I'm performing maintenance on an old structure (70+ years old). This structure has a type of tile I've never seen before. The idea I have for sealing the outside is to apply something like plaster or stucco to the outside to seal places where wasps enter the tile, etc. The tile has mortar between the tile. I'm not looking for something that adds structural strength (reinforcement) to the tile, but it's a nice bonus. I'm guessing to trowel the mixture on to the exterior walls (14' high?), wait for the mixture to cure, then use something like a Wagner sprayer to paint it all white.
Are you talking about ceramic tile? If so, how thick is it, what is it on and where are the wasps going? Also if so, it would seem more logical to fix any deteriorated grout (which would be about the only place wasps could enter). You wouldn't be able to just slather some cementatious material over ceramic tile without first attaching lath.
Without further info, I would say it is a terrible idea.
Brick veneer? if so, I suppose - suppose, don't know - that you could stucco over that assuming it is well bonded to whatever it is on. It would still make more sense to fix the grout joints IMO, YMMV.
Any chance that you could post a photo or two using a site like
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-- maybe a wide angle shot and a close up shot?
It is hard to tell what you have there now from what you have written so far. And, without really knowing what is there now, it would be hard to suggest what will or will not work for what you want to achieve.
This sounds like the standard construction method we saw in Germany.
They called it tile, but it was sort of a huge red brick, like half of a cinder block, basically cube shaped. Rather than a couple of big holes in the center, these had smaller flat channels.
They were laid up like you would with concrete block, then commonly plastered on the interior walls and stuccoed on the exterior. That gave perfect control of infiltration, there is no better way to seal a wall than plaster.
To run electrical you'd rout a channel and then plaster over.
I own a property that I think has the same as what you are describing , or is something similar. It is in the U.S.A., in New Jersey. I call it terracotta, but I don't know what the correct name is. It is a side-by-side twin home -- I own the house on one side and someone else owns the house on the other side.
All of the exterior walls and the party wall are made of these "terracotta" blocks that are stacked on top of each other with mortar in between. The exterior of the house is stucco right over the "terracotta" blocks. And the interior walls are plaster -- a rough coat and then a finish coat -- applied directly to the "terracotta" blocks.
Here is a photo from the inside of the party wall that divides the two houses.
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The photo is of a chimney in the center, and then on either side of the chimney is the "terracotta" party wall. In this one area, there are some wood studs to frame out that area around the chimney, but in the rest of the house there is no wood framing. And, in this photo, the blue paint and the old flowery wallpaper are on top of the plaster wall that is plastered directly onto the "terracotta".
Thanks. I was curious if what I have is similar to what you have seen in Germany.
In my house, the exterior walls and the party wall between the two homes do not allow any infiltration. But, I am not sure how energy efficient they are since they seem to conduct heat rather than prevent heat flow the way that ordinary insulation does. I don't know much about any of that, so it's just a guess on my part. And, as you mentioned, the solid brick/"terracotta"(?) walls make running wires and plumbing difficult.
I am getting ready to do a complete rehab and a new floor plan layout in my house. At this point, the house has been completely gutted, all of the interior walls have been removed, and all of the plumbing and electric has been removed except for the plumbing drain stack. There is a new electric service panel. My plan is to frame out all of the exterior walls and the party wall with 2x4's adjacent to the original brick/"terracotta" walls. I will be insulating the framed out walls and also using the framed walls to run plumbing and electric within the new walls. I will also be doing all new "frame out" windows by removing the original windows, window frames, and interior window trim. The original heating system was hot water cast iron radiator heat which included a lot of large cooper pipes in the basement. Criminals kindly broke in while the house was vacant and stole all of the copper plumbing which now means I have an option of either keeping the original cast iron heating (by replacing pipes etc) or going with an all new natural gas central HVAC system. I'll probably do the central HVAC at this point.
They just rout a channel in the plaster, slap in the wires, and plaster ove r. Sort of like invisible surface mount.
The nice thing is they had an absolute convention on where to run wires. W ires ALWAYS ran vertically from an outlet, and were never anywhere else, so if you needed to drill a wall you could be 100% sure not to hit one. (or horizontally - but always straight)
Of course, we knew people who ignored that and put a nail through a wire, b ut there's always that 5% who didn't get the memo.
Thanks for the photos. That really helps. They basically look like the same type of "terracotta"-type brick that I have in a house that I own in New Jersey. And, I think that they probably look like what "TimR" (no relation) wrote about that he has seen in Germany. I call them "terracotta" but I don't know what the real name is.
One note about your photos: When I click on each photo, I see a link in the lower left corner that says, "View Raw Image". When I click on the "View Raw Image" link, the photo appears right side up. I don't know why, but it works for me.
I am almost certain that you can just apply stucco directly to the surface of these "terracotta" bricks. I don't think you would need to add any kind of wire mesh etc. first to do the stucco. But, I don't know for sure and you should ask a stucco or masonry person in your area to be sure. I am pretty sure that the stucco on the exterior of my house is applied directly to the bricks on the exterior -- but I haven't checked. On the interior of my house, I do know that rough coat plaster is applied directly to the "terracotta" bricks with no wire mesh, and then a finish coat of plaster is applied over that.
Now that I am curious, I'll have to do some Google searching to see if I can find out more.
P.S. I would say that what you have is definitely not ceramic tile and I wouldn't use the term "tile" at all to describe them. To me, they are some type of hollow brick or block, but I don't know what they are called.
"The grooves, or ribbing, is on four sides of the "shell" to help mortar, plaster and stucco adhere to the surface. When used above grade, the interior has plaster directly applied and the exterior is often coated with stucco. These are not vitrified or glazed. If exposed to the weather, they can deteriorate."
I don't know how old. I have pictures of me as an infant with the structure in the background, so that's 50+ years. A relative tells me the structure is at least 70 years. That would make it 1940s or earlier.
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