Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Dec 28, 2010 7:31 am Hi We always wanted a rendered house. Personally I think they look the money they are worth. I also thought this before I investigated the range of bricks available to todays consumer. It seems 85% of new houses I see being built are being built in brick About 2 months ago I also heard a real estate agent discussing the same and he said rendering is going out of fashion. I know its a very personal choice, but have you noticed a trend toward away from rendering to brickwork? K Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 2Dec 28, 2010 8:42 am KAN Hi We always wanted a rendered house. Personally I think they look the money they are worth. I also thought this before I investigated the range of bricks available to todays consumer. It seems 85% of new houses I see being built are being built in brick About 2 months ago I also heard a real estate agent discussing the same and he said rendering is going out of fashion. I know its a very personal choice, but have you noticed a trend toward away from rendering to brickwork? K Australia is a last outpost for brick popularity when you look at the rest of the world. Not a great construction system for energy efficiency, nor cost effectiveness. IMO, in the not too distant future bricks will be out and render look will be in... Ed "ECOECO" At 'EcoEco', we design windows, we design the best windows, we do it for you, so that when you’re happy we are happy. Tel. 1800 326 326 Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 3Dec 28, 2010 8:43 am Bricks never go out of fashion unlike rendering. My view is why pay more for something you are only going to have to paint, and if it cracks its really hard to make a repair that doesn't show. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 5Dec 28, 2010 9:07 am I like the look of rendered homes when they are new- I do worry about the maintenance of the render though.... so we opted for just plain bricks. It just happened to be what suited us best. Things come in and out of "fashion" all of the time- You need to just go with what is YOUR personal preference! Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 6Dec 28, 2010 10:19 am ed @ EcoClassic KAN About 2 months ago I also heard a real estate agent discussing the same and he said rendering is going out of fashion. I know its a very personal choice, but have you noticed a trend toward away from rendering to brickwork? K Australia is a last outpost for brick popularity when you look at the rest of the world. Not a great construction system for energy efficiency, nor cost effectiveness. IMO, in the not too distant future bricks will be out and render look will be in... Ed The brick industry has set up an organisation that actively promotes bricks called Think Brick. http://www.thinkbrick.com.au/ It has be proactive in researching the environmental advantages in sustainability, thermal efficiency and embodied energy. The face brick wall has had a major comeback in aesthetics with a massive amount of colours and textures available not to mention the different designs possible with laying techniques. http://www.thinkbrick.com.au/residential/ The reason Australia has become a brick country is the shear variation of it's clay reserves, with brick plants located all around the country in major population areas. What we do wrong on the easter seaboard is not go double brick like WA where houses with 8 star energy ratings have been built with minimal cost [$30k] above our east coast brick veneer. http://www.thinkbrick.com.au/8-star-brick-house-3/ The eastern states unfortunately have almost no internal thermal mass in their construction and we effectively build our houses inside out. http://www.thinkbrick.com.au/showcase http://www.thinkbrick.com.au/horbury-hunt-awards/ With brick and its available colours you can get interesting internal feature walls that can act as a heat sink to regulate the temperature [or plaster render]. This is impossible to do with plaster, timber and lightweight materials as they simply don't have the mass to do the job. http://www.thinkbrick.com.au/assets/doc ... ciency.pdf Bricks are making a comeback as people who have rendered 10 years ago now find that the additional cost was only the start. Painting a house every 10-15 years is an expense that basically starts at $10K. Personally I'd prefer a holiday to Europe. Render cost approximately $15K on a 30Sq home with $10K in painting plus more for maintenance, brick veneer requires a wash at the most with a low pressure hose. I know builders who had difficulties with getting bricklayers and went down the lightweight/render path, only to find 2 years later that issues with render cracking from movement are appearing, so they build this repair cost into their new construction. Render just doesn't stack up, especially on lightweight materials! Being a builder is more than just having once held a hammer. It's about the trades you hire and ensuring that they give a result that meets the industry standard and the home owners expectations. Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 7Dec 28, 2010 10:37 am IMO bricks are being used as a feature in a rendered house. I think bricks are timeless too, my husband wanted a rendered front so he could change the colour of the house. We live in a rendered house - built in the 60s and the rendered is VERY textured. It catches dirt, and I have to spray it down with a pressure hose.... ..... I am sure it was very groovy in the day. Because is it rendered we can paint it, to update it. Pro's and cons of both. Building with Life$tyle Homes in Perth SOR Key Dates on First Page of my Thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=38761 Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 9Dec 28, 2010 10:48 am sheznay IMO bricks are being used as a feature in a rendered house. I think bricks are timeless too, my husband wanted a rendered front so he could change the colour of the house. We live in a rendered house - built in the 60s and the rendered is VERY textured. It catches dirt, and I have to spray it down with a pressure hose.... ..... I am sure it was very groovy in the day. Because is it rendered we can paint it, to update it. Pro's and cons of both. i have to agree with you.the home were building has some brick on it some render and some scyon axon cladding.the brick is there to break up big wall areas just render.same with the scyon cladding.its there so no expanse of just brick or render.plus as you say we can change the colour of the render/scyon but cant change the brick this is a architectural drawing of our home showing the different textures Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 11Dec 28, 2010 3:27 pm I think it is all to do with how a material is used in the overall design of a house. Good design never goes out of fashion. Whether its a red brick home build over hundred years ago, a timber Qldlander, a bungalow style a victorian terrace, they have all used different materials but it all about how they are used in the design. How many time have you seen an older house and you have gone wow that looks great, it has nothing to do with the whether it is brick or rendered but the overall design. Cheers Lou http://take2-customdesigndownslope.blogspot.com 07-10-09 omg they have cut the block 14-05-10 we finally have the keys Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 12Dec 28, 2010 7:29 pm darrell81 sheznay IMO bricks are being used as a feature in a rendered house. I think bricks are timeless too, my husband wanted a rendered front so he could change the colour of the house. We live in a rendered house - built in the 60s and the rendered is VERY textured. It catches dirt, and I have to spray it down with a pressure hose.... ..... I am sure it was very groovy in the day. Because is it rendered we can paint it, to update it. Pro's and cons of both. i have to agree with you.the home were building has some brick on it some render and some scyon axon cladding.the brick is there to break up big wall areas just render.same with the scyon cladding.its there so no expanse of just brick or render.plus as you say we can change the colour of the render/scyon but cant change the brick this is a architectural drawing of our home showing the different textures But you can change the colour of a brick. http://nawtint.com.au/ This method is a permanent stain that doesn't sit "proud" on the brick face like a paint and is warranted for 25 years. Lay a clean smooth common and get it permanently tinted to the colour you like. As a comparison of costs between render and brickwork render I called a friend of mine who is a builder [40 houses per year]. He agrees that a 30sq house is about $15K[+/- $3K] plus the cost of the material under the render. If it's lightweight it varies with blue board type cladding being the cheapest up to hebel panels or common render brickwork. A house of 30sq in face brickwork has approx 10,000 brick at say $600 per thousand + sand/cement, is a material cost of about $7,500. Laying at the average Melb metro rate of $850 per thousand + sills/piers is about $9,200 per house. Brick cleaning is about $300 so the total per home is about $17,000. As a built cost face brickwork is a lot cheaper than render and the savings could be better spent on high performance thermal glazing. In two storey home design, lightweight is sometime required to keep costs down. Steel lintels to support brickwork, like in the area above your garage, would be very expensive. In some cases like these the additional costs do take the option of face brick away. A 20sq metre area on the south west wall on my extension I just got planning approval on is lightweight for the same reason, but in my case it will be with Hebel panels. The two storey northeast wall near the boundary will have a single face brick external with insulation, to an internal 15.20 concrete knockout block wall, that will be plaster rendered. I'm using these blocks so I can run hydronic heating tubing through the blocks from an EVAC tubing solar hot water heater and insulated storage tank. The entire thermal mass of the wall will be heated in winter to help maintain the internal temperature. In summer the hot water will be diverted away from wall and substituted with cold water from the tanks so the mass of cooler brickwork will still regulate the internal temperature in the house. This will prevent the brickwork mass from heating up over consecutive hot days. As you can see I am passionate about bricks. I don't think we have to use them everywhere but we certainly can use them better than just an external facade. Cheers, Being a builder is more than just having once held a hammer. It's about the trades you hire and ensuring that they give a result that meets the industry standard and the home owners expectations. Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 13Dec 28, 2010 7:33 pm I remember someone on here a while ago asking what will be the thing that defines the norties houses, and I reckon it will probably be mixed materials for the external. So on that basis, things will swing and people will go back to using one product only. Either rendering the whole house, bricking the whole house or cladding the whole house rather than mixing it up. We have a brick house with feature render on the front. Before they did the render I was thinking maybe we should delete it.... I wish I'd acted on that thought. I much prefer full face brick than the render, but most of my street has feature render so we don't look out of place. But if I ever built again, it will be full brick. I don't think render will completely go out of fashion, especially with the increase in materials such as Hebel. But as I said, I think the mixing of materials may well go out of fashion. I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself. Terrence Malick Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 14Dec 28, 2010 8:32 pm I too think that bricks are timeless and virtually maintenance free. Although I like the look of fresh render I hate it when it cracks and stains. Not worth it I say! Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 15Dec 28, 2010 11:04 pm I see pros and cons to both, but our first house we bought was build late 70's, the brick was awful, looked like something out of the 70's too. Even though brick can be timeless, I still can't get that house out of my head, and wonder if we'll be thinking the same thing about some of today's bricks? The first house we built, I hated the brick after about 6 months, but we didn't have much to choose from as there was a brick shortage at the time. Second house we built was all brick, this house is all render. I see pro's and cons to both, but I think bricks can look just as dated as render can, so who knows what will become more fashionable. I love houses with feature brickwork (and no we don't have any). Also, we had huge problems with our 70's brick house with cracking in the bricks and also with the second house we built. The problem with the first house, was that when we replaced those bricks, we couldn't get anything close so it stood out badly. We were going to end up rendering it to cover it, but we were able to sell as it was. So not only render needs maintenance. Any house will need maintenance, no matter what it's made out of! Re: Do you think bricks are becoming more fashionable? 16Dec 29, 2010 11:37 am Thanks for your replies everyone, it was really interesting to see the different opinions. The reason we are going with brick like many other people is because of rendering cost (we were quoted $35k for a 36sq DS home), maintenance. If you asked me 12 months ago I would have said "err bricks, how old fashioned" ....But having educated myself on bricks I think they can look just as nice. No. It's not original. Circa early to mid 90s would be my guess and maybe even as late as early 2000s 1 6577 DIY, Home Maintenance & Repair to do it properly you need to dig out the garden and waterproof the outside of the wall. There are some products you can put on the face of the bricks but the water is… 2 4596 |