Partition
Also called: stud partition, quartered partition
One page. Other spellings and regional names stay on this URL.
A partition is an internal wall built to divide the inside of a building into separate rooms, usually framed up in timber rather than built solid.
Framing and standing it up
The vertical timbers that frame a partition are, in period usage, called quartering: Nicholson (1832) gives it as simply 'the stud work of a partition.' Laying a partition out starts with marking its intended position on the ceiling. Where a rough or under floor already exists, the partition is laid out directly on top of it, and a sill, a horizontal timber as wide as the partition and about 2 inches thick, is nailed securely to that floor to carry the studs above. The sill can also double as a girder in its own right, with the joists linked to it by tusk tenoning, a tenon with a stepped shoulder below it to carry more load, or by housing, a groove cut to seat the joist's full end, or similar joints; this combined sill-and-girder method was formerly standard, though it cuts down the girder's own cross-section and so its strength considerably. Where a partition sits over an opening, the section of sill beneath it is left in place until the partition above has been fixed, and only cut away afterwards.
Trussed partitions
A partition can be built with its own internal bracing, like a small roof truss, so that it carries some of the structure above rather than simply hanging between floor and ceiling. Rivington (1904) calls a partition 'one-fourth trussed' when its upper truss occupies a quarter of the partition's total depth, and notes that a partition built this way can be strong enough, where necessary, to carry the load the floor above places on it. Tredgold (1871), comparing an alternative method against the ordinary one, found it took up a little more space but repaid that with greater strength and lightness, 'besides preventing the passage of sound better than the common mode of construction.'
Stud choice and running services
Among the timber options for the studs themselves, regularised timber is stock that has been re-sawn or planed on one or both edges to a consistent width, and ALS/CLS timber, identifiable by its rounded corners, is another that may be specified. In Benson's American stud-wall system, the simplest partition uses 2x3 studs sheathed first, on both faces, with sound board, a fibreboard sheet used as the first layer of covering; because standard electrical boxes are too deep to fit inside a wall that thin, a 2x3 partition can force the electrician toward wider, flatter boxes instead. Where such a partition runs past a stair, building it on the studs' own side of any diagonal braces, rather than the other side, leaves the braces' full thickness exposed toward the stair. Wherever pipes or cables have to pass through a partition member, the hole should be centred on the member's width, kept to no more than a third of the member's width or thickness across, and neighbouring holes spaced at least three hole-diameters apart.
Finishing, and the word elsewhere
Once framed, a partition's surface can be finished with any suitable covering, lath-and-plaster or wainscoting among them. The same word is also used for an internal divider inside a piece of case furniture: in building a carcase, the first glue-up stage joins the shelves, the sides and the dividing partition between them, while the top and bottom are left unglued until later.