What are noggins, and where do they go in a stud wall?

Noggins — also called dwangs in Scotland and blocking or noggings elsewhere — are the cheapest component in a stud wall and the one that decides how useful the wall is for the rest of its life. They cost minutes to fit while the frame is open and require a wall repair to add once the board is on.

Step by step

1. Understand the three jobs they do.First, they stiffen the frame by stopping long studs bowing and twisting. Second, they provide support behind board edges, which is required wherever a board joint falls horizontally. Third, they give you timber to screw into at a known height for fixtures.
2. Fit a row at mid-height as a minimum.On a standard 2.4m wall, a single row roughly halfway up transforms how the wall feels and how it takes a knock. On a taller wall, two rows.
3. Stagger them so you can fix them.Alternate noggins slightly above and below the line so you can drive a screw straight through each stud into the end of each noggin. In a continuous line you have to skew-nail them, which is much harder to do accurately.
4. Put one behind every horizontal board joint.A board edge with nothing behind it will move, and the joint will crack no matter how well it is taped. Work out where the board joints will fall before framing and put a noggin at each one.
5. Put one wherever anything will be fixed later.Radiator brackets, a TV bracket, a wall-hung basin or cistern frame, kitchen wall units, a handrail, curtain poles, shelves, a boiler, a mirror. Write the heights down and photograph the frame.
6. Use a full panel rather than a single noggin where the position is uncertain.A sheet of 18mm plywood fixed between the studs over the full height band gives you complete freedom over exactly where the fixing lands. For a TV bracket or a run of shelves, this is far better than guessing a single height.
7. Fit noggins to support the top and bottom of the boards.The head plate and sole plate normally do this, but where a board edge falls short of either — around an opening, or where a wall steps — a noggin is needed there too.
8. Record where they are.Photograph the wall before boarding, with a tape in the shot for scale, or mark the heights on the adjacent wall in pencil. This is the single most useful thing you can do for whoever hangs something on that wall in five years' time.

Tips

• Noggins are the natural home for offcuts. Cut them from the ends of studs you have already trimmed rather than from full lengths.
• In a bathroom, run a continuous band of plywood at basin and cistern height across the whole wall. It costs very little and it removes any argument about where the sanitaryware ends up.
• Where a noggin is being added to an existing wall, it means cutting the board out, fitting the timber and patching — which is exactly why fitting them at the framing stage matters.

Common mistakes

• Leaving them out entirely to save time — The wall flexes, the board joints crack, and nothing can be hung on it except between studs. It saves an hour and costs a day later.
• Fitting them in a dead straight line — You cannot screw through the stud into the end of the noggin if the noggins on both sides meet at the same point. Stagger them.
• Cutting them slightly short — A loose noggin does none of the three jobs. Cut to a tight fit so it has to be tapped in.
• Not recording the heights — An unrecorded noggin might as well not exist, because you cannot find it with a detector reliably once the wall is boarded and painted.

Questions people ask