Admit your ignorance - things you've only just realised/learned

[Chris S]

If one house caught fire there was an obvious risk that the flames could quickly spread to the whole terrace via that attic space.

Birmingham City Council renovated whole streets in the 1980s for that reason.

 

[presta]

I just found out what a Supatap is!

We had them in the kitchen when I was a kid, they might even still be under the bench in the garage 40-50 years after they came out. (The bench made by recycling the old sink unit with a chipboard top.) I've just been to see if I still have the spare tap washers we had, now that I recognise them for what they are, but they're gone.

But I've only just learned that it was their washer changing abilities that made them supa

Sounds pointlessly risky to me, if you get the tap unscrewed, and then find the check valve won't shut the water off because it's choked with limescale. They're a nuisance if you want to put a hose on them too.

 

[presta]

Terraced houses used to have communal attic spaces. It was possible to move from one to another through them.

We used to have neighbours who'd previously lived on a terrace like that.

 

[winjim]

We used to have neighbours who'd previously lived on a terrace like that.

I used to live in a terraced house with attic conversion, which had a kick panel through to next door to provide an escape route.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I discovered that in a house in Penzance belonging to my then girlfriend's mum. They asked me to store some stuff up there and I was shocked to see that I could roam freely up and down the communal attic.

Apart from the potential for theft, voyeurism, and general dodginess... the thing that struck me was that it was a huge fire hazard! If one house caught fire there was an obvious risk that the flames could quickly spread to the whole terrace via that attic space.

That has happened many time

I had a survey done on a house I was renting and wanted to buy
it was semi detached - used to be a counsel house built in the 1940s/50s I reckon
The surveyor said I would be best to have the dividing wall extended up to the roof properly so I looked
tIt was about a foot high - which explained all the dead flies in the house when I moved in - they had had a nest nexy door and called in the exterminators - the flies must have migrated across the two houses

The surveyor said that a lot of mortgage companies would insist on the dividing wall being extended as a condition of the mortgage

 

[ColinJ]

Why were they ever built that way?!!!

 

[Webbo2]

Why were they ever built that way?!!!

Because it was cheap to do so. We lived a terrace house like this and it was only a single brick wall between each house. I think it was built about 1860ish.

 

[Profpointy]

Why were they ever built that way?!!!

To save bricks !

 

[Chris S]

To save bricks !

That's how cavity walls got invented. It was nothing to do with insulation, that was a bonus they discovered later.

 

[Profpointy]

That's how cavity walls got invented. It was nothing to do with insulation, that was a bonus they discovered later.

Not sure I quite follow. How does a cavity wall save on bricks?

 

[Chris S]

Thicker walls with fewer bricks!

 

[Pblakeney]

Thicker walls with fewer bricks!

My understanding is that cavity walls requires double the bricks. i.e. a brick either side of the cavity.
(Likely wrong).

 

[Alex321]

Thicker walls with fewer bricks!

I don't think that was a reason for cavity walls.

There is no benefit to the extra thickness of the wall, other than the insulating properties.

 

[Webbo2]

Shirley a single course of bricks between two terraced houses is cheaper than a cavity wall between the two.

 

[Badger_Boom]

I discovered that in a house in Penzance belonging to my then girlfriend's mum. They asked me to store some stuff up there and I was shocked to see that I could roam freely up and down the communal attic.

Apart from the potential for theft, voyeurism, and general dodginess... the thing that struck me was that it was a huge fire hazard! If one house caught fire there was an obvious risk that the flames could quickly spread to the whole terrace via that attic space.

That's why having full height party walls became a legal requirement in the 19th century. It's also the reason a lot of London terraces have external walls between units to make it obvious from the outside that they comply.