Solid wall houses and render.

A year ago I bought a small 1930's semi-detatched solid wall house.

The front and rear of the house are rendered, presumably in concrete.

The render at the rear is damaged and my interior kitchen wall is now saturated.

I keep reading that solid wall houses should never be rendered in concrete but when I look for plasterers who use lime renders I just keep coming up with those that cover conservation projects on large expensive period properties.

This seems massively over the top for one wall on a small, down-at heal 1930's semi and I doubt they would even look at it or that I could afford them.

It is really necessary to use lime render on all solid wall houses? If I use an ordinary plasterer I'm sure they are going to want to re-render in concrete.

I'm now very confused and a bit desperate.

Any advice?

Loads of breathable renders on the market Amelia.

http://www.parex.co.uk/External_Walling_Systems/Non_Insulated_Render_Systems/Renders_-_One_Coat

//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=215314

Thank you so much! That's really helpful.
Much appreciated

The above references are great.

Thing is, you must think through or determine somehow the total picture of whats happening to your house. For instance:

1930's houses were typically built with cavities.Measure the thickness of your walls - all of them.

Your render will be sand and cement.

The condition of your roof, window frames and rainwater goods?

Read up and record all the variables that can blow render or create damp walls - then examine your property with your check list.

Call a local jobbing plasterer and be there when he looks at the job. Ask questions and propose what you want.
Immediately write down everything that the plasterer said.

The wall in question seems to be about 23cm thick - which is why I think it's a solid wall. I gather a cavity wall would be thicker..??

From what I can gather, the wall was rendered some time ago (don't know when) and then about 8 years ago a very small, single storey side extension was built. Pipes from the bathroom that were exiting this wall were also moved and I think the downstairs window and external doors were replaced too.

It looks as though they caused a lot of damage to the render so they just re-rendered across the new extension and straight over all the existing render. This top layer is now badly cracked, completely blown and falling off - underneath is saturated, as is my interior wall.

Where the top layer has come off near the windows, there are gaps underneath around the frames that have been filled with a very sandy, mortar (??) substance that is crumbling, very damp and falling out - leaving gaps in places.

The original render underneath is very solidly fixed, although now badly damaged on this wall at least. It seems to be on top of some sort of board...??

Unfortunately none of this showed up on my survey, as when I purchased the house the top layer of render was cracked but intact.

I'd suggest that you put some pics up - external detail pics and whole wall/elevation pics, and interior pics the same.

I'm not great with technology but I can try and post some pics. It does all look a bit of a mess.

1930s Semis in Birmingham were generally solid construction with weak lime mortar containing local red sand, and no appreciable cavity in the walls. Lime(stone) was not a local commodity in Birmingham, unlike brickclays and soft sands.

Cement mortar pointing done in the sixties rarely adhered well, and would drop off after about 3 or 4 years in the rather severe frosts that would occur some years in the Midlands of the UK.

Plaster and lath interiors with lime plaster containing hair. Renders were often limited to roughcast on galvanised mesh and timber on front upper bay windows, presumably not to give too much loading to the front room bay windows below

Usually 2-3 bedrooms, 2 receps and small kitchen built with optional gas or solid fuel ranges with back boilers and a bathroom, gas or electric lighting, upstairs and outside lavatories. Large rear and small front gardens often with drive and a garage too narrow for modern automobiles.

Now much extended, with enlarged kitchens, additional beds etc.

Building Regs from the nineteenth century have called for cavity walls.

By the 1930's i just dont see how or why any builder of brick houses would omit cavities?

It might not be a very wide cavity but it will be there.

If the walls of the OP above are 230mm then the property is not 1930's.

230mm is a nine inch solid wall. If you know what headers are (google pics) then, perhaps, go outside and look for a row, or rows at various heights, of headers.

That will confirm that you have 9" solid walls.

ree said:

Building Regs from the nineteenth century have called for cavity walls.

By the 1930's i just dont see how or why any builder of brick houses would omit cavities?

It might not be a very wide cavity but it will be there.

If the walls of the OP above are 230mm then the property is not 1930's.

230mm is a nine inch solid wall. If you know what headers are (google pics) then, perhaps, go outside and look for a row, or rows at various heights, of headers.

That will confirm that you have 9" solid walls.

Click to expand...

Building regulations in the nineteenth century? I wonder how many builders could even read! I also wonder who enforced them?

The most significant legislation was the 1984 Building Act which set up the provision of Building Regulations as we know them. The emphasis was on planning control for new and additional structures within the current regs, it was not till later that building control shifted to Building Approved Inspectors to control building works in progress.

Why would builders omit cavities? Basically to make more money per acre.
The UK is crowded, especially in towns and cities where new homes are always needed. Limited space in width of building plots for relatively high density urban housing, in order to maximize room size and minimize materials on smaller footprint dwellings. The 30's were seeing a population recovery following WW1 and movement out of the crowding of the inner cities as we climbed out of the Depression.

Headers (9x4x3 inch imperial bricks) will be found in these houses wherever a door or window frame pierces a wall in these houses. If there was any cavity between inner and outer courses of brickwork, it was the width of a mortar joint. There may have been metal wall ties to maintain a stretcher bond appearance, unbroken by headers tying the leaves together, but the number of bridges between mortar was huge anyway, yet they were not damp houses.

When houses had cheap coal, it was no problem to keep houses warm and dry, especially away from the coast, even without any insulation in loft spaces or roof voids, and with no membrane beneath the slates or roof tiles, with single glazed casement windows usually in red deal, which depended upon its high resin content for preservation and covered with lead in oil paints.

My Grandfather bought such a house in 1934 with a mortgage he paid off 20 years later. I sold the house after personally completing extensive renovations in 2007 and I assure you it had 9 inch thick walls, like most of the other semi detached houses built in the 1930s in Birmingham.

On the other hand, the house I now live in, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, a terrace built in about 1885, has 4 inch cavity walls (12 inch + plaster thickness) as does most of the local late Victorian and Edwardian housing stock. Party walls are solid 9 inch brickwork. There is naturally a lot more wind and rain down here, so the cavity is supposed to protect from driven rain.

I would say that before 1960, the way everyday houses were built in the UK depended more on the apprentice training system for handed down building techniques and practices than any local or national regulations.

That's all really interesting, Flyboytim, and it's ringing lots of bells here - you have described my house exactly: 3 beds, 2 receptions, tiny kitchen (now slightly extended) and large garden!

I live in North Birmingham and there are thousands of these houses across Kingstanding, Great Barr and Sutton Coldfield. Some are clearly much better built than others. The very worst ones I've seen are on the council estate of Kingstanding where the houses appear to have been both poorly built and then, in more recent times, poorly maintained by the council and many look as though they are falling to bits.

I gather this whole area was farmland until the late 1920's when the council controversially complusary purchased the area that is now Kingstanding in an attempt to create healthier housing for those who were living in inner city slums. Private builders followed.

Mine is not an ex-council house but is not one of the better ones either - I would put it at the lower end of the privately built house range. It was built in 1935.

As for header bricks, as well as around the windows every third row of bricks is a row of alternate headers and stretchers. So, combined with the 23cm thickness I'm guessing it really is solid walls.

Mine, unlike many, has not been extended very much - the old storm porch has gone, with this area incorporated into the hallway and it's had a tiny 3' wide side extension added on to the kitchen (built on what would have been a narrow side passage leading to the back garden).

I believe most, if not all, of the old plaster and lath has been replaced - the house was once owned by a plasterer and I gather it was he who also added the side extension and re-rendered the rear wall - apparently not very well, given the problems I'm having now

You could create a second skin on the internall wall with stud and board or the outside wall with a thin coat system

Flyboytim what smug, pretentious nonsense you write

I quote your post Wed 3:54:

"Building regulations in the nineteenth century?"

only an ignoramus would make such a remark. There have been lawfully authorised and enforced BR's since 1189 - 1216.

"I wonder how many builders could even read!"

How dare you disparage the thousands of working people who took endless pains to learn to read.
And not least, the beneficiaries of the General Education Act of 1870.

"I also wonder who enforced them?"

From Elizabethan times through to the 1774 Act for District Surveyors, to today, local government officials have been appointed to enforce building regulation bye-laws.

The paragraph:"The most significant legislation ... works in progress."

Wrong. Everything in the paragraph is wrong. Its beyond foolish to claim such rubbish as accurate.

I'll leave it there.

Cavity walls were around in the mid 1800's in some areas, but 9 inch solid brick walls were still around in the 1930's.
The Public Health Act in 1936 meant that 9 inch solid walls had to be protected by render, tile hanging etc.
In 1965 the New Building regs were introduced, which was the first comprehensive, national ones, which meant that external walls needed to achieve a U value of 1.7 or less. 9 inch solid brickwork would not achieve this, so they disappeared. However solid walls are still built today using AAC blocks.