Timber Frame Spacing History

[Ussuri]

In the UK timber frame buildings usually adopt wall stud and joist centres at 600mm (1.97 ft) or alternatively 400mm (1.31 ft) centres if the loading is quite high. I have always though this was unusual for a country using metric.

However, this ties in nicely with a standard width of plasterboard which is 2.4m (or multiples there off).

So, did we adopt 600mm to suit the plasterboard or was the plasterboard made to suit the timber spacings?

Alternatively is there another reason why we like 600mm for timber spacing? Construction ease perhaps?



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[davidbeach]

Because those are close to 16 and 24 inches and make even divisions of a 4 foot wide sheet. When converting to metric things were just rounded down slightly.