Pebbles progress ...living and loving

Woodsey - in WA they build houses the way we USED to build good quality houses in Victoria. Suburbs like Camberwell, Mont Albert, Hawthorn have heaps of old double red brick houses. Very solid, stay very cool in summer.
Over here we build brick veneer because it is cheap, fast, and we don't get the long heat waves that they do in Perth (ie. 30 days in a row over 30 degrees!).

Were your kids excited or not? Mine just wouldn't care....they wont be interested until they get to move in!
Bricks and a wall....looking good!




Our house is dbl brick and I cant say that it stays that cool. It does stay cool until maybe 12ish then its stinking hot for the rest of the day and most of the night.
"Double brick walls heat up slowly and stay warm for long periods. This is an advantage during short periods of hot weather, but can make your home uncomfortable over extended hot spells. Brick veneer walls consist of a single external layer of brickwork, with a lined stud frame inside. These walls have less thermal mass than double brick walls and therefore respond more quickly to temperature changes. Homes with brick veneer walls are better at cooling down during extended periods of hot weather - making conditions more comfortable at night during summer. Brick veneer walls are also easier to insulate". ( from a WA website)

From my time in WA our summers are long and hot, which to me means that dbl brick are not really an advantage. I would prefer a house that actually cools down at night rather than one that stays stinking hot all night.
This is just my opinion and may not be the views of anyone else.

We lived in a double brick Edwardian house for 15 years. ! Hate them ! Never again !
1. Cold in winter - hard to keep warm with gas heating.
2. Hot in summer - heat would be especially horrible at night when it would radiate inwards.
We have lived in brick veneer for 6 years - perfect for out climate. Though reverse would be far better ie cladding on the outside & bricks inside. Quick to heat up & quick to cool down after a hot day.

Yes it's double brick for which you would probably pay a premium for over in Vic. As others have said here in WA a lot of builders build with that method so in some cases it would cost extra to say do a steel framed brick / veneer or clad home.

Bricks do indeed take a lot longer to heat up and cool down, particularly double brick where you heat the outside bricks then there is an air gap and then the inside bricks have to be heated up before it goes through to the house, same goes for temp inside to outside. We also lived in an old double brick house for some time and I found it was very cool inside during the summer and reasonably warm during the winter. We lived in a brick / veneer home (ie brick on the outside, veneer inside) in Townsville and on a 43deg day they had you could just feel the heat throbbing from the walls. The bedrooms being on the West side would get the afternoon sun and so it was hotter during the night - these sort of properties would be very desirable in a cold climate! But then again we also lived in a brick unit and townhouse in Darwin which was comfortable enough (sans aircon - but yeah pretty humid). So it must depend on the temperature intensity and duration.

It will be interesting to compare the insulation etc of double brick with having spend a winter and some of the summer in an Corrugated Iron shed. But in the case of brick I think people sometimes forget that you can open all the windows to help cool the house temp down after a hot day - the whole cross flow ventillation idea considering we don't have the high ceilings of the old days.
I think the whole advantage is the fact that the temperature will be more constant rather than hot / cold all the time. But in some climates the cooling / heating of a house quickly can be and advantage or to some peoples liking.

At his stage I'm not sure what differentiates a "load bearing column" but the brickies said they will be putting an extra one in, probably due to all the windows they have.

The bricks we chose are twice that of a standard brick size - again no extra cost providing we stay within the builders range. We chose the cream colour, the red bricks on the inside are known as a "maxi" brick, basically just ordinary bricks that cost less than the "face bricks" on the outside, and like others have said they will be plastered anyway so you don't see them. If we wanted to leave the bricks bare and have face brick on the inside too obviously it's possible but it would have cost a lot more as well.

Gee, I've rambled on a bit there hey! Anyway brickies are here today, albeit it is raining off and on!

Pebble your bricks are looking really lovely - just like the ones we are considering.

Seems to be going so quickly compared to others - but am sure that it feels like an eternity to you.

They weren't here yesterday as they started another job, which is a shame because there wasn't a drop of rain yesterday wheas it was off & on today - which must be a pain for them. They sit & hide in the cement shed!

Yes it's going up rather quickly but I thought they would do a bit more in a day. However I would have quality over quantity any day, so it seems to be going well as far as I'm concerned. Just hope the rain holds off for a week or so!

It's looking great Pebble. I bet you can't wait for all the internal walls so you can get even more of a feel for the place. lovely to see your outlook from each room now the windows are in.

Another day and we have a laundry / bathroom internal walls. here is an overall up to date pic...

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It is looking great, love those trees. Wont be long and all the walls will be up.

Looks like the weather is going to be great all next week..... perfect for brick-layers

Thats coming along real fast Pebble and looking good.
Youve got no shortage of windows

Do you know if your brickies come from Balingup way?