Bricks on top of RSJ

[MassiveJim]

I am in the process of removing floorboards in our bedroom to gain access to ceiling void of the room below.

There is an RSJ which spans the room at the half way point with joists sat on it. in between each joist is a single row of bricks/mortar.
What is the purpose of these bricks ?

I ask because every single one is loose and they are not touching the joists (there is a small gap between each joist and the end of the bricks.

The only thing I could think of is that they are there to keep the joist spacing, but they cant be doing that currently as the gap would allow movement, plus I can literally pickup the bricks as they aren't stuck to the joists any more. (if they even were in the first place)
House is around 20 years old and the room below was a double garage which has been converted to the main living room.

Also a couple of the joists have a bit of side to side movement, should I be concerned about this.

 

[Mason-]

They weren't some strange attempt at noggins made of brick? Speaking of noggins, are there noggins between your joists, wooden ones? If not you could add some to stop the joists moving side to side.

 

[Deleted User 298457]

I'm watching a house being built on a road near me, and it's block construction with RSJs across the windows with red brick on top of the RSJs. Not sure that helps

 

[MassiveJim]

They weren't some strange attempt at noggins made of brick? Speaking of noggins, are there noggins between your joists, wooden ones? If not you could add some to stop the joists moving side to side.

No sign of any noggins so far and I've reached the halfway point

Just read this on google

If the span of your joists is less than 2.5m then you don't need to include any noggins. Up to 4.5m span one row of noggins at mid span is needed. Above 4.5m span use two rows of noggins at third points. Noggins need to be at least 38mm wide and the depth should be at least 0.75 times depth of joists.

The room is 5.2/5.1m length depending on who's measurements I go from so I guess noggings arent legally required, but I could easily add some for extra support whilst the floor is up.

 

[ANDARIAL]

Herring bone or solid noggings if you want to `stiffen`up your floor

 

[DB_SamX]

How old is the property. I have only seen bricks between joints when there use to be a wall over the RSJ, and they knocked the wall down to floorboard level, keepingbthe brick infill. Bjt they are never loose, always mortar in between.

 

[JBuk]

Probably to keep everything correctly spaced before everything was secured

 

[MassiveJim]

How old is the property. I have only seen bricks between joints when there use to be a wall over the RSJ, and they knocked the wall down to floorboard level, keepingbthe brick infill. Bjt they are never loose, always mortar in between.

20 years old, room below used to be a double garage but I don't know if it had a wall down the middle.
The bricks have mortar between them, but they are no longer attached to the RSJ.

Given the advice in this thread and having spoken to a joiner/builder, I am going to replace them with noggins.

There is some slight twisting in the joists already so hopefully noggins will help to alleviate this a bit
although the joists are 8x2 my noggins will be 6x2 to allow space for cabling

 

[Mason-]

Yeah I was thinking this, I wouldn't want to retrofit noggins with pipes/cables running already in between your joists, might be a bit of a pain in some places. Good luck.

One last point, the herringbone style ones aren't really necessary, however if you do decide to do that make absolutely sure that there is ample gap between them otherwise if they end up rubbing together they will make a terrible racket every time they rub.