Hollow sounding external walls?

chrislee765

Dear all,

Me and my girlfriend are fortunate to be in the position to buy our first house. We have seen one we like but I'm curious to the construction.
We believe it was built in the 60s, 70s.

Most of the external walls have a hollow tap to them, the joining wall to next door sounds very solid, and the wall between the house and the garage sounds very solid.

The rest of the walls, including any partition walls have a hollow tap to them. (it seems all partition walls are stud). Now I wish I had taken note of the depth of the windows at a door or window but I didn't. edit: it didn't have window ledges. Where I live with my parents it has a 30cm deep external wall, so you get a nice side ledge on the inside and out. This house if I remember right just almost had the window frame.

Can anyone shed any light?
Thanks.

daveyjp

Could be timber framed.

BuntyB

Can't believe the party wall is excessively thick going by the small amount of space between your upstairs window and the neighbours window.

You may have to employ a gag system :A

Fed_Up_Tradesman

Your survey should tell you what type of construction - make sure you ask - better still, be there when the surveyor turns up and pester them with questions.

Sounds like you've got internal stud work walls.

Party walls will be cavity brick / block work.

The 1st floor tiled elevation is most probably fixed to timber battens on 4" single skin blockwork.

The window frames sit on this single skin - hence no window reveal or internal cill / window boards because the wall is not thick enough.

It may also be built in timber frame work with block work between studs, or possibly just timber frame work. In both cases it's probably plasterboard on the inside.

If you've got no reveals then it ain't a cavity wall.

I've replaced windows in this type on construction where one customer wanted an internal cill so we fitted slim stubby, bull nosed UPVC to maker a better job of the wall meeting the frame.

You can get these fitted to your existing frames if you wish.

The brick pier beween window frames - does that produce an internal reveal to the sides of each window?

This pier will either be cavity work or maybe it's a solid 9" brick pier. I can't imagine the pier would be a single skin 4" brickwork as it needed to support the lintels above each window frame.

Have you got radiators under those windows?

It would be interesting to see a thermal image of those tiles with your heating on I bet...

Property looks ideal for a 2 storey side extension though.

ian103

also could be dot and dab plasterboard rather than wet plastered walls. the dot and dab creates a void between the blockwork and the plasterboard. this is what we had in our first house, built early 1970s

phill99

It'll be 'dot and dab' construction. This is a block wall with plastered board stuck to it using plasterboard adhesive which is 'dotted and dabbed' over the back of the plasterboard and then pushed onto the block wall.

Fed_Up_Tradesman

Worked on a front extension last year with vertical tiling on front elevation. Once tiles were removed it was timber stud work with block work in-fills under the frames.

Didn't read your "most of external walls" bit carefully so if they do sound hollow on front and back it's most likely to be dot & dab onto blockwork.