Insulation / Brick Nogging

We first encountered brick insulation when doing a preliminary survey of a home built in 1830 in preparation of a complete gut renovation. After conducting some research we found it was called brick Nogging. As you can see from this picture the brick was mortared tightly between the balloon framing members. With an R rating .1 it is far below the modern wall insulation requirement in our region of R13. The primary function of this brick nogging was to provide sound proofing, thermal mass, moisture barrier and reduce drafts.

We found the weight of these bricks to be about 450lbs per framing bay per floor. This is a tremendous amount of unnecessary weight to the structure.

Existing structure consisted of wood clapboard siding nailed directly to studs, brick nogging between studs and plaster on lath on the interior. We stripped the structure down to the studs. Sheathed the entire structure with ½” CDX plywood covered with Tyvek housewrap as a vapor barrier and installed high performance (historical) windows. We installed interior walls around entire exterior perimeter of building to ease upgrade of electrical work and provide cavity for superior wall insulation.  For more information go to www.littoralllc.com