Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Jan 28, 2009 2:10 pm I'm confused...................
Double brick is typically associated with being a more solid structure over brick veneer and that translates loosely to me as "better".....but is that right? I recently sold a brick veneer home and got alot of adverse feedback over the fact it was brick veneer and not double brick. Anyways, I'm now building again and hence my dilemna....brick veneer or double brick!!! I have got little doubt that hardiplank is better again as its braced to the frame much more soundly then brickwork but who builds in hardiplank nowadays???? T The problem with double brick is the excess mortar falls into the cavity and can join at the base of the cavity promoting moisture exchange with the exterior course. Even with the most diligent of bricklayers (if that exists) it never gets cleaned properly. The better brickies will knock out every 4th of 5th brick in the base course so they can hose it out but its only so effective. (yes they replace the bricks) As you probably know bricks are porous and they contract, grow and retain mositure. When you think about it bricks are a very poor building product - the whole concept is pretty primitive. Before someone points out to me though the superior thermal characteristics of double brick I guess you have to lay that off against the leaps and bounds made in wall insulation as well. I'm just not sure it's that clear anymore that double brick provides superior insulation. It may but the gap to me seems much narrower. Anyways, what are the views experiences out there on this??....would love to hear your thoughts/experiences..... Re: Building in Double Brick 2Jan 28, 2009 2:50 pm Maybe it's the sort of bricks we use these days and the way they're laid. Have a read about the history of bricks, it's fascinating:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves. - Dale Carnegie Re: Building in Double Brick 4Jan 28, 2009 4:02 pm Are you in Perth ? WA seems to have a thing about Double Brick houses and its harder for resale with a brick veneer.
Eastern states seems to have gotten over all that and double bricks are now the rarity rather than the norm. Building Upside down house in Wantirna VIC Current Stage: Procrastination... it's just all too hard.... Blog: http://thereluctantbuilder.blogspot.com/ Re: Building in Double Brick 5Jan 28, 2009 5:00 pm Slightly OT: When I was in Brisbane I saw a house being constructed with what I first thought were some sort of wooden or cement sheets. They had little 'studs' all over them. Then later they were rendered and painted. It looked very cheap & nasty to me. And indeed within a few months the owners were out with the ladder patching up holes where render was starting to come away.
Anyone know what that would have been ? Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves. - Dale Carnegie Re: Building in Double Brick 7Jan 28, 2009 7:16 pm To me, the best material for walls is brick. It's what I'll be using.
Let's look at external walls. You want something that looks good, will last a long time, looks just as good 50 years from now as it did the day it was built and requires no maintenance. That's face brick (that is, not rendered). Let's look at internal walls. Here you want large thermal mass and hard wearing. Again bricks (rendered and painted) are the way to go. A full brick wall has less insulation than an insulated brick veneer wall, but what it looses in insulation, it more than makes up in thermal mass. Overall, you are way ahead. If you want the best passive solar house, you can't beat brick. I can see why people were knocking your house! Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Building in Double Brick 8Jan 28, 2009 7:35 pm double is good if you can afford the extra costs my husband is a bricklayer and he would have loved to build our house in double brick, by as one personsaid these days it does not happened much, The sydney market must have changed as I lived there about 5 years ago and sold real estate there and ,I have never been told that one, I have been told that for fibro homes etc finished building 40 square home on 5 acres with perry homes.working on the landscaping just finished pool deck with ://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2217 Re: Building in Double Brick 9Jan 28, 2009 8:20 pm Casa2,
firstly thanks for your comments and I understand your points. In terms of asthetics though face brick on the exterior I think is a bit dated. Maybe in time you will be right and in time there will be a swing back to it but for now to me its dated. I agree face brick is lower maintenance (maintenance free actually) but I personally prefer bagging as (opposed to render). Bagging and painting seals the outside of your house from the elements which I think is worth the effort. Problem with render is no matter how good your renderer is as your house settles and your bricks contract and expand it cracks and flakes. This is not due to the finish being applied incorrectly its the simple physics of your house settling and bricks reacting to the elements - and they all do. Have a close look at any rendered house that's about 5 years old. So why do I think bagging is better? while it too is prone to cracking and exfoliation for the same reasons as above it is way easier to repair - rendering is an art and expensive not a DIY option if you want a good job! I wouldn't argue with anyone however that render looks better than bagging. A non-swirl application of bagging looks much better however than the swirl variety. As for the inside finish I am currently living in a douible brick rendered house. While you think it would be stronger it marks and chips as well maybe less so than gyprock but nontheless its not bullet proof. The finish inside with render is fine but for mine I prefer the look of gyprock. In any event they're both relatively easy to patch. I'm toying with going double brick but still using a C4 treated frame inside the house with insulation so I get the solid feel and thermal mass of brick and added layer of insulation. Expensive, yes! Thanks for your comments again. JB Re: Building in Double Brick 10Jan 28, 2009 11:02 pm Quote: Let's look at external walls. You want something that looks good, will last a long time, looks just as good 50 years from now as it did the day it was built and requires no maintenance. I live in the old fibro shack that's 56 years old. It's falling apart, not because of what it was built of, but how it was built - one of cheap, hastily built, after-the-war houses, it was badly framed and pourly clad. And the extention is worse, it was DIY I suspect, out of square and out of plumb. Still if I had bothered to paint it and fix natural wear and tear it would've looked quite OK. Since then the building materials and techniques advanced enormously and a well framed and rendered house can look terrific and last for ever. That's why I'm going frame myself. I'll have masonry (most likely bricks) for thermal mass in RBV, but it's a necessary evil. Chris My father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son flies in a jetliner, his son will ride a camel.Saudi saying Re: Building in Double Brick 11Jan 29, 2009 1:18 am Hi JB & others, my last 2 houses have been D/brick & if in my very old age i was to build again it would be d/brick again. our 1st house was fibro, next 2 b/veneer, last 2 d/brick. the progression was simply financial, i could only afford fibro when we started out, now we can afford d/brick & we have it.
JB i don't quite understand why u would have D/brick with wood frame for gyprock. u can fix gyprock directly onto brick. IMO the best thermal is reverse b/veneer - outside wall cladding,insulated cavity, inside wall brick with gyprock finish. however having owned a fibro house there is no way i would go back there, too much upkeep, too many repairs, not as good resale. as a first house fibro was excellent price wise, was easy to learn how to build with, did a fair bit ourselves & certainly got us started. in my mind its all about what u want to live in, what u can afford & how long will u be in the house... cheers tony Re: Building in Double Brick 12Jan 29, 2009 5:17 am Hi JB...
re: your posting.....Even with the most diligent of bricklayers (if that exists) it never gets cleaned properly. The better brickies will knock out every 4th of 5th brick in the base course so they can hose it out but its only so effective. (yes they replace the bricks)... I'm just curious...from reading this thread you seem quite knowledgable, what is your occupation? I was a bricklayer of 20+yrs up until late '08... Re: Building in Double Brick 13Jan 29, 2009 9:15 am T&V thanks for your comments.
Reason why I want to put a frame inside is firstly if there was any moisture transfer between the inner and outer course it will also have to pass through the timber cavity to access the gyprock (most unlikely). If you glue the gyprock straight to the brick there is obviously no barrier. Secondly you can get the additional benefits of wall insulation and thirdly its much easier to lay in additional wiring if needed in the future. If you've ever tackled these sort of problems they will make you think twice. The rest of the house will be framed so the additional expenditure of laying a frame against the internal wall to me is marginal. Charlie0000 - you might say I grew up on building sites - since then I've seen the light and moved on. I like the people who work in the trades but you've got to remember they often work on low margins. It's about volume to alot of them - getting paid and moving on. If they leave you with a nasty surprise that emerges in the future alot of them would not be overly concerned. Rgds Thx Re: Building in Double Brick 15Jan 29, 2009 11:52 am soda A further advantage of brick veneer is you can sell the 'house'. We sold ours for 7k to a relocator. There you go, build yourself a brick veneer house and it wil be worth $7,000. Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Building in Double Brick 17Aug 20, 2012 5:12 pm Hmm well we were builders in NZ we have been in Perth for 12 months now so have experienced the heat waves and reasonable cold snap and we rent a double brick home. Our option on double brick is that it is like living in a pizza oven in the summer as the house never gets a chance to cool down and costs a fortune to cool with air con. In the winter it's like living in a fridge and it's warmer outside!! You just touch the interior rendered walls with the vacum and a big piece chips out whereas with plasterboard it would dent if you touched it hard enough and you could patch far easier as well. A timber frame home with linear board exterior and double glazed windows on driven piles will be our pick when we build with a huge water storage facility under the house so we don't have to pay for water!! timber frame house give you the ability to insulate to the max including sound proofing interior walls between bathrooms and bedrooms or theatre rooms and when it cools in the evening or the sea breeze comes in you just open the windows and the house cools straight away so therefore you are saving on power. We love Perth the opportunities it has given us but West Australians need to open their minds to timber framed homes, do the research you'll see I'm right. Re: Building in Double Brick 19Aug 22, 2012 11:09 am I think you have to pick your construction method as to where you are living. In the northern and western states I think you need to think more about keeping the heat out whereas in the southern states it is more about keeping the heat in. I've done a lot of research too as we are looking to do a big reno/rebuild in the new year and are looking to build our ground floor in BV, the first floor in timber frame and poly clad sheeting. Note: we live on the northern beaches of Sydney so we have mild winters and reasonably mild summers too - no extremes of either. Our existing place is a modest double brick home built just after the war and while it can be a cold house in winter , summer can be quite pleasant. Emicat I am another Kiwi refugee who is also a builder so I am curious as to why you think a solely timber framed house is the way to go - my research indicates otherwise but as I said it depends where you live. I've also lived in lots of different houses built in all sorts of methods both here and in NZ- double and single storey DB & BV , WB clad timber framed houses, fibro clad timber framed houses, flat roofed , pitched roof etc etc Our new ground floor walls are going to be thicker than the standard 250mm BV which are usually 110mm brick - 50mm cavity - 90mm timber frame. We are going for 110mm brick - 40mm cavity - 60mm polystyrene insul panels - 90mm timber frame. The timber frame will have R 2.5 batts installed as well. The 60mm panels give us another R2.5 to 3.0 layer depending on what brand we go for. The top level will have standard 90mm timber framing with R 2.5 batts then 50-60mm insulated poly sheeting texture coated on the outside for another R 2.5 rating. Our light coloured Colorbond roof will have a 75mm foil blanket ( R 2.5 ) with R3.0 batts in the ceiling. We are still weighing up the cost to benefit ratio but it looks pretty good so far. Stewie Re: Building in Double Brick 20Aug 27, 2012 7:56 pm Emicat Hmm well we were builders in NZ we have been in Perth for 12 months now so have experienced the heat waves and reasonable cold snap and we rent a double brick home. Our option on double brick is that it is like living in a pizza oven in the summer as the house never gets a chance to cool down and costs a fortune to cool with air con. In the winter it's like living in a fridge and it's warmer outside!! You just touch the interior rendered walls with the vacum and a big piece chips out whereas with plasterboard it would dent if you touched it hard enough and you could patch far easier as well. A timber frame home with linear board exterior and double glazed windows on driven piles will be our pick when we build with a huge water storage facility under the house so we don't have to pay for water!! timber frame house give you the ability to insulate to the max including sound proofing interior walls between bathrooms and bedrooms or theatre rooms and when it cools in the evening or the sea breeze comes in you just open the windows and the house cools straight away so therefore you are saving on power. We love Perth the opportunities it has given us but West Australians need to open their minds to timber framed homes, do the research you'll see I'm right. Emicat, You can't beat full brick houses. They are cool in summer, but as others have mentioned, they can be cool in winter. The idea is to use the sun (with the right amount of northern windows) to heat the house. The bricks will store the heat until the next day. Also, I don;t know where you got the idea that rendered walls chip easy. You can hit them with anythign and they stay OK, not like gyprock. Full brick also lasts the longest. Apart form the cost, full brick is a winer in low maintenance, comfort and wearability. Cheers, Casa Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 5 10494 Hi Kristy Around $1.7-1.8m or around $4,600/sqm. if you PM me your email I will send you a break up in a spreadsheet so you can get an understanding of the costs for… 1 9980 Double brick homes are the worst type of building conventions for the australian climate 1 1137 |