Ash block upstairs internal wall

[Aylomen65]

I`m in a 1920s built ex-council house, and the walls upstairs are made of what appears to be compressed ash, I intend on removing the old plaster and having it re-plastered, the previous owners had it done and it failed as the original plaster is gone, so they decided to stick horrendous wallpaper over it to try to cover it.

I'm wondering if me knocking the plaster off the wall would cause it to crumble and fall, as the suff seems to fall apart at the sight of a screw.

I'm also wondering how I would find out if this wall is bearing any load for the attic and/or roof, I dont want everything falling in.

Lastly, if it is load bearing, and removing the plaster would cause more damage to the wall, is it possible to have it jacked up with strong boys and replaced with modern blocks?

If it helps, the wall that was directly below it was at some point removed and an RSJ is in its place, so the wall below it was load bearing.

Any help is greatly appreciated, and if I need professional advice, if someone could tell me what I'm looking for (I.e. builder, architect, surveyor etc) that would also be a massive help!

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[Theo]

Aylomen65 <1fc18cbc66ce10e1...@example.com> wrote:
> I`m in a 1920s built ex-council house, and the walls upstairs are made of
> what appears to be compressed ash, I intend on removing the old plaster
> and having it re-plastered, the previous owners had it done and it failed
> as the original plaster is gone, so they decided to stick horrendous
> wallpaper over it to try to cover it.
>
> I'm wondering if me knocking the plaster off the wall would cause it to
> crumble and fall, as the suff seems to fall apart at the sight of a screw.

I used to live somewhere like that (1940s ex-council). It held up light
shelves OK, but soundproofing was awful. I'm guessing it was 'cinder
blocks' made of coal burning waste, something like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash_brick

> I'm also wondering how I would find out if this wall is bearing any load
> for the attic and/or roof, I dont want everything falling in.

Go in the loft and look at the walls from above. You may be able to work
out what the wall construction is (timbers between the ash? bricks?
steel?), and maybe identify which walls are structural (thicker joists?
masonry?).

(I never did this in my old place as the loft was inaccessible)

> Lastly, if it is load bearing, and removing the plaster would cause more
> damage to the wall, is it possible to have it jacked up with strong boys
> and replaced with modern blocks?

If it's flaky, it sounds like it's not load bearing. If it was, the roof
would be liable to fall on your head. It has managed not to do that for a
century, which suggests something else is taking the weight.

> If it helps, the wall that was directly below it was at some point removed
> and an RSJ is in its place, so the wall below it was load bearing.

In this case the walls in question weren't directly over other walls, so
doubtful they were load bearing unless there was steel in the structure at
construction.

> Any help is greatly appreciated, and if I need professional advice, if
> someone could tell me what I'm looking for (I.e. builder, architect,
> surveyor etc) that would also be a massive help!

Perhaps drill a core sample through a wall and see what you find?

Do you know anyone who has worked in the area and might be familiar with the
construction? Local builders who have done extensions/conversions/etc might
be a good place to start. Councils often put up hundreds of houses of the
same type in one go, so the local tradespeople may have worked on them
before. Ask your neighbours?

It's not a 'non traditional construction' is it?
(although they're mostly post-WW2)

Theo

[Tricky Dicky]

Our last house was a 1957 built semi and practically all dividing walls were brick with two exceptions the bathroom wall facing the landing and the third bedroom wall over the stairwell. These two walls were of a very peculiar built from cinder breeze blocks but not your standard 18” x 9”, instead they were about 2’ x 1’ in size and between each course was a full length timber batten in each mortar bed, both walls were quite short only slightly wider than the stairs. In both cases the timbers went into the outer wall and at the other end were used to secure one side of the door casing. Neither wall was load bearing and were simply built directly on top of the the flooring. I presume they were a lightweight construction as neither had a supporting wall beneath them, but I found it strange that they were simply not studded walls.

Richard