Specification by Period

Specification Notes

Foundations - Most houses with concrete strip foundations 500 to 600mm wide and about 1000mm deep in clay, slightly less in firm sand or gravel. Depending on circumstances foundations can be traditional strip or trench fill. Houses built on brownfield sites (and some other types of land) may have piled foundations. Some houses, in former mining areas for example, may have specially designed raft foundations. Walls below ground level can be either aerated concrete blocks or dense blocks. Where a house had an internal loadbearing wall supporting the first floor joists slab thickenings were sometimes provided rather than a 'proper' foundation.

Walls - Cavity wall construction is virtually universal with brick, stone or artificial stone in the outer leaf and aerated blocks in the inner leaf. The inner lead could be 130mm in order to achieve the appropriate U value (0.6 in 1985).  Cavities from this period were normally 50 or 75mm wide. It was unusual to find cavity wall insulation. Wall ties mostly galvanised twisted steel, galvanised wire butterfly or plastic.

Some houses were built with an inner leaf of hollow dense concrete blocks with a polystyrene infill, a few had dense blocks with a layer of insulation bonded to outer face. The former were not popular with bricklayers or local residents. They tended to shatter when cut - the polystyrene granules went everywhere. Mortars were cement based (OPC or masonry cement) and often mixed on site. Some developers used a partly pre-mixed mortar (containing sand, lime and pigment) - cement was added on site.

Walls were mostly finished with two coats Carlite lightweight plaster. A few houses had drylining, either on dabs or fixed to battens. Drylining mostly taped and painted.

Windows - Plastic windows were available but most developers used standard metric timber windows (usually of casement design and often with no top lights). These could be single or double glazed. Some developers used high performance windows with double glazing. Windows were fixed with cramps in the traditional way, or with straps to the inner reveal, or with Dacatie. Window boards were usually softwood, lintels were galvanised steel (sometimes with separate cavity trays) or lightweight concrete with a steel outer tray. 

Roofing - Trussed rafters almost universal. Bracing, binding and strapping much as today. Underfelt mostly bitumen based. Roofs ventilated at eaves. 100mm of roof insulation. Ceilings were most likely to be 12.5 or 10mm plasterboard (nailed not screwed). Ceilings were usually taped and finished with flexible material such as Artex.  Some ceiling finishes contained asbestos fibres. Roof coverings were mostly concrete interlocking tiles, often similar in profile to pantiles or double romans, sometimes with non-traditional profiles (e.g. Redland Delta).

Ground Floor - Floating chipboard floors not unknown but most ground floors were finished with a sand and cement screed (usually 38 to 50mm) laid on a plain insitu concrete slab, with a polythene membrane laid on sand blinding. Hardcore tended to be stone, broken brick or broken concrete. Pre-cast floors were available and were sometime used on shrinkable clays. Floor insulation rare.  Chipboard (i.e. in a floating floor) was laid on insulation but only because of its resilient properties. 

Upper Floor - Softwood joists built into the inner leaf of the cavity wall or supported on galvanised joist hangers. Floors strutted with herringbone struts or joist off-cuts. Strapping to external walls is not always evident. Floors mostly covered with tongued and grooved chipboard (nailed); a few floors had t&g softwood boards.   

Internal walls - 100mm dense blocks for loadbearing partitions; 75mm blocks for lightweight non-loadbearing partitions.  Door linings usually nailed in position. Plasterboard, self-finished, partitions were common - laminated and Paramount the two most common. A few houses had stud partitions covered with 10 or 12.5mm plasterboard. No sound quilts.

Services - Most houses had vented central heating boilers, steel radiators and copper pipework. Plastic cold water and feed & expansion tanks, copper cylinder. Room thermostat controlled temperature, some rads also with TRVs.  Warm air (all electric) heating systems were also popular - especially in flats.  Electrical installation much as today although fewer socket outlets and consumer units mostly with cartridge-type fuses. Strip lighting popular in kitchens.

Drainage systems mostly separate with vitrified clay or plastic pipes, both with flexible connectors. Above-ground drainage all plastic (push fit or solvent welded). Inspection chambers were concrete ring, plastic or brick; chamber covers were galvanised steel or bitumen coated steel in gardens, cast iron in roads.