Brick and Block Construction
Brick and block construction refers to the use of bricks and concrete blocks as primary building materials. This construction method involves laying bricks or blocks in a specific pattern and bonding them together with mortar. It is a popular and durable construction technique used in residential, commercial, and industrial buildings.
5 Key excerpts on "Brick and Block Construction"
eBook - ePub- Alan Everett, C. M. H Barritt(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...6 Bricks and blocks BS 3921 Specification for clay bricks and blocks describes a brick as a walling unit designed to be laid in mortar and not more than 337.5 mm long, 225.0 mm wide and 112.5 mm high, as distinct from a block which is defined as a unit having one or more of these dimensions larger than those quoted. BS 6100 Glossary of building and civil engineering terms, Part 5, Section 5.3 defines terms relating to Bricks and blocks. BS 6677, Parts 1, 2 and 3 deal with Clay and calcium silicate pavers for flexible pavements. For economy, lengths of walls and piers should be multiples of format sizes, but if necessary, solid units can be cut, and the widths of joints can be varied. The main uses of bricks and blocks are as units laid in mortar to form walls and piers. The uses of exposed brickwork both externally and internally, for its appearance and low maintenance costs, and of brick paving — mainly externally — are increasing. Unlike in situ concrete, no support is needed to vertical surfaces during construction and also complex shapes can be built, particularly with bricks, which in concrete would require equally complex and costly form work. Relatively small units provide visual 'scale' and some bricks and blocks have attractive textures and colours. The appearance of walling is much affected by that of the mortar. Crudely shaped and unsympathetically coloured jointing or pointing can spoil the appearance of any units. Some bricks and blocks are suitable to be painted and others are good substrates for plaster and renderings. Bricks and blocks may vary in colour between batches and units and require to be selected and mixed on site to avoid local concentrations of colours in the finished work. BRED 280 deals with Cleaning external surfaces of buildings. The strength in compression of brickwork and blockwork can be very high, but, unless the work is reinforced, tensile strength is usually ignored in design...
eBook - ePub- Andrew J. Charlett, Craig Maybery-Thomas(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 7 Bricks and Blocks Introduction The basic components of construction for walls are bricks, blocks and stones. Because blocks are more porous than bricks and therefore not as weather resistant, and because stones tend to be more expensive than bricks for house wall construction in most parts of the United Kingdom, it is usual to select bricks for external wall construction and blocks for internal wall construction. Cavity walls generally have a brick external leaf and a block internal leaf. This chapter will consider the main materials used for brick manufacture and compare their physical characteristics. Similarly the main materials and types of block will also be considered along with their physical characteristics. Building stones will not be considered. Bricks Bricks are manufactured from three basic raw materials: clay calcium silicate concrete. There are a large number of brick manufacturers making a large number of different types of brick. These may be classified in a number of ways. Classification by use – common bricks have acceptable strength, water absorption, durability, thermal and moisture movement, thermal conductivity, and sound insulation performance characteristics, but they are cheaply produced and their appearance is poor. They can therefore be specified in locations where they will not be seen in the finished wall. Sometimes this may mean that the wall is constructed from common bricks and is then covered with an external and internal facing material such as render and plaster. Facing bricks, on the other hand, are more expensive to produce and their appearance is much better and they can therefore be used in positions where they will be seen. Their performance characteristics in all other respects are similar to those for common bricks. Engineering bricks, as the name suggests, are stronger than common or facing bricks and have lower moisture absorption characteristics...
eBook - ePubDesign-Tech
Building Science for Architects
- Thomas Leslie, Robert Whitehead(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Its history spans to the earliest structures built by humans and it has remained essentially the same for millennia. The variations of application and form are nearly endless, yet it has definite rules for how it can be effectively used. The best way to learn to deal with masonry is from the masons on job sites. Along with carpenters, masons are some of the most skilled craftspeople at a construction site. The time it takes to develop skill as a mason is lengthy and they go through an apprenticeship process as part of their training. The craft of building with masonry requires not only knowledge of the material's capabilities but also the ways it can fail. This requires the experience of people like masons, who have seen it perform over time. The other issue with masonry is its fundamental change in the past century from a structural material to cladding. This makes the appropriate use of brick challenging at times. It is certainly a durable building skin, but how should it be represented as a skin rather than structure? These are the types of decisions designers must struggle with while determining the appropriate expression of a material. The brick is a different master. How ingenious: a small, handy, usable format for every purpose. What logic there is in the bonding. What spiritedness in the joints. What wealth there is in even the simplest wall surface. But what discipline this material demands. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Frequently Asked Questions What does designing in brick/block module mean? Because bricks and blocks are typically modular materials they form wall lengths based on the dimensions of the units selected for construction. Therefore a standard brick wall will normally fall on 8″ or 225mm increments of length...
eBook - ePubBrickwork and Bricklaying
A DIY Guide
- Jon Collinson(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Crowood(Publisher)
...A block is defined by BS 2028 as a walling unit that exceeds the length, width or height of a brick. In other words, a block is any walling unit that is bigger in at least one dimension than a brick measuring 215mm × 102.5mm × 65mm. That said, the height of a block must not exceed its length or six times its thickness. Typically the dimensions of blocks are 450mm long × 215mm high × 100mm wide (although different widths are available for different purposes). The use of blocks has increased greatly since the late 1950s not only as a quick method of producing internal walls and partitions but also as a facing material in their own right. It is not uncommon to find neatly jointed, fair-faced blockwork as the finished wall surface inside a garage although the most common use is for the internal skins of cavity walls. Blocks have a number of advantages over bricks, the most obvious being that of productivity. By way of an example, laying one block with a ‘coordinating size’ (in other words, allowing for 10mm mortar joints) of 450mm × 225mm × 100mm is the equivalent of laying six bricks. Blocks are generally divided into two types based on their material composition. Fig. 36 Concrete blocks. Dense Concrete Blocks Dense concrete blocks are usually manufactured from cement, fine aggregate and coarse aggregate moulded under pressure, and are produced in a range of crushing strengths (measured in Newtons/mm 2) and widths up to 300mm (‘trench blocks’). Being dense (in the region of 2200kg to 2400kg/m 3), they have poor thermal insulation qualities, so they tend to get used for load-bearing partitions, structural walls, sub-structure work (below ground) and party walls. When used externally above ground, dense concrete blocks are usually rendered due to their tendency to absorb a lot of water...
eBook - ePub- Bryan J.B. Gauld(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 8 BRICK AND BLOCK WALL DESIGN There are a large variety of bricks and a smaller variety of blocks on the market. There are also a variety of mortars, which can be used to bond these bricks and blocks together. In general the bricks and blocks can be divided into: (a) Clay bricks (b) Calcium silicate bricks (c) Concrete bricks (d) Clay blocks (e) Dense concrete blocks (f) Aerated (lightweight) concrete blocks The variety of mortars are: (a) Cement sand mortar (b) Cement lime sand (c) Masonry cement and sand (d) Cement sand with plasticiser (e) Lime and sand To ascertain the strength of a wall, it is necessary to know what bricks, blocks and mortars are to be used. The choice of bricks and blocks is usually a visual decision rather than a strength requirement, and should be made at an early stage to enable the designer to carry out the masonry calculations. 8.1 Brick and block strength Figure 8.1 shows the relationship between the crushing strength of a variety of bricks, the mortar strength and the characteristic strength of masonry used to calculate the strength of walls. Larger units, such as blocks, are not included in this diagram for reasons connected with shape factor, as discussed later in this chapter. However, the diagram does include both concrete and clay products. The actual crushing strength is obtained from the manufacturer, and the strength of the mortar will depend upon the mix proportions of cement, lime and sand. From these strengths, the characteristic strength is obtained from either Tables 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3 or from references 8.1 and 8.2. Fig. 8.1 Guide to brick strengths (for detailed values see Tables 8.1 ’ 8.2 and 8.3) Crushing strength The manufacturers measure the compressive crushing strength on the gross area of the brick or block, regardless of whether the unit is solid or hollow. So the quoted stresses are not necessary related to the quality of the material used, but to the area of voids in the unit...
