wood in wall

[Martin Carroll]

I removed the plaster from a wall I am going to take down yesterday. I was surprised to see that in 3 positions there was wood rather than a brick course. These stretched the full length of the wall and were at about 4 courses up, two thirds of the height up the doorway, and just above the doorway. The house was built in the early 20th C.

Any ideas why it was constructed in this way?

Cheers

Martin

[Owain]

Skirting, Picture rail and dado rail?

Owain

[dom]

Traditionally they just put in small wooden wedges where trim would be nailed.

Maybe there was panelling or similar that required more substantial anchoring?

[Hugh_P]

We are renovating a 1930s house which has exactly the same wooden fillets in. This is in the hall on both sides. I assumed that the timber was there to fix panelling to, but I have seen no evidence that panelling was ever fixed there. Furthermore, you would expect it to continue up the stairs but it doesn't.

[Martin Carroll]

I initially thought panelling, but it is only on the dividing wall between the front and back rooms, so that seemed to rule it out.

Cheers

Martin

[Ian_m]

In my experience gives something more substantial for dry rot to grow on !!!!

[TMC]

I assume that the wall is single brick and wonder if the wood was for stability ISTR that single brick walls over a certain length would need a pillar every so often to achieve this so a horizontal wooden beam every so often would reduce the possibility of the wall moving.

Or I could be talking b*****ks

Tony

[Martin Carroll]

In article , TMC writes

Certainly plausible. It is a single brick width wall.

Martin

[mail]

Dear Martin These are called "bonding and levelling" timbers. As a man educated in Ireland and with a love of all things Irish I feel at liberty to take the Mick and say it was for Irish labour to lay the brick level... but in fact they have more than one role... If the building was of lime mortar as is quite likely it allowed the next course of bricks to be laid before the first lot had set. Addtionally it helped with the straightnes and lastly in the case of Georgian houses where they were laid in groups of four in all four walls provided some structural support in tension. As has been indicated by another, they are great for my profession (dry rot control) but in most cases where they have rotted the dry rot is well dead and requires no chemical control. Chris

[Tony Bryer]

Bonding timbers. Used to stabilise walls when being built, since lime mortar took a long time to develop strength