CHAPTER XXVIII.
BRICK FOUNDATIONS.—LAYING BRICK.—COLORED MORTARS.—COLORED BRICKS.—BRICK VENEERING.—HOT-AIR FLUES.—DETAILS OF BRICK CONSTRUCTION.—CHIMNEYS AND FLUES.—HOLLOW WALLS.—CELLAR.—ASH-PITS.—GRATES.
A brick wall under a frame house is ordinarily nine inches thick; that is, it is called a nine-inch wall. In reality, it is the thickness of the length of a brick. Under these walls are placed footings. For a two-story frame house there are usually two footings of two courses each projecting two inches. Thus a nine-inch wall would have the bottom footing seventeen inches wide. In ordinary American brick work there is what is called a bond to each seventh course. The bond is made by laying the brick crosswise the wall rather than lengthwise. In that way it ties or bonds the wall together in the direction of its length. Below grade, where the brick work is not exposed, the bond is made by laying a continuous course of brick in this way. Above the grade, the bond is made by laying each alternate brick across the wall. This is called a header and stretcher bond. The stretcher is the brick which lies lengthwise the wall in the common way, and the header is the one which shows its head and runs crosswise the wall to form the bond. Thus there is a continuous row of alternating headers and stretchers in the bond course, which occurs, as said before, each seventh course. Another bond, by some brick-layers called the American bond, does not show on the outside. The corners of the inside of the outer row of bricks are clipped, so that the bond brick runs part way into the outside course, and thus is out of sight. It is an artificial arrangement and not satisfactory; it is not good construction. The header and stretcher bond is the best for exposed work, where both appearance and solidity are to be considered. There are other forms of bond,—the old English and the Flemish,—but they need not be considered here.
All brick should be thoroughly “slushed” with mortar; that is, all spaces between brick should be thoroughly filled. The ideal condition would be to have all brick excepting the exposed faces entirely surrounded by mortar.
The selection of the brick for the exposed fronts in a frame as well as a brick house should be made before the brick work is begun; at least a large supply should be selected and piled up. While the brick cannot all be of the same shade, different shades can be selected for different walls—a lighter shade for a north wall, and a darker for a south wall, a different shade for an east and a west wall. Very slight variations can be made in the ells and projections. This would apply to pressed, stock, or common brick, though pressed brick is usually selected before delivery.
The best color for exposed work is a dark cherry red. The best-appearing work with indifferent brick can be made with the use of a reddish brown mortar. The use of this kind of mortar is increasing. White putty mortar is made in the ordinary way, excepting that white sand, similar to that from Lake Pontchartrain, rather than gray sand, is used. It contains more lime than ordinary mortar. The mortar is said to be richer.
Black brick are made by heating and then dipping in coal-tar. Enamelled, glazed, and colored brick can be purchased in the larger markets as desired. Various forms of ornamental brick work are possible even where only the common brick are used. Moulded pressed brick are quite common, and the results of their use very satisfactory.
Brick veneering is not unusual in sections of the country where brick is very expensive and the effect of a brick house desired. It is a four-inch brick wall anchored to a frame structure. The anchoring is sometimes accomplished by driving twenty-penny nails into wood-work in a way to project into joints.
Hot-air flues in brick walls are sometimes tin-lined, though this is not necessary when they are smoothly plastered, providing it is possible to make them eight inches square. If they cannot be made deeper than the width of a brick, four inches, they should be tin-lined. A four-inch hot-air flue can be placed in a nine-inch wall by setting the two outside rows of brick on edge.
Hollow walls have not been regarded with great favor during recent years, for the reason that it is difficult to secure their proper construction. A hollow wall is usually twelve inches in thickness, with the middle course of brick omitted excepting at the corners and adjacent to openings. Suitable ties are placed across the open space.
CELLAR.
It now is in order to consider various features of interior brick work and details which come in connection therewith. Cellars are usually from seven to eight feet deep. As this does not give all the height necessary for furnace or other heating apparatus, it is usually pitted; that is, it is let down into the cellar floor, and a brick area built around the opening to the furnace-door. Because of the necessity for pitting the furnace, the walls of the house adjacent thereto should continue eighteen inches below the level of other walls.
Walls inside of cellar should continue to the top of joist. This completely separates the different compartments of the cellar, or from that part of the house where there is no cellar.
There should be a man-hole opening to the parts under the house where there is no cellar.
Lintels or wooden supports should be provided over all openings in cellar, and over all openings in inside brick walls.
Wooden brick should be provided and built in where it is necessary to attach wood work to brick work. Usually this is about two feet six inches apart in a vertical or horizontal direction. The wooden brick should be the thickness of the brick itself and the mortar joints; that is, there should be no mortar above or below a wooden brick. Iron ventilators should be provided; one in each outside wall under each room where cellar windows are not provided. Windows are not usually provided where there is no cellar.
CHIMNEYS.
It is known that wood-work should not come directly in contact with chimneys. The framework should never rest on a chimney. There are reasons for this other than those which have a regard for safety from fire, one of which is that the chimney is not liable to settle. If it does not, the shrinkage of the wood-work, which in a two-story frame house will sometimes amount to two inches in the height of the building, makes a high place around the flues, where the frame comes in contact with or rests on the chimney. All chimney-stacks should extend above highest point of ridge of roof, and the extreme tops should be laid in Portland cement. All the exposed brick of the chimney should be hard-burned. If due regard were paid to these points, there would be no rickety chimney-tops. All flues should be thoroughly plastered on the inside. If chimneys were plastered on the outside, wherever they come in contact with the wood-work, the complaint of fires from defective flues would be hushed.
[Fig. 31] illustrates the common form of constructing a chimney breast where a grate is to be used. The flues are eight and one-half inches square. A passage to the ash-pit is shown. The grate opening is two feet wide; the jambs on each side are one foot six inches wide; thus the entire width of the breast is five feet. Other dimensions as indicated. Where there are grates on two floors of the house, one above the other, or where it is desirable for any reason to have a flue pass around a grate, it is necessary that the breast should be five feet wide. It is clear that the grate from below must have its own flue out to the top of the chimney. Thus the grate flue from the first story must pass around the grate of the second story, if there be one. If there is no grate above, or if it is not desired to pass a flue around the first-story grate, the chimney breast need be only four feet wide; that is, it would have the usual two-feet opening to the grate, and twelve rather than eighteen inch jambs on each side. On one side of the dotted line is indicated flue construction for a brick wall, and on the other for a wood wall.
The hearth should rest on what is called a trimmer arch, which is made of brick. It springs from the chimney breast to the header of wood in front. It is four inches in thickness. It is laid in the ordinary way, and at the proper time is filled on the top with concrete by the mantel-setter. In case a grate on the second floor connects with the ash-pit, one of the flues at the side is used for this purpose.
[Fig. 32] indicates a common form of corner grate. The flues in this as well as [Fig. 31] are drawn close together and come out through the attic and roof in a smaller stem. There should be distinct separation of flues.
Ash-pits are frequently made of four-inch brick walls strengthened by brick pilasters. These pits are usually from three to four feet in depth and the width of the chimney breast, and nearly as high as the depth of the cellar. Where more than one grate empties into an ash-pit, it is common to divide it into compartments, one for each fire. The top of the pit is crowned with a brick arch. Ash-dumps are sometimes provided for the grate, depending, of course, upon the kind of grate used, and ash-pit doors of iron for the pits themselves.
OUTSIDE CELLAR-WAY.
The side walls of an outside cellar-way should continue to the bottom of cellar. It should be floored the same as the cellar itself.
AREAS.
Areas of brick should be provided around all cellar openings that continue below grade. The bottoms of these areas should be floored with paving-brick. This is better than cement, as it admits of natural drainage.