Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Dec 29, 2019 7:47 pm Hi Guys, after our bricks has been cleaned, we noticed that the colour of the bricks were lighter than what we expected. We did a drive by to a house referred by Austral that uses the same type of bricks. Sure enough there was a difference in colour(ours is lighter). One thing I noticed is that the side of our bricks that faces the facade is rough while the smooth side(with just a bit of roughness) is facing the interior of the house. Judging by the look of it, the side facing the interior of the house looks like the right shade of what we are expecting it to be(darker). Appreciate any advice especially from those who have bricklaying experience. TIA Re: which side of the brick faces external facade? 2Dec 30, 2019 8:50 am Austral should provide you with their product specification/technical information for the bricks you have chosen. How they are to be laid. You can get variance in raw materials that would produce "slight" differences. Re: which side of the brick faces external facade? 3Dec 30, 2019 8:52 am I'm struggling with brick selection at the moment and it appears to me there is quite a bit of variation in different batches of Austral bricks. Also the ranges vary from state to state. In the Everyday Range it looks like they have swapped the names of a couple of the colours between the NSW and QLD websites (e.g. Leisure in the QLD brochure looks like Escape in the NSW brochure) What brick have you used? Some of the Character Renovation range in QLD are smooth on the outside face and wire cut (rough) on the inside as well as having more colour added to the face side. Some are wire cut on both sides, but the outside face is more consistent in texture than the inside. When both faces are wire cut the inside face usually has deeper scores and rougher bits than the face side. Re: which side of the brick faces external facade? 5Dec 31, 2019 6:01 pm Send some pictures over if possible, its hard to match a specific display but it shouldn't look completely different. Bricks are made in batches and they are mixed in when laying. There are some bricks that have a face side. Myles Registered Building - Always happy to help where I can and simply loves the game. DM me if you need help in VIC. Re: which side of the brick faces external facade? 6Jan 02, 2020 9:21 pm MClark Send some pictures over if possible, its hard to match a specific display but it shouldn't look completely different. Bricks are made in batches and they are mixed in when laying. There are some bricks that have a face side. Myles Hi All, Thanks for all your responses thus far. Our bricks is Freedom from Austral everyday life. Below is the actual photo and I think it's really hard to tell the difference between a photo and actual onsite. We see ours as lighter than expected. But again we noticed that the opposite side of the brick facing the interior is a bit darker and is a little bit smoother than the side facing out. I did some research and found one article saying the face or the one outside should be the smoother side of the brick. https://www.simonehomes.com.au/behind-face-bricks/ Our brick: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We're also waiting for Austral to resume business so we can also ask them. Would be great to hear from a bricklayer if there's anyone here. Thanks again Re: which side of the brick faces external facade? 7Jan 02, 2020 9:29 pm Varsity I'm struggling with brick selection at the moment and it appears to me there is quite a bit of variation in different batches of Austral bricks. Also the ranges vary from state to state. In the Everyday Range it looks like they have swapped the names of a couple of the colours between the NSW and QLD websites (e.g. Leisure in the QLD brochure looks like Escape in the NSW brochure) What brick have you used? Some of the Character Renovation range in QLD are smooth on the outside face and wire cut (rough) on the inside as well as having more colour added to the face side. Some are wire cut on both sides, but the outside face is more consistent in texture than the inside. When both faces are wire cut the inside face usually has deeper scores and rougher bits than the face side. Hi Varsity, Ours is freedom in Everyday life selection. What if the bricklayer had laid the bricks wrongly like the rougher side was faced outside? Will that be considered a defect? Thanks Re: which side of the brick faces external facade? 8Jan 02, 2020 9:56 pm Hi Superfly1130, I'm pretty sure that is the face side of the Everyday range, the inside is smoother but has more press marks, however the colour looks to me to be more like Unwind in the Qld brochure than Freedom. The NSW brochure has different colours by name and the Austral website seems to be unreliable in what highdef picture it serves up for either State. I agree the best thing to do at the moment is wait until next week and get a sample of Freedom in whichever state you are from Austral and compare actual bricks in natural light. I don't think they are laid incorrectly but I'd call using the wrong brick a defect. Re: which side of the brick faces external facade? 9Jan 04, 2020 5:42 pm Iām not a brick expert, but I would suggest that the end faces of the brick should be the same texture as the face (I.e. the bricked corners are the same texture on both long and short sides of the brick). It looks like that is the case from your photo. Second Time 'Round Re: which side of the brick faces external facade? 10Jan 08, 2020 12:11 pm Thanks for everyone's reply and help. We visited Austral here in NSW and was indeed confirmed that the brick was laid correctly. The only frustrating thing is that the Freedom brick that was supplied to us was from QLD as there is a high demand in NSW. If there's shortage, they will just pull supplies from other states. The shade of our bricks is between NSW Freedom and NSW Unwind. Unfortunately it's beyond our control and it's like them saying to us that we just have to deal with it. We really like the darker shade of Freedom NSW and that's what we have chosen during the colour selection. Has anyone encountered the same issue? Thanks. Re: which side of the brick faces external facade? 11Jan 08, 2020 1:54 pm SF, I ran up against colour variations in batches trying to decide on a brick for our build. We were considering the Qld Character Renovations St Louis brick, but when we went and looked at actual builds with that brick they all seemed to be different colours ranging from tans through browns and red. These two pics are of different houses we were told were both StLouis bricks. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ It doesn't show up well in the photos but to my eye the first one is quite red with minimal heavy colour splodges while the second is quite tan with lots of dark colour splodges. I think the differences are great enough to make it problematic preselecting complimentary garage, roof and gutter colours. Just to check up that I was indeed looking at the same brick I went back to the Austral yard and had a look at the packs of bricks in the yard and the next pic shows the different between two packs there. The front row from one pack is very brown compared to the more orange full pack behind. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ We eventually decided we couldn't live with the chance the random pack colouring supplied at build time would suite our taste as it would just be a gamble what actual colour the house ended up - more redish or brownish and colouring even or spotted dog look. The batch variations in the Everyday range don't seem as extreme, but I guess it will still be possible to end up with something somewhat lighter or darker than expected from the colour selections sample. Given different state brochures appear to show different sample colours by name, I don't know if it can be considered to fall within normal batch variation. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Freedom looks much the same however the rest of them seem very different to me. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re my second point ā yes exactly. 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