Hello,

On the front of our house are some "tiles" of cladding. It was
probably considered very beautiful when the house was built in the
1970's but today it doesn't look so nice.

A house at the end of the street had the bottom few rows of "tiles"
removed to have a porch fitted. I'm not sure how they did that because
the tiles overlap, so I would have thought you would need to remove
the top row first and work down the front of the house. How did they
manage to work bottom-up?

We would quite like to remove the cladding but our neighbour (not a
builder) has told us that the cladding replaces a brick. he says that
house walls are normally two bricks deep but in our case they are one
brick and one tile deep. he says if we remove the cladding, we will in
effect half the thickness of the wall and be cold. Surely one tile
cannot replace a great thick brick?

What is likely to be behind these tiles? Would it just be battens of
wood fixed to a brick wall? We don't want to remove the tiles to find
it looks even uglier!

Since they go right to the apex of the gable end, I think we'll end up
getting someone in to do the removal since I don't have a ladder or
tower that high.

Thanks.

"Owain" wrote in message
...
Sam wrote:

We would quite like to remove the cladding but our neighbour (not a
builder) has told us that the cladding replaces a brick. he says that
house walls are normally two bricks deep but in our case they are one
brick and one tile deep. he says if we remove the cladding, we will in
effect half the thickness of the wall and be cold. Surely one tile
cannot replace a great thick brick?

Sounds daft to me. Maybe in the days of solid brick walls rather than
cavity, some builders economised with a more economical bond and a tile
cladding.

What is likely to be behind these tiles? Would it just be battens of
wood fixed to a brick wall? We don't want to remove the tiles to find
it looks even uglier!

If the original brickwork was never intended to be visible, it may not be
of the highest standard.

The brickwork may be one or two bricks deep but, if tile hung and of a
certain age, is likely to be solid with no cavity. The tile in this case
does replace the outer skin but not primarily for insulation - to prevent
penetrating damp. An alternative is render. You often see houses rendered
just on the top half - these are sometimes (as was one I had -c1928-, but
not always) cavity construction downstairs and solid wall upstairs.

I concur with the view about brickwork not intended to be visible!

It is possible they are merely decorative but the builder's view (even if
only partly right) seems to indicate otherwise.

I would not proceed at all until the underlying wall is fully understood.
Find a spot where the bricks are exposed a bit and drill a hole, if you are
serious. Use a 12" drill bit and then the overall depth and whether there is
a cavity can easily be assessed during the drilling process


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

Bob Mannix wrote:

The brickwork may be one or two bricks deep but, if tile hung and of a
certain age, is likely to be solid with no cavity. The tile in this case
does replace the outer skin but not primarily for insulation - to prevent
penetrating damp. An alternative is render. You often see houses rendered
just on the top half - these are sometimes (as was one I had -c1928-, but
not always) cavity construction downstairs and solid wall upstairs.

I concur with the view about brickwork not intended to be visible!

The OP talks about the property being built in the 1970s. I would have
thought that given this it is likely that it was cavity construction
with the outer skin of the upper part being built from concrete block in
order to reduce cost and then faced with tiles.

Andrew

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:38:39 GMT
Sam wrote:

What is likely to be behind these tiles? Would it just be battens of
wood fixed to a brick wall? We don't want to remove the tiles to find
it looks even uglier!

I had a house once that had tile hung panels on the front. It was
about 1970 construction IFIC. Behind the tiles were battens attached
to a straw or oriented strand board - and that was instead of the outer
brink leaf. The house was very cosy.

Elsewhere on the estate people had removed the tiles and put uPVC
cladding on instead.

R.

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:10:03 -0000, "Bob Mannix"
wrote:

I concur with the view about brickwork not intended to be visible!

It is possible they are merely decorative but the builder's view (even if
only partly right) seems to indicate otherwise.

Hi.

Thanks for the fast replies.

There seems to be a bit of confusion. the chap who told us the wall
was one brick thick was *not* a builder, so mist likely does not know
what he's talking about

It is a reasonably modern build: mid 1970s so I would have thought it
would have been built with cavity wall insulation. Certainly the other
three sides of the house are.

I agree that what lies behind may look less pretty, but we could
replace that with other cladding. I just wanted to make sure the
cladding was decorative and not thermally important.

Thanks again.

Owain wrote:
Sam wrote:
On the front of our house are some "tiles" of cladding. It was
probably considered very beautiful when the house was built in the
1970's but today it doesn't look so nice.
A house at the end of the street had the bottom few rows of "tiles"
removed to have a porch fitted. I'm not sure how they did that because
the tiles overlap, so I would have thought you would need to remove
the top row first and work down the front of the house. How did they
manage to work bottom-up?

They smashed the tiles with an ammer.

We would quite like to remove the cladding but our neighbour (not a
builder) has told us that the cladding replaces a brick. he says that
house walls are normally two bricks deep but in our case they are one
brick and one tile deep. he says if we remove the cladding, we will in
effect half the thickness of the wall and be cold. Surely one tile
cannot replace a great thick brick?

Sounds daft to me. Maybe in the days of solid brick walls rather than
cavity, some builders economised with a more economical bond and a tile
cladding.

What is likely to be behind these tiles? Would it just be battens of
wood fixed to a brick wall? We don't want to remove the tiles to find
it looks even uglier!


It might be a stud wall alone.

Check on the inside..have you g e.g.celcon block walls? or plasterboad?

It MIGHT be celcon actually - goodish insulator but not weatherproof.


If the original brickwork was never intended to be visible, it may not
be of the highest standard.

Or weatherproof.

Owain

Sam wrote:
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:10:03 -0000, "Bob Mannix"
wrote:

I concur with the view about brickwork not intended to be visible!

It is possible they are merely decorative but the builder's view (even if
only partly right) seems to indicate otherwise.

Hi.

Thanks for the fast replies.

There seems to be a bit of confusion. the chap who told us the wall
was one brick thick was *not* a builder, so mist likely does not know
what he's talking about

It is a reasonably modern build: mid 1970s so I would have thought it
would have been built with cavity wall insulation. Certainly the other
three sides of the house are.

I agree that what lies behind may look less pretty, but we could
replace that with other cladding. I just wanted to make sure the
cladding was decorative and not thermally important.

Thermally no, weatherproof, yes.

Render or gasp - pebbledash would be suitable replacements. Or timbers
or even PVC sheet lapboard.

Thanks again.

"TheOldFellow" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:38:39 GMT
Sam wrote:

What is likely to be behind these tiles? Would it just be battens of
wood fixed to a brick wall? We don't want to remove the tiles to find
it looks even uglier!

I had a house once that had tile hung panels on the front. It was
about 1970 construction IFIC. Behind the tiles were battens attached
to a straw or oriented strand board - and that was instead of the
outer
brink leaf. The house was very cosy.

Straw boarding - Stramit was one brand - is one of the worst
manifestations of 1960s nadir building.

Muck out a stock-yard and you'll see what this stuff goes like when a
bit of moisture gets into it.

They used to use it as flat ("got to be flat, so a nice pond forms to
keep it cool") roof decking.


--
Kevin Poole
**Use current month and year to reply (e.g. )***

In article ,
says...
What is likely to be behind these tiles? Would it just be battens of
wood fixed to a brick wall? We don't want to remove the tiles to find
it looks even uglier!

If it's like ours, it's tile, battens, builder-paper, very thin
insulation and plasterboard, with a timber frame holding it all up. Very
cheap, very fast, very 70s.

The problem is that the insulation isn't very good, particularly as over
the years the draughtproofing starts to go downhill.

The commonest solution round here is to strip the tiles but leave the
battens. Kingspan is then screwed to the woodwork and then screeded over
bringing the finished surface to just behind the edges of the window
sills. The results are reasonably attractive, generally finished either
painted on the screed or with pebbledash.

I don't fancy it myself, and since I managed to score a couple of
barrowsful of tiles from a house being done nearby I intend to strip the
tiles /carefully/ and upgrade the insulation and draughtproofing, then
replace the tiles.


--
Skipweasel.
Never knowingly understood.

In article ,
says...
The OP talks about the property being built in the 1970s. I would have
thought that given this it is likely that it was cavity construction
with the outer skin of the upper part being built from concrete block in
order to reduce cost and then faced with tiles.

Here the ground floor is brick outer leaf with a timber-framed
plasterboard on the inner. Upstairs is the same timber frame with
plasterboard inside, tile-hung to the exterior.
--
Skipweasel.
Never knowingly understood.

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:08:20 GMT, Skipweasel wrote:

In article ,
says...
The OP talks about the property being built in the 1970s. I would have
thought that given this it is likely that it was cavity construction
with the outer skin of the upper part being built from concrete block in
order to reduce cost and then faced with tiles.

Here the ground floor is brick outer leaf with a timber-framed
plasterboard on the inner. Upstairs is the same timber frame with
plasterboard inside, tile-hung to the exterior.

That's virtually the same as my 1970-ish pile (a dormer bungalow is
what I think it's referred to as). The gable-end is 'normal'
brick/block cavity (which has CWI), but upstairs both front and back
timber-framed window areas are plasterboard inner and green Marley
tiles outer with little betwixt. Just the other week a neighbour had
this 'cavity' filled with Kingspan and the tiles replaced with (yuk)
PVC cladding.
I might consider a similar project if I can avoid such cladding. It's
true that in strong winds the tiles do rattle quite a bit, so some
alternative may be advantageous.

--
Frank Erskine

In article ,
says...
I might consider a similar project if I can avoid such cladding. It's
true that in strong winds the tiles do rattle quite a bit, so some
alternative may be advantageous.

Odd, even here on a very exposed situation and in a wind-funnel from
other buildings we don't get the tiles rattling. They come /off/ from
time to time, but they don't rattle! Which is another reason I'd like to
strip the lot and put them back over proper insulation but with new
nails.

The house I cadged the spare tiles from (I know I'll bust a few getting
them off so a barrow or two of spares will be handy) had the tiles fixed
wtih aluminium nails, which certainly wasn't original and there were
clearly two sets of nail-holes. Why they took them all off and rehung
them without improving the insulation while they were at it is beyond
me.
--
Skipweasel.
Never knowingly understood.