Searching for Homes by Construction Type (Arlington, Burke: for sale, real estate, rent)

[Middlin]

As with any budget for a home, you'll need to make compromises. I don't know how long you've looked outside of Arlington, but finding an all brick home in a prime commute location, close in, great schools, good floor plan, level lot.... or whatever else is on your list will be challenging. Good luck with your search.

[PSUinNoVa]

Thanks. The frustrating part of the search is not the compromise; it is the fact that the home that we are looking for does not seem to exist! The majority of homes we have seen that we liked from an architectural standpoint were between 2 and 3 times the size of what we are looking for. In some cases, the homes were not that far outside of our budget, but we just have no use for something that big. Did home builders refuse to build anything under 4000 square feet after 1999?

I am starting to think that it may make sense to buy some land and build. Neither of us has ever been involved in home construction before, so that whole process appears to be pretty daunting.

Thanks again for all of the good comments!

Originally Posted by Middlin

As with any budget for a home, you'll need to make compromises. I don't know how long you've looked outside of Arlington, but finding an all brick home in a prime commute location, close in, great schools, good floor plan, level lot.... or whatever else is on your list will be challenging. Good luck with your search.

[RamblingMan]

[quote=Carlingtonian;23062365]I think there may be some confusion of terms here.

ALL houses have a wooden framing, to which is usually nailed some type of sheathing (e.g., plywood), followed by the exterior surface. The latter can be either brick, wooden clapboards (like most houses in New England), stucco, or siding. All the Arlington all-brick prewar houses have "brick veneer" listed on the RE assessment. No idea why they put "veneer" in there, but the bricks are definitely solid. Of course there is wooden framing on these houses, because the wooden lathe strips that support the plaster inner walls (or, in houses built after about 1950, drywall) had to be nailed to something. If it was JUST brick, then how would you attach the interior walls? I suppose you could just smear plaster over the brick--and I'm sure there are buildings in the outhouse-and-oil-lamp era built this way--but in a modern house, where would the plumbing and electrical go?

That said, there IS a decorative type of brick veneer, which is mostly used in interiors--basically thin brick-looking pieces that are about a quarter-inch thick. I don't believe these are used on exteriors, but I might be mistaken.


Carlingtonian,

I don't think it is accurate to say that "ALL houses have wooden framing." Older houses are often "structural" brick houses, meaning that several layers of brick or layers of brick and block actually hold up the house. There is no frame, although there may be pieces of lath to which plaster is attached. Newer houses usually do have a wooden frame which provides the basis for the strength of the house. The "veneer" of brick attached to this frame can be a thin panel, but it is often a full layer of real brick. The key is that it is primarily decorative, and not structural.

My house is structural brick and I used to assume that the old-fashioned, expensive, labor intensive way is "better" than the modern method. Unfortunately, the construction of structural brick houses strongly implies that there will be little or no insulation in the walls (there's no place to put it). I think there's a lot to be said for a modern stick-built house with brick siding if it is well-built. A layer of "real" brick over a frame with good insulation might be the best of both worlds.

I love my house, but owning an old, traditionally built house has given me a new appreciation for some of the benefits of modern contruction materials and methods. I do think that there's something special about old or recycled brick. It seems to have a patina that new bricks can't quite replicate.

[Carlingtonian]

Ramblingman, that's interesting. Since your house has no frame, then what is your lath/plaster attached to?

[Lucky★]

My previous house in Arlington was brick veneer over cinder block all the way up to the attic. On the inside, lathing was nailed directly to the cinder block. My house in Reston is also brick over cider block, but only the basement and first floor. The second floor is wood frame.

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by Lucky★

My previous house in Arlington was brick veneer over cinder block all the way up to the attic. On the inside, lathing was nailed directly to the cinder block. My house in Reston is also brick over cider block, but only the basement and first floor. The second floor is wood frame.

So where do the plumbing and electrical wiring (and gas pipes) go? Since there's not the normal space between the interior wall and the exterior wall?

[Lucky★]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

So where do the plumbing and electrical wiring (and gas pipes) go? Since there's not the normal space between the interior wall and the exterior wall?

My place in Arlington only had one bathroom, so there wasn’t a huge amount of plumbing. There was a boxed in area (little over a foot square) that had the sewer stack and pipes. The gas pipe went into the basement (where the furnace was) and up into the kitchen on the first floor (originally it had an oil burning furnace).

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by Lucky★

My place in Arlington only had one bathroom, so there wasn’t a huge amount of plumbing. There was a boxed in area (little over a foot square) that had the sewer stack and pipes. The gas pipe went into the basement (where the furnace was) and up into the kitchen on the first floor (originally it had an oil burning furnace).

I think we had the same house. Ours was from the mid-'30s. But it definitely had framing. At least on the interior walls. I suppose it's possible there might not have been framing along the exterior walls--but then the electrical would have to be somewhere.

[RamblingMan]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

Ramblingman, that's interesting. Since your house has no frame, then what is your lath/plaster attached to?

Carlingtonian,

Since I (fortunately) haven't had to open up the walls, I'm not entirely sure how the plaster is attached. I gather that several different methods were in use in the mid-30s when my home was built, but there are probably furring strips attached to the brick. Also, the non-loadbearing interior walls may be constructed differently than the exterior walls.

As far as plumbing and wiring, my house has been rewired and partly replumbed at some point, so I haven't had to look very closely at how things were done. I think some of it goes through the spaces between floors and ceiling. There are spaces for the plumbing associated with the radiators, and I suppose that they may be used for other plumbing and wiring as well. where wiring has to go into a wall, I suspect that they had to dig channels. When I had FIOS installed, it involved drilling through solid brick and plaster. What is clear is that adding an additional outlet into the wall would not be the relatively simple procedure that it would be in a newer house with a wooden frame and drywall.

[Middlin]

Thanks. The frustrating part of the search is not the compromise; it is the fact that the home that we are looking for does not seem to exist! The majority of homes we have seen that we liked from an architectural standpoint were between 2 and 3 times the size of what we are looking for. In some cases, the homes were not that far outside of our budget, but we just have no use for something that big. Did home builders refuse to build anything under 4000 square feet after 1999?

I am starting to think that it may make sense to buy some land and build. Neither of us has ever been involved in home construction before, so that whole process appears to be pretty daunting.

Thanks again for all of the good comments

Considering that a lot of homes in this area that are all brick were built prior to 1970, you might find a house with the square footage you're looking for, but would need $ to probably reconfigure the floor plan. Since I was curious I did search in the Burke/Fairfax Station area and there was 1 house (built in 1969) that was all brick. Gorgeous lot too!