Convenient Houses, With Fifty Plans for the Housekeeper

by Louis H. Gibson

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.