Building construction question

[geogphotos]

How would you describe this technique of builidng.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

Edited March 11 by geogphotos

[Steve F]

external walls have thermal insulation boards with a foil backing and an external brick cladding

[Sultanpepa]

Single storey modern construction.

[geogphotos]

Thanks, so there is an internal wooden frame, covered with thermal insulation, then a brick cladding. 

 

All very standard?

[Steve F]

All fairly standard Ian as far as I know. Can't elaborate more, I'm a hydraulics engineer, don't do buildings!

[geogphotos]

Okay, that's great.

 

Thanks

 

😁

Edited March 11 by geogphotos

[Sultanpepa]

11 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

Thanks, so there is an internal wooden frame, covered with thermal insulation, then a brick cladding. 

 

All very standard?

 

👍 If elaborating I'd substitute 'wooden' for 'timber'.

[geogphotos]

Thanks. I've gone for :

 

"Building site construction single storey bungalow homes, wooden frame, thermal insulation, brick outer cladding, Ufford, Suffolk, England, UK"

 

UK,United Kingdom,Britain,British,England,English,East Anglia,East Anglian,Suffolk,house,houses,home,homes,residential,property,construction,building site,building,buildings,development,thermal,insulation,bungalow,bungalows,single storey,brick,wall,cladding

[spacecadet]

Interesting though- the brick appears to be non-structural. It's certainly not holding the roof up, unlike our house.

[Sultanpepa]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

Thanks. I've gone for :

 

"Building site construction single storey bungalow homes, wooden frame, thermal insulation, brick outer cladding, Ufford, Suffolk, England, UK"

 

UK,United Kingdom,Britain,British,England,English,East Anglia,East Anglian,Suffolk,house,houses,home,homes,residential,property,construction,building site,building,buildings,development,thermal,insulation,bungalow,bungalows,single storey,brick,wall,cladding

As I said it's known as 'Timber frame construction' not wooden.

[Steve F]

5 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Interesting though- the brick appears to be non-structural. It's certainly not holding the roof up, unlike our house.

yeah, it's different construction than with houses, brick is just cladding

[Sultanpepa]

32 minutes ago, Steve F said:

yeah, it's different construction than with houses, brick is just cladding

 

It's mainly older houses that are double bricked i.e. concrete block on the inside and a facing brick on the outside. Most modern builds are timber frame construction, due to cost and being assembled off site, with the frame also supporting the roof trusses.

[geogphotos]

44 minutes ago, Sultanpepa said:

As I said it's known as 'Timber frame construction' not wooden.

 

 

Apologies and thanks again

[Rebecca Ore]

48 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Interesting though- the brick appears to be non-structural. It's certainly not holding the roof up, unlike our house.

 

Bricks being structural rather than cladding is old school when houses were built to last centuries, not 40 to 80 years and torn down for a new house.  Houses down here are built to serve several generations or be place holding until the owner can afford cinder block or cut tufa (brick walls are generally a rich family's option)   Mud and cane was Nicaragua's old school.  Cheap and disposable materials are roofing material over a wooden frame.   Some rural areas have solid brick two room homes.   My 100 year old house in Philadelphia, US, was old school with real brick walls, very solid little house, two rooms up, two room down and a shed kitchen, originally built for brewery workers.   Stone houses other than tufa are rare in Nicaragua, but showed up in older neighborhoods in Philadelphia and older towns in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  

 

My grandfather was a teamster helping build some old school buildings in rural Virginia.  When a principal in the 1960s wanted a more modern school, the county had to hire a demolition team who bid thinking one of the old buildings would be brick cladding.  Nope, two story solid brick with a slate roof, building as my grandfather said, "to last to Judgment Day."  The demolition team wanted more money.

 

My current house is ciderblock reinforced with rebar with stucco facing.  My first rental in Nicaragua was part mud and cane, second was tufa stone with rebar with a stucco facing.  These houses last, though the mud and cane need care and a good roof (somewhat like English houses (cob, I think, "needs good hat (roof) and good shoes (foundation) to be one of those houses that lasts generations.

[Rebecca Ore]

33 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 

 

Apologies and thanks again

 

Timber frame is a different building method.  https://timberframe1.com/about-us/what-is-a-timber-frame-home/

The typical contemporary is a stick framed house.   See here for discussion of the differences.   https://www.zeelandlumber.com/post-frame-vs-stick-frame-building/

 

Panelized houses seem to be yet another way to build disposable housing. 

 

US construction has an estimated 40-60 year life span.  My father's last house was built in the 1940s and was a tear down by the time he died  around 2014, as the land was more valuable than the house, and the neighborhood had been significantly gentrified.   Someone in Philadelphia said owning an old house committed him to building a new house inside it. 

Edited March 11 by Rebecca Ore
more info

[Rebecca Ore]

37 minutes ago, Sultanpepa said:

 

It's mainly older houses that are double bricked i.e. concrete block on the inside and a facing brick on the outside. Most modern builds are timber frame construction, due to cost and being assembled off site, with the frame also supporting the roof trusses.

 

Probably not timber frame but stick frame.   Timber framing in the US is a specialized and skilled labor intensive building style -- the old true old buildings in the US with black timbers and infill of various materials are timber framed.   2 by 4 wooden frames are cut and nailed, and not mortise and tenon, so not such skilled labor.  Balloon framing was an even cheaper stick framing, but didn't have fire breaks so were very prone to fires spreading up the structure.   

 

I once looking into all sorts of ways of building a house when I was younger and considering designing and building my own house.

[Rebecca Ore]

1 hour ago, Sultanpepa said:

As I said it's known as 'Timber frame construction' not wooden.

 

Stick framing -- timber frame uses larger structural wood and is put together with mortise and tenon joints, and requires someone knowing how to cut those with framing chisels.

[Sultanpepa]

Just now, Rebecca Ore said:

 

Stick framing -- timber frame uses larger structural wood and is put together with mortise and tenon joints, and requires someone knowing how to cut those with framing chisels.

 

Not in the UK. 

[Allan Bell]

How about some alternative descriptions which someone may search for?

 

Quick and cheap.  Throw-ups.

 

Allan

 

[Rebecca Ore]

1 hour ago, Sultanpepa said:

 

Not in the UK. 

 

So UK builders are using cut stick and nail, but trying to imply a traditional larger timber framing method?    Mheh.  (One of the books I read was on English renovation and restoration of scheduled buildings, where some modern renovation tactics could damage the buildings, must use lime cement).  Brick facade over insulation set in between stick framing elements isn't old school Elizabethan timber framing with brick infill.   If your builders claim they're doing timber framing when they're doing cut and nailed stick framing, sigh, that's fundamentally dishonest.  I know there are a lot of fake Tudor style houses in the US where the "timber" elements are not structural either, but...

 

Stick framing isn't traditional  timber framing, regardless of what real estate advertisers want to claim.   Some traditional timber frame houses in the US are into their third and fourth centuries (a friend used to own one built in the 1600s in Connecticut).  British ones are into a bit longer.  I've seen a photos of a timber-framed barn that was maybe 1400 AD.   Run a hurricane against a stick frame house and it's likely to go over.   Japanese timber frame buildings could bounce in an earthquake (many didn't survive bombing raids with incendiaries).

 

Too bad about the lost building traditions, just kinda hard to plumb and wire them.  In my Philadelphia house, I had knob and plug wiring in my cellar, which is late 19th Century/early 20th Century.

[Steve F]

4 minutes ago, Rebecca Ore said:

So UK builders are using cut stick and nail

I think there's a language barrier here. Different terminology. A stick in UK English is just a twig from a tree that you e.g. throw for a dog to fetch.

[Mr Standfast]

3 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Interesting though- the brick appears to be non-structural. It's certainly not holding the roof up, unlike our house.

 

You have a roof??

[Rebecca Ore]

3 minutes ago, Steve F said:

I think there's a language barrier here. Different terminology. A stick in UK English is just a twig from a tree that you e.g. throw for a dog to fetch.

 

In most people's English, that's true, but even without the language difference, one framing method has larger structural elements that are put together without nails and requires skilled labor using purpose made hand tools and the other is from milled 2 by 4s cut and nailed together.  The US didn't have many true timber frame buildings outside the early British settlement areas (Germans tended to build with stone), but does have fake Tudor as a thing, still framed with 2 by 4s,  UK building terminology for 2 by 4s used in framing may be "studs" but not used in selling the houses to the punters, apparently.  US would also call a 2 by 4 a board in some parts of the US, while other parts would have a board be something wider across. 

 

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/370145/can-a-2x4-be-referred-to-as-a-board

 

Both framing techniques use wooden elements,just different sizes and different methods of putting the frame together.   There's probably more nostalgia for the old Tudor styles in the UK, so probably also more use of archaic names for different ways of putting together a house frame.  Stud framing is another US term for the same thing.

 

Basically, in the UK, timber framing is US style stud or stick framing unless you see otherwise by watching the building go up.  

 

Here the upscale houses are brick reinforced with rebar,  often covered with a cement stucco coat.   Only gringos want old school adobe houses.

[Mr Standfast]

38 minutes ago, Rebecca Ore said:

 

So UK builders are using cut stick and nail, but trying to imply a traditional larger timber framing method?    Mheh.  (One of the books I read was on English renovation and restoration of scheduled buildings, where some modern renovation tactics could damage the buildings, must use lime cement).  Brick facade over insulation set in between stick framing elements isn't old school Elizabethan timber framing with brick infill.   If your builders claim they're doing timber framing when they're doing cut and nailed stick framing, sigh, that's fundamentally dishonest.  I know there are a lot of fake Tudor style houses in the US where the "timber" elements are not structural either, but...

 

Stick framing isn't traditional  timber framing, regardless of what real estate advertisers want to claim.   Some traditional timber frame houses in the US are into their third and fourth centuries (a friend used to own one built in the 1600s in Connecticut).  British ones are into a bit longer.  I've seen a photos of a timber-framed barn that was maybe 1400 AD.   Run a hurricane against a stick frame house and it's likely to go over.   Japanese timber frame buildings could bounce in an earthquake (many didn't survive bombing raids with incendiaries).

 

Too bad about the lost building traditions, just kinda hard to plumb and wire them.  In my Philadelphia house, I had knob and plug wiring in my cellar, which is late 19th Century/early 20th Century.

 

 

 

You'd like this one...

 

15thC Cruck frame.  (With 2012 keywords and caption...)

 

 

 

[Rebecca Ore]

1 minute ago, Mr Standfast said:

 

 

 

You'd like this one...

 

15thC Cruck frame.  (With 2012 keywords and caption...)

 

 

 

 

Yeah, that.  Looks like one wall got modern rehabbing.  One neighbor on Arnold Street in Philladelphia had a timber frame house that predated the workers' cottage group built a bit later.

Modern housing is built with the expectation that it only has to last without major reconstruction (or demolition and new house on site) in forty years.   Another s.f. writer who lived in Edinburgh posted about the difficulty of getting internet wiring through 3 foot thick stone walls.  

 

This is one of the oldest houses in Jinotega, probably 19h Century, possibly 18th.  Upper levels can be wood, but choice of wood in the tropics is neo-tropical canela, (cinnomon sort of).   Local dry wall termites turn pine into little square pellets in about 3 to 4 years.  This is probably mud and cane with a stucco finish as there are no obvious sign of rebar, which would be rare or very expensive at that time.  Two front doors is common enough in older houses here.  Roof slope is either Indigenous or Andalusian.    Not so many windows in the tropics -- the windows in the eaves face north and south.  Back of the house would have a covered patio for washing and many older houses would have a separate kitchen in the garden/courtyard.