Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Solid brick - why don't they build them? 2Jun 09, 2008 2:18 pm Best Price Wardrobes Sliding door robes | Walk in robes Deco panel | Mirror | Melamine 26 to 28 Cottage lane Hackham M: 0402 927 376 http://www.bestpricewardrobes.com.au Trade welcome Re: Solid brick - why don't they build them? 9Jun 09, 2008 8:28 pm Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves. - Dale Carnegie Re: Solid brick - why don't they build them? 18Jun 10, 2008 12:48 am double brick has its good and bad points here in perth, for some unknown reason, the people who built our current home chose red rick with orange clay roof tiles....for a house the is slightly elevated and faces WEST!!!
lucky its only a rental, but still, summer is attrocious, house is red hot until 1am, bu on the other side, in winter, we have a gas convection heater and the house stays toasty for ages. anyhoo i digress, almost no-one builds anything but double brick house here, BUT, some boutique builders are trying the different options, ranging from reinforced concrete filled foam blocks that are rendered after completion to roofing and ceilings in one made from corrugated tin sandwiched over styrofoam. you can even get rammed earth ...if you are happy to pay an absolutely phenomenal price for it. most of the new estates over here specify that house must be of double brick etc blah blah blah, you have to get special permission to build anything else. for the same money here i can get about the same house in nsw, just timber framed, so i don't know how the cost factor comes into it (well not here anyway) Re: Solid brick - why don't they build them? 19Jun 10, 2008 8:40 am Mozzie One thing that someone mentioned though is the problem with brick absorbing heat and retaining it. In Melbourne, summer days can get up into the high 30's and low 40's quite often, but more often than not you get a cool change later that day or after a couple of hot days. In my old house which was brick veneer the characteristic was that it would absorb the heat slowly and the first day it would remain relatively cool. However after a couple of hot days the house would become almost the same temperature as outside and when the cool change came it would retain the heat. On a summer evening it would be 20 degrees outside and 35 in the house. It could take two or three days of cool weather to cool back down. This made summer unbearable without aircon. The problem was the bricks - you could feel the heat coming from them during the night - put your hand on a brick and it was still 30 odd degrees in 20 degree weather. I can't imagine double brick being an improvement - in fact it would be worse. I think what’s needed is smarter design such as better insulation, ceiling features designed to let out heat, double glazed windows and so on. Like cabin fever mentioned European houses are far superior in this way - however I disagree that double brick or old fashion construction is the answer to having an energy efficient house. A friend of mine is currently building an eco freindly house and he is using hebel along with gas filled double glazed windows. Even the edges of the slab are insulated so it will be interesting to see how effective it is. Mozie, You are spot on. Full brick houses take a long time to change temperature. So for a long series of hot days the house temperature starts to creep up, so that eventually the inside of the house is hot at night. In the end you must choose. Do you want a house that fairly quickly follows the outside temperature (brick veneer) or one that fairly slowly follows the outside temperature? With a full brick house it tends to reduce the extremes, so that for a single hot day the day temperature is significantly lower than outside and for night it is significantly warmer than outside. If you had an enormous thermal mass, then the temperature inside would be the average of the full day's temperature. That is, a constant 28 degrees if the day was as hot as 38 degrees and the night got down to 18 degrees. So you have to choose. I've gone for full brick since I prefer the temperature smoothing effect. Once you have high thermal mass (and high insulation) you can add other things to make things even better: 1) In summer, make sure you ventilate the house at night (and keep the doors closed during the day). This will move the average temperature down. 2) In winter, makes sure the sun enters the house during the day and draw the curtains at night. This will move the average temperature up. If you want an energy efficiency house you need several things and high thermal mass is one of them (the others are insulation, selective shading, zoning, etc). Cheers, Casa Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Solid brick - why don't they build them? 20Jun 10, 2008 8:47 am I lived in Broken Hill for 4 years.
Most houses where Iron clad because it was so hot up there Only the people that could afford to run refrig air condintioner all day where the ones that built in double brick Best Price Wardrobes Sliding door robes | Walk in robes Deco panel | Mirror | Melamine 26 to 28 Cottage lane Hackham M: 0402 927 376 http://www.bestpricewardrobes.com.au Trade welcome Engineering timber is certainly a less fuss option, times cheaper to supply and install and better withstands humidity. 1 16378 If this is a custom build then I would expect the builder to set out the door frame closer to the wall to avoid the gap between architrave and the wall and or specify… 9 8597 I haven’t. But have a Lowe Design home. Not only did I find Matt Lowe patronising and a bully, but the home is NOT TO CODE. I have water coming through the bricks… 1 15423 |