Throughout the interior brickwork in my 1880's house there are blocks of wood, the size of bricks, in place of bricks, another house of similar vintage I've seen has wooden bars replacing a row of maybe four bricks, anyone know why this was done?
Easy fixings? 1880 is pre tungsten carbide bits ;-)
-- Mike W
My house is also circa 1880. On my chimney breast which is exposed brick, also has bunches of brincks replaced with wood. They are evenly spaced up the chimney breast breast, one on each side. Each has one small hole - not really enough to put decent shelving in, but that's kinda what they look like they're for.
In message , VisionSet writes
I did wonder about that, but some are at ground level, some are above picture rail height, and the preferred "old" way of fixing in the house seems to have been to gouge out the mortar and fit a wooden edge.
I often wonder about life before electric drills and masonry bits, etc. things must have taken a lot longer to get done.
The message from bof contains these words:
Cheapness possibly.
My house is older than yours but when I asked the builder fitting my double glazing recently about the sawn end of an 8" x 3.5" in the reveal of an obviously non original window opening he said that built in wood instead of stone was a common occurrence on the inner skin of old houses in these parts and I have at least one other such block on an internal wall to which a now redundant switch back box was screwed to add weight to that theory.
They surely did, as anyone who has had to play with one of the old "tap and turn" rawlplug chisels can testify.
The first electric drills weren't ideal either as they were single speed and caused tungsten bits, which were quite expensive, to burn out with monotonous regularity.
Ah! You young uns don't know you're born!
Also act as handy dry rot storage areas !!!! Seen a couple of incidents like this, remove the plaster find a hollow rotted hole where wood beam/wood block once was and a whole mass of white fronds running off behind the plaster and into the brick work. Luckily in most case I have seen the dry rot is long since dead, but still messy and "house non-livable" whilst being fixed/fumigated.
In message , Tinnit writes
I do remember those, the first fixings I did were with a tap and turn chisel, then filled with asbestos and spit rawlplug mixture.
|I often wonder about life before electric drills and masonry bits, etc. |things must have taken a lot longer to get done.
It sure did, I started drilling holes in walls with a three sided bit hammered into the wall, and fiber rawlplugs. An easier way was to remove the mortar from between two bricks hammered in a wedge of wood. Like was a lot easier when I got an electric drill.
I still have, and use, both. The Rawldrill lives in my tool box and if I only want a couple of holes in a breeze-block wall, I use it, 'cos it's quicker than going and getting the drill.
OTOH, it took me an hour (and a melted masonry bit) to drill 4 holes in the tiles I foolishly chose for our new bathroom.
The message from "Tinnit" contains these words:
They're OK into brick - it's when you hit old concrete they really struggled.
|The message |from "Tinnit" contains these words: | |> They surely did, as anyone who has had to play with one of the old "tap and |> turn" rawlplug chisels can testify. | |They're OK into brick - it's when you hit old concrete they really struggled.
Especially No Fines concrete where you *always* hit a pebble. Mind you I suppose a modern SDS would have difficulty with that.
The message from Guy King contains these words:
You should try hard rock. :-)
The message from Dave Fawthrop contains these words:
Nope - just sails through!
The message from Dave Fawthrop contains these words:
Not in my experience. An ordinary hammer drill might. Until I got a SDS I used to dread having to drill even a single 6mm hole for a screw in the gritstone my house is built from. Now I have no qualms even with multiple 12mm holes.
\m/ LOL \m/
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