History of constructoin of frame houses

Paul Brubacher

In Memoriam
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296
Location
outside of Toronto, Ont
Just recently recalled doing some reno on our previous house that was over 100 years old. Historic photos of the area always have a house at that location. The foundation was stone of varying ages, showing how additions were added.
The walls were framed with real 2 by 4's. They were rough sawn and exactly 2" x 4".
The sheathing was horizontal boards and the siding vertical boards. I can't remember if the boards were tongue and groove or shiplap, but there was a bead on the one side of the joint and a fancier profile on the other. It had of course been covered with aluminum siding before we bought the house. I wouldn't have wanted to scrape and paint it.

Anyhow, to the question, the 2x4s went all the way from the foundation to the rafters. When did they start using studs that were only a single story?
Was the change from full length to single story studs because of fire concerns or cost?

Oh, and there was no insulation in the walls.

There was a story about how after an earth quake in Japan, there was one subdivision where all of the houses were destroyed except for a handful that had been built by a Canadian firm using the single story studs instead of the typical finely crafted timber frames.
 
Thanks Paul you indirectly answered many questions I have had about building technology and methods in NA since I grew up with brick house building.


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Yes, the Wikipedia article was very informative. I'm getting into old codger territory and the first house that I saw being framed was in the mid fifties and it used the single story studs.
Next time I see my uncle I'll ask him, since he is about 15 years older than I am and might remember seeing balloon frame houses being built.
 
Going back another step..

My copy of "Audels Carpenters and Builders Guide Vol 3" from 1923 (reprint[1]) was apparently written when the shift was being made from "timber framed" to "balloon framed" in a large scale. The chapter on balloon framing roundly criticizes balloon framing as a cheap knock off. Its interesting because they had some of the same criticisms that lead to frame on frame later, notably the fire hazard problem. Its also a bit later than the 1830 date from the wikipedia page, so it may have been regional and/or its possible the author was still somewhat conservative (although I got the impression from reading it that practice had been spreading fairly widely for at least a generation prior).

Its also interesting that they had interior shear bracing as a standard practice on both timber and balloon framed houses (with examples showing proper and bad examples of both) which seemed to be somewhat dropped after that in favor of using the skin as the bracing but is now making a come back in the codes.

[1] http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=54923&cat=1,46096,46100,54923 - I originally bought it for the excerpt in one of the books on the steel square that my dad had had since forever but the rest of the books are pretty interesting as well.
 
There was a story about how after an earth quake in Japan, there was one subdivision where all of the houses were destroyed except for a handful that had been built by a Canadian firm using the single story studs instead of the typical finely crafted timber frames.

First, Old Japanese home means that it was built in the late 1940's as almost NOTHING survived the war in any large cities.

Two major problems occur with these homes and earthquakes;
First, they have very primitive foundations, often if they are concrete it is very small, usually almost on the surface only and very thin, very little if any rebar, and they homes are not very well secured to said foundations. It is not uncommon to see an old house that survived the quake intact, but has to be demolished afterwards as it has jumped off it's foundation, this happened to several homes in my area after the March 2011 quake.
Second, they have a HEAVY tile roof, they are designed to stop fire from spreading and to stay in place during typhoons, OK that might be a good idea in the 1800's but why are so many NEW homes still made with these heavy tile roofs? Tradition, that is what a roof should look like I guess, also the roof tile company does not want or is able to switch to asphalt shingles. These roofs are heavy, and when a big quake hits, with them sitting on top of an old wooden framed home, well a lot of them fall down, they don't have proper shear walls in the old homes, so they crash down like a house of cards.

It is also fair to note that during the late 1940's and early 1950's there was a frenzy of construction, and not everything was built well, people just needed homes to live in, no one imagined that these homes would still be around 70 years later.

Cheers!
 
Well its a mad mad world.
Back in SA we used typical English/European construction build technique. Double brick wall with air gap between. Initially in early post war years roof was all corrugated sheet steel. (Galvanized).
Then concrete tiles became "in" and houses were either upgraded or built with tiles as is.
I recall my Dad and I doing a section of a roof on a extension to his house and the tile had a single nail hole in top center. However if u dared put a nail in, chances are u had a cracked tile. Lol. This was not as one might suspect as a result of uneven support on the bottom, rather a hole that was poorly cast and could not take the nail.
Crazier still there was no sheet of anything beneath this, next surface u would see looking down would be top of Sheetrock used for ceiling. Go figure.
All heat generated in winter just got sucked out the roof. Doh.

Now the outbuildings (garage, workshop had steel sheet laid pretty flat with angle from one side but maids room and washroom, all had concrete roof. Yeah a slab. Then slab was waterproofed way a commercial building in North America is done with roll of asphalt heated and stuck down. Again no idea of insulation direct to concrete. Go figure. Three different incomplete systems.

Then I come to Canada and a sought after roof is a metal roof.
We never changed the tile roofs they lasted longer than the building but here we got permanent maintenance cost on a home roof what with shingles getting blown off , ice dams and shingles shrinking and curling and whole roof needing replacing. So maybe them Japanese not so crazy with their tradition provided framing can withstand load.

While the techniques used in roofing here are relatively easy and cheap to mass produce, they not exactly durable. It just lends itself to mass production homes with min labor effort.


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Rob,
The double brick wall was also used in North America. There were even 2 types of brick used, soft inside brick and harder outside brick that would withstand the weather.

Then there were also the stone houses. The Scottish masons would shape the stone and use very little mortar. Most of the houses were build with lots of mortar except at the corners. The walls of stone houses were typically 2 feet thick.

The first houses built by the settlers would have been built with logs.

When my grandfather married during the first world war, the family farm was divided and a new house and barn built. The house was double brick. It was torn down about 15 years ago. I remember that my mother said that it was drafty during the winter.
 
Interesting that within a week of thinking that I would like to speak with my uncle, I received an invite to his 84th birthday party.
It was interesting to see the remaining uncles and aunts again.
My uncle started construction work in the fifties and never built a balloon frame house. He did say that the balloon frame house was discussed at a training session that he attended.
The insulation used in the walls was only 1" and 3" in the ceiling.
Which reminds me of the panel construction that was demonstrated at a show. The outer walls had no studs, they were sandwiches with rigid foam core and sheathing on the outside and drywall inside.
This type of construction would eliminate the shadowing which can occur because of the heat loss through the studs.

Another well insulated construction is the poured concrete where the forms are rigid foam. The forms are left in place. There was a house built like this in our neighbourhood about 10 years ago.
 
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