood framed home built in 1876 in upstate New York. Every time I need to replace old plaster with drywall on exterior walls I find the stud bays filled with bricks and mortar. What was the reasoning behind building this way?
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Here is a picture of what it looks like
https://www.britannica.com/technology/half-timber-work
I worked on a house from the 1870’s that only had the brick scrap/whole brick/plaster in the bottom foot or so of the timber frame. Said by some to deter rodents. A few others thought they were adding ballast so the house wouldn’t blow off…….
On this particular house, the plaster lath was wide, rough milled boards. 20”. Seems they nailed off one edge across the frame, then split the board……along the length…..nails it off again……split again. Instead of using usual wood lath, they mimicked it with this wide split board.
Traditionally half timber construction used no lath. The plaster was applied directly to the brick and not to the timber. Needless to say these buildings were notoriously cold and leaky. Restoration and refitting that preserves the historic integrity is difficult.
old school fire stopping method - balloon frame construction promoted the fire spread by acting like a chimney, bricks were to slow the spread till the men and horses got there to use hand pumps and buckets to put it out