Bricks vs Hebel vs Cladding

Hi there.. looking for some opinions on bricks vs hebel vs cladding.

Thanks in advance!

Hi MegKo

That's a great question that we get asked by our clients all the time.

From a functional perspective, they all perform the same tasks which is to keep your home dry and protect you from the elements. Provided your builder sarks your walls and seals all the gaps in the sarking and penetrations, you will find a similar thermal performance in the real world.

Hebel and cladding are a bit quicker to install than brick ( assuming we are talking rendered brick to keep it on par with the Hebel which will be rendered).

The advantage of bricks is that you can easily fix items such as hose reels into the walls without too much thought. What a good builder should do with either Hebel or cladding is to install some additional studs in locations that you may need to install items to the exterior of the home.

This then leaves costs, aesthetics and your individual site conditions ( ie are you in a flame zone or not).

In order, cladding is slightly cheaper than Hebel ( marginally), with rendered brick being the most expensive. On the average 4 bedroom 2 story home there is roughly $15,000 difference.

So at the end of the day, in comes down to your personal preferences and budget. On my own home I used a combination of cladding and rendered brick as that was the look I was going for.

We have clients who really like the colorbond look, so go for that ( which is the most expensive by far, other than zinc). We have others that like the industrial recycled brick look.

We are doing quite a few flame zone homes, and whilst all of the products you mentioned will comply, from a cost and ease of compliance perspective we like to recommend Hebel.

Anyway, I hope this helps a bit. If you have any questions feel free to ask

Cheers

Simeon

Thanks Simeon for your detailed response, much appreciated!

Its interesting that the brick is ulmore expensive, but Hebel often gets sold as an upgrade.

The value prop to the client is often that they get their home faster.

How fast is to install let's say 300 sqm of Hebel (+render) vs bricking the same area without render?

Did you know you can ask Google questions? Crazy, right? 😆

What great marketing. Position the lower cost solution as an 'upgrade'. Perception is reality!

This would exclude rendering part, certainly

Hi Simeon,
Appreciate your detailed information. If you don't mind, would like to know what type of cladding you are referring to in regards to the cost, since we have been told by few sales reps the cladding is more expensive than hebel.
We have discussed the cost of hebel 50 and 75 and cladding Scyon Stria or Scyon Linea.
One more question please. Is hebel considered a lightweight material or being heavier than polystyrene and cladding, it will need more support when used for the first floor on a double story house. Thank you.

Hi Zorsan

I would have to check with our rep to get you the exact price differences between the different ones, but I was thinking of axon or linea, haven't used stria so not sure if thats more expensive.


Also have used Weathertex's product and it was similarly priced.

So as a guide, based on Sydney prices the approximate different prices we pay are as follows:

1. Foam installed and rendered - $100/sqm
2. Cheap face brick - $130-140/sqm
3. Hebel including render & paint ( 3 coat system) - $145-155/sqm
4. Rendered commons - $180-190/sqm
5. FC Cladding including 2 coats of paint - $150/sqm

Framing is the same for all.

Hope this helps as a guide, other builders may pay more or less for each item, but these are the rates that our favoured trades charge.

Cheers

Simeon

Thank you so much Simeon.

Hi Zorson,

The weight of Hebel Powerpanel does need to be taken into consideration in the engineering calculation for your project.

Hebel install guide outlines what to do for double storey homes. Hebel is governed by the masonry code being a concrete product.

Thank you Pedro4137,

Correct, Hebel 75mm weighs around 60kg per m2 to 21kg per m2 Scyon Stria cladding 16mm thick. Big difference...
We have decided to go with the cladding