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TIL about a weird old building code in a town near me
I was working on a remodel in this little town called Millersburg last week, an old house from the 1920s. We pulled down some plaster and lath in a hallway and found the original framing. The studs were spaced at 24 inches on center, which is normal, but every single one of them had a 2 inch notch cut out of the bottom plate, right where it sat on the sill. The homeowner said a local inspector told him once that it was an old fire code thing from that town, something about letting air flow to slow down chimney fires in the walls. I've never seen anything like it in 15 years of doing this. It made me wonder how many other little local quirks are out there, buried in walls nobody's opened in a century. Has anyone else run into a strange building detail that was totally specific to one area?
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claire8729d ago
That's so cool, it's like finding a fossil of a local problem. You see this with old plumbing too, weird loops and shutoffs that only make sense for that town's water system. Makes you wonder what we're building now that will confuse people in a hundred years.
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leehall9d ago
@aaron_perry, did the inspector say if that notch trick actually worked to stop fires?
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