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Comment on I'm stupid...how do I avoid wires when mounting things to the wall?

In most cases, the ‘party wall’ between two townhouse units is not allowed to carry any services - no wires, pipes, or ducts. The ones I’ve seen being built lately often have a couple extra sheets of drywall just sitting in the wall between units, presumably as a fire/noise retardant, and that might confuse stud detectors.

You’re also not supposed to do stuff to those party walls, at least not without consent from the neighbor, because they are essentially co-owned.

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limelight79@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Isn’t there usually a concrete wall or something between townhouses? (I’ve never owned one, so I don’t have firsthand experience.)

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- tburkhol@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The really nice ones :) Concrete is a lot quieter. They’ve put up several new complexes in my area, and even for $600k, you get just framed party walls. Some of the builders go so far as to build little brick extensions on the exterior facade, so it looks like masonry wall extends between the units. My unit has a daylight basement, and the below-grade party wall is cinderblock, like the below-grade exterior wall, but that ends at grade.
  
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  - limelight79@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Huh. Thanks. I thought it was necessary to meet fire code.
    
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dingus@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m confused. How could there possibly be no wires or pipes in between the shared walls?

I guess I could see how you could get away with it in terms of pipes, but wires? If you couldn’t put wires in shared walls, then like 80% of the wall space on your average townhome couldn’t have an outlet. I have plenty of outlets on my shared walls. Pretty sure one of my shared walls has plumbing too because that’s where I had a water leak. Quite frankly there is hardly any additional wall space left for an outlet if the shared walls couldn’t be used for outlets and switches.

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- tburkhol@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  For example, in my 1980s townhouse, all the plumbing goes through one interior wall. There’s void space in the bathroom that carries chimney and ductwork. Wiring goes variously through that one interior wall and the exterior walls. The kitchen has a fake wall built in front of the party wall to give space for extra outlets.
  
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Cheesus@lemmy.ca ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This might be the general ‘best practice’ today for plumbing, but even as recent as 1998 I wouldn’t count on it. It was technically not against code in Canada around 5 years ago as long as the piping was done in fire-rated materials. Also it’s pretty much impossible to not have at least some wiring in party walls.

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