Recently, in the construction of private houses, preference is increasingly given to houses built of brick.

Types of bricks differ in composition and degree of filling.

And, of course, when purchasing building materials, many people have a question: is it better to choose a solid or hollow brick for building a house? Let's analyze these two options in more detail.

Ordinary solid brick

It is generally used for building ground floors, foundations, pillars, basements, construction of outdoor and internal walls and other structures. It is also quite often used in the construction of furnaces, chimneys, fireplaces. Ordinary corrugated bricks are used to build walls and partitions, which will be plastered further.

Solid brick must have high compressive strength and be frost-resistant. It is sometimes produced with technical voids. This is done in order to reduce the internal stress during its firing. It is made without voids and with low porosity, so it has such characteristics as low moisture absorption (about 8%) and high thermal conductivity. If the outer walls of the house are made of this building material, it will be necessary to make additional insulation.

Ordinary solid brick varies in size:

• single;
• one and a half;
• double;
• restoration;
• quadruple;
• euro size etc.

Ordinary hollow brick

Hollow brick is used for the construction of internal and external walls of buildings and structures. It cannot be used for the construction of basements, basements and foundations. This is explained by the fact that if water gets into its voids and into the cold winter time freezes, this will most likely lead to the destruction or deformation of the structure. Hollow brick differs in the shape of its holes:

• oval hole;
• rectangular;
• round;
• square.

oval and round shapes holes reduce the chance that cracks will form during the manufacturing process. The production of this building material requires less raw materials than the above sample (by 13%). Due to the dry air, which is closed in the volumes of the holes, the thermal insulation increases this material. When using a hollow brick, you need to remember that the masonry mortar must be so thick that it does not fill the voids.

Even at the production stage in order to improve thermal characteristics of this material it is made more porous. This is achieved by adding coal, sawdust, peat and straw to the clay. These materials burn out during firing and form voids, making perforated bricks. Builders also call them "light".

Today, hollow bricks are more often used in construction. This is due to his better operational characteristics, lower cost and less load on the foundation. Walls built using this material can be twice as thin and still maintain the same thickness. high level heat and sound insulation. The optimal ratio of voids is a proportion of 1 to 1, that is, to be about 50%.

Click on photo to enlarge.

Brick is an excellent building material, it is reliable, tested by generations.

Two types of bricks are popular: ceramic (fired clay) and silicate (pressure-treated mixture of sand 90% and lime 10% with some additives). It is recommended to use only ceramic brick (red), and not silicate, which holds heat worse and absorbs moisture well.

Brick is corpulent and hollow. There are voids in the hollow one, so such a brick is warmer and lighter, although its strength is lower than that of a solid one. With a hollow brick, a bricklayer should work carefully: mortar should not get inside the holes.

Dimensions of the "classic" brick:

• single - 250x120x65 mm
• one and a half - 250x120x88 mm
• double - 250x120x140 mm (rare, height greater than width)

Party names ordinary brick: bed, spoon, poke (as the side area decreases).

The brick has an indicator of the number of seasonal cycles, which is also called frost resistance. A test piece of brick is placed on long time into water, then frozen and thawed until it begins to break down. Frost resistance is designated Fxx, where xx is the number of cycles. Frost resistance can be different - 25, 50, 70. If a brick has F25, then this does not mean at all that it will last only 25 years or 25 temperature changes. The indicator is checked on a sample that has absorbed water well, and water, as you know, when freezing, expands and breaks the material in which it is located from the inside. In real conditions, the brick will last longer, because. absorbs moisture from the outside slightly. And if the outer brick wall is also plastered or lined with something, then the brick will last even longer. In any case, of course, the more frost resistance the better.

The brick has an indicator water absorption the smaller it is, the better the stone is, of course: it will be warmer and last longer.

The next important indicator is strength. It is denoted by M and then a number indicating strength. For example: M75, M100, M125, etc. This number indicates the maximum load in kilograms per 1 square centimeter that the brick can withstand. Let's say at the brick standard size 250x120x65 mm strength index M100. This means that one such brick laid on the bed can support the load: 25 cm * 12 cm * 100 kg = 30,000 kg, i.e. 30 tons. Agree, a lot. That is why many brick "Khrushchev" buildings built in the 60s under the Soviet regime still feel good. The higher the strength index (they also say the “brand” of the brick), the stronger the brick. It is worth assuming that a brick with greater strength will last longer.

Brick is well suited for laying interior walls (partitions). It has sufficient sound insulation - with a thickness of only half a brick (i.e. 12 cm), almost nothing is heard.

Silicate brick cannot be used for laying plinths (clause 7.3 of SNiP 3.03.01-87 "Bearing and enclosing structures"). He can't handle it well high humidity and collapses at high acidity, and the soil has an acidic environment. If you need a brick base, then a ceramic solid brick is used.

Additional advice when buying a brick.

• Buy bricks only from well-known firms, and it is better directly at the factory.
• Ask the seller for a product passport, certificates (although a brick is not required for certification), find out if it is made according to GOST or TU.
• There is no need to hurry with the purchase, the brick should be chosen without fuss; if necessary, bricks can be brought from another region, even if the factory is 400 km away. A house is built for life.
• Check the purchased batch of bricks with a dosimeter.

In general, ceramic brick is one of the most durable eco-friendly building materials. Brick is an excellent sound insulator. The thermal insulation properties of ceramic bricks are also not bad, however, according to modern standards"Ordinary" brick does not cope well with thermal protection.

Now a new kind of brick has appeared, this is the so-called warm ceramics (thermal brick) or porous large-format ceramic block (KKB).

Table of contents:

• Varieties hollow brick
• Required Tools
• Construction of the outer walls of the house from hollow bricks
• Interior walls of houses

Before starting the construction of private houses or country house, after the project is completed, the building material is chosen from which the load-bearing walls of the house, the partitions of the building will be made. The house can be built from modern new materials (foam blocks, gas blocks) or from traditional ones (brick, cinder block, timber). This choice determines how much the house will cost in terms of finances, as well as how reliable, durable and durable the house will be. Each building material has features of application, advantages and disadvantages. But the choice of brick as the main building material is explained not only by its cost, but also by the ease of masonry, strength and thermal insulation characteristics.

Manufacturers offer enough big choice types of bricks. The main thing is to decide whether to choose a solid or hollow brick for building houses. The use of hollow bricks is slightly more profitable than solid bricks. This is due to the fact that when building walls from hollow bricks in a house, the load on the foundation of the house will be less than when building from solid bricks. Therefore, the foundation in the house can be made more lightweight, the walls will not lose their thermal characteristics, and the house will be reliable.

Varieties of hollow brick

Technologically, the production of solid and hollow bricks is no different, except that in order to obtain one hollow product, quantitatively less starting material is needed than to produce a solid one. In addition, to obtain pores in the material (during production), sawdust, peat, and coal can be added to the clay mixture. Most importantly, they must be crushed. Then, during firing in a furnace, these additives burn out, thereby forming additional voids in the body of the product, the shape and direction of which are unpredictable.

So, for example, they can turn out to be oval, longitudinal, rectangular, and so on. This use of additives allows the manufacturer to spend less expensive raw materials for the production of hollow material, therefore, reduces the cost finished product for the consumer.

A hollow element can be divided according to such criteria as:

1. Type of voids. In addition to the fact that the voids themselves can be round and rectangular, their location is distinguished: horizontal and vertical. At the same time, a wall lined with bricks with a horizontal direction of voids is able to withstand smaller loads. This element is used for frame construction houses (partitions).
2. Appointment. Manufacturers offer hollow material that can be used for cladding houses. They lay out figured fence posts around the house, for example. If a textured pattern is applied on one of the sides of the product, then it is used for decorative purposes. A material that has beveled corners or rounded edges is applicable for the construction of figured columns of houses, arches in a house.
3. Roasting method. For final firing, a tunnel or ring kiln can be installed in the production.
4. Material type. It depends on the source material which brick will be the result of production: ceramic or silicate. Ceramic will have good thermal insulation, due to the use of clay as the main material.

In addition, according to its characteristics, a hollow element can conditionally be divided into:

1. thermal efficiency. This is due design features hollow material, namely the presence of voids. Due to them, a decrease in thermal conductivity occurs, which ensures warm temperature in the house during the cold season and lowering it during the warm season. At the same time, the thickness of the walls of houses is reduced by 2 times compared with the thickness of the walls of solid.
2. Degrees of porosity. If the brick is a porous structure, then its heat-insulating characteristics increase, which means that the house will be warm, and its sound absorption also increases.
3. firing temperature. If the production used a high temperature during firing and special clay, then the resulting hollow brick has increased frost resistance and low water absorption characteristics, due to the fact that the brick structure does not contain extra inclusions.

This allows you to use such a brick not only for facing the walls of houses, but also as paving slabs. In addition, a brick is produced that can withstand heating up to 900 degrees. This specific hollow brick is not suitable for building the walls of houses and is used for the construction of smelting industrial furnaces.

Back to index

Required Tools

Nevertheless, the main purpose of brick in construction is the erection of walls of houses, both external and internal.

To build the walls of the house you will need:

• concrete mixer or container for manual preparation of mortar,
• hammer or construction pick,
• Master OK,
• sewing tool,
• metal mesh with small cells,
• cord,
• building levels (water and normal),
• construction plumb line, which is suitable for a cord with a load.

Brick is a strong and durable material. A wall 25 cm thick (in one brick) is capable of carrying any uniformly distributed load that occurs in one, two-storey houses from upstream structures, including reinforced concrete floors. The service life of brick walls with reliable foundations and properly executed masonry is practically unlimited.

At the same time, a brick, especially a full-bodied one, having high strength, in terms of its heat-shielding qualities, is inferior to many others wall materials. For example, at an estimated outdoor temperature of -30 ° C (most regions of the central part of Russia), the outer walls of solid masonry made of solid bricks should have a thickness of 64 cm (2.5 bricks). At the same time, the thickness of wooden block walls can be only 16-18 cm.

In order to reduce the consumption of bricks, reduce the mass of walls and the load on the foundations, the outer walls should be laid out either from hollow or solid bricks, laying with the formation of voids, wells, widened joints, and also apply effective heaters, warm masonry and plaster mortars. The use of solid masonry of solid bricks with a thickness of more than 38 cm (1.5 bricks) is not economically feasible. When filling air cavities with mineral felt (bituminized mineral wool), the thermal efficiency of a brick wall increases by 30-40%, and when using foam plastic - by 200%. The use of warm masonry mortars (based on small aggregates from slag, expanded clay, tuff, tripoli, perlite, sawdust, etc.) also increases the heat-shielding qualities of walls by 10-15%.

Types of masonry brick walls

A common and economical design of external brick walls is the so-called well masonry, in which the wall is laid out from two independent walls half a brick thick, interconnected by vertical and horizontal brick bridges to form closed wells. The wells along the masonry are filled with insulation: slag, expanded clay, lightweight concrete. Well masonry protects the insulation well from external influences, although it somewhat weakens the structural strength of the wall.

At solid masonry economical solution is also the device of brick walls with their insulation from the outside or from the inside of the premises. In this case, the thickness of the brick wall can be taken as a minimum based only on the strength requirements, i.e. in all climatic regions, it can be equal to 25 cm. Thermal protection with this decision, the thickness and quality of the insulation is ensured.

When the insulating layer is located from the inside, it is protected from water vapor by a vapor barrier, when located outside, it is protected from atmospheric influences by a screen or plaster. When using a hollow (multi-hole) brick, all of the above options for the construction of external walls are possible, including solid. masonry without insulation, in which the wall thickness will be approximately 0.5 bricks less than when laying solid bricks.

brick walls have a large thermal inertia: they slowly warm up and also slowly cool down, and the inertia is the greater, the thicker the wall, the greater its mass. IN brick houses the temperature inside the premises has slight daily fluctuations, and this is the advantage of brick walls. At the same time, in houses of periodic residence (dachas, garden houses) this property of brick walls is not always desirable, especially in the cold season. A large mass of cooled walls requires a significant fuel consumption each time for its heating, and sharp changes in temperature inside the premises lead to moisture condensation on the inner surfaces of brick walls. In such houses, it is better to sheathe the walls from the inside with boards.

Types of brick

Almost all types of bricks produced by industry are suitable for laying walls of low-rise buildings.
Red (clay) ordinary and hollow bricks of plastic pressing are used without restriction. The same semi-dry pressing brick and silicate brick cannot be used without additional protection in the outer walls of bathrooms, showers and laundry rooms. Internal load-bearing walls are usually laid out from solid (clay or silicate) bricks of any brand produced by the industry. Minimum internal thickness bearing walls 25 cm, section of pillars not less than 38x38 cm, piers not less than 25x51 cm.

Under heavy loads, the bearing pillars and piers are reinforced with a metal mesh made of wire with a diameter of 3-6 mm through 3-5 rows of masonry in height. Partitions are laid out with a thickness of 12 cm (half-brick) and 6.5 cm (brick "on edge"). With a length of partitions laid out “on edge”, more than 1.5 m, they are also reinforced with wire through 2-3 rows of masonry in height. For facade cladding, it is best to use facing ceramic bricks. By appearance, texture and tolerances in size, it is the highest quality.

Bricklaying

Brick walls are laid on cement-sand, cement-lime or cement-clay mortar. Cement-sand mortar with almost any brand of cement turns out to be unnecessarily strong and rigid, therefore it is better if lime or clay dough is added to its composition. The solution from such an additive will become more plastic and workable, and the consumption of cement will decrease by 1.5-2 times. The brand of mortar for load-bearing walls and pillars, as well as for plastering facades - 25, for load-bearing walls and partitions - 10.

lime dough, used as an additive to a cement-sand mortar, is prepared from slaked lime. If available quicklime in the form of separate pieces (boiling) or powder (fluff), it must be extinguished with water in a creative pit lined with boards and kept in this state for at least two weeks. The longer the exposure time, the better, as the homogeneity of the composition and the strength of the lime paste increase.

clay dough used for masonry mortars, it is also advisable to prepare in advance. To do this, pieces of clay are soaked in water and kept until completely soaked (3-5 days). Then water is added, mixed and the mixture is filtered, after settling, excess water is drained and the dough is used. The shelf life of clay dough is unlimited.

Solution for brickwork prepare immediately before starting work and use it for 1.5-2 hours.

The thickness of the vertical seams is taken on average equal to 10 mm. Horizontal seams when using a solution with plasticizing additives (lime or clay) are also laid out with a thickness of 10 mm, without additives - 12 mm. The maximum thickness of the seams is 15, the minimum is 8 mm.

The laying of the outer walls begins from the corners of the building, on each of which beacons are made 6-8 rows of bricks in the form of inclined shtrabs. Then between them, with an indent from the vertical plane of the wall by 3-4 mm, at the level of the top of the bricks being laid, a mooring cord is pulled. Bricklaying always starts from the outside. For strength, rows of brickwork are led with dressing of vertical longitudinal and transverse seams, using not only the whole brick, but also its parts: 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4. If a brick wall is plastered on both sides, you should strive to bandage the seams in each row. When laying walls with jointing of external seams, the dressing of the front bricks obeys the accepted brickwork pattern, however, in this case, it is also necessary that the facing row of bricks be tied with the wall at least every 5 rows.

The figure shows solid masonry external walls with a thickness of 25, 38 and 51 cm with a system of complete dressing of vertical seams both in each row and after 3 or 5 rows.

When alternating only the first and second rows, a single-row dressing of the seams is obtained, but if, after the second row, the third is laid, again the second, then the first, etc. (shown in axonometry), then a three-row dressing will be obtained. With a double alternation of the second and third rows, the complete dressing of the vertical seams will occur after five rows.

The strength of brickwork made with bandaging of vertical joints in each row or after 3-5 rows is almost the same. It increases significantly if, regardless of the masonry system, in horizontal joints, after 3-5 rows, lay a reinforcing mesh with cells 6-18 cm wide from wire with a diameter of 3-6 mm.
Non-load-bearing lintels above window and doorways with their length up to 1.5 m, they can be ordinary, i.e., made on the spot, along the course of masonry, by arranging a reinforced belt made of high-strength cement-sand mortar layer thickness of 3-5 cm, laid on wooden formwork. An ordinary jumper can be reinforced by laying additional reinforcement in 2-3 lower rows of masonry made of wire with a diameter of 4-6 mm with the introduction of its bent ends into the masonry by 1-1.5 bricks in each direction from the opening.

Bar prefabricated reinforced concrete lintels with a thickness (height) of 7-14 cm can cover spans up to 1.8-2.3 m long, respectively. If floor beams are supported on such a lintel, then with inside walls, its height should be 22–29 cm. window openings two, in the door - three on each side of the opening.

Walls with an air gap suit when using both full-bodied and effective bricks. With this type of masonry, the front (spoon) rows are tied with the main wall after 4-6 rows with bonded rows of bricks or metal ties. From the outside, such walls, in order to avoid blowing through, are usually plastered or laid out with jointing under strict quality control of work.

1. air gaps
2. metal ties
3. outer verst of bonded bricks

Metal ties (wire anchors with a diameter of 4-6 mm) protect against corrosion by bitumen, cement mortar or epoxy resin. The thermal efficiency of such walls increases significantly if the air gap is filled with warm mortar, mineral wool or foam.
Styrofoam is especially effective. When using it, the total thickness outer wall can be reduced to 29 cm (12 + 5 + 12), and such a wall in terms of heat-shielding qualities is equivalent to a solid brickwork of solid brick with a thickness of 64 cm.

Brick walls with internal or external insulation simplify the process of bricklaying and allow you to work on their insulation in the second turn. When insulating the stack from the inside, you can use fibrolite, wood concrete, sawdust concrete, soft fiber boards, as well as thermal insulation blocks made of lightweight concrete. Slabs of organic materials are installed along the beacons on the offset, inorganic heaters are attached to the wall directly on the mortar or inorganic adhesives.
For outdoor insulation, it is best to use mineral wool or foam.

1. insulation
2. air layer
3. mortar beacons
4. boarding

The wall of the well masonry consists of two longitudinal walls half a brick thick, located one from the other at a distance of 14-27 cm and connected to each other through 65-120 cm by vertical transverse walls.
The wells between the longitudinal and transverse walls are filled with insulation in layers of 10-15 cm thick with layer-by-layer tamping. To prevent shrinkage, heaters after 30-60 cm in height arrange horizontal diaphragms made of reinforced cement-sand mortar or bonded rows of bricks.

Well masonry is used in cases where there is a sufficient amount of relatively light and low heat-conducting material for filling. inner space walls: slag, expanded clay, crushed stone or light sand rocks, sawdust etc. Mineral materials (non-biodegradable) can be used in the form of dry backfill, organic - necessarily in the form of lightweight concrete based on inorganic binders: cement, lime, gypsum or clay.

Hollow brick laying, practically indistinguishable from masonry solid bricks There are just a few nuances to be aware of. To begin with, it is worth saying that a hollow brick has a volume of voids throughout its volume of at least 13%. Hollow ceramic brick used in the construction of both external walls and internal partitions, and is also used when carrying out facing works on finishing facades of buildings.

Related articles:

Hollow brick masonry

If masonry hollow brick carried out on a newly built foundation (of course, after a set of design strength), then it is necessary to separate the foundation from future walls, for this it is necessary to perform waterproofing of the foundation. Choice waterproofing materials there is enough in stores, but you can also use bitumen and rolled roofing material in two layers, or combine these two materials in layers. As a rule, in order to separate the foundation from the walls, waterproofing is laid out in an even layer around the entire perimeter of the foundation. To level the base and improve adhesion to the base, for laying the first row of hollow bricks, a mortar is laid out on the waterproofing and leveled with a trowel.

Hollow brick laying

The laying of hollow bricks always starts from the corners, for laying which only whole hollow bricks should be used. In order to ensure the setting of the mortar used for masonry, it is recommended to wet the bricks in water, because if the water from the mortar passes into the bricks before the mortar begins to set, then the reliability of such masonry can be doubted. After the first few bricks are laid out at the corners, it is necessary to check their correct leveling and, if necessary, correct it.

An important point regarding the laying of brick walls is that it is initially necessary to lay out exactly the corners, 3-4 rows of hollow bricks, the laying of which should be alternate. After laying each row of bricks, it is necessary to use building level, to check the horizontal and vertical level of the brickwork of hollow bricks. Between the erected corners, a rope is pulled, focusing on which the rest of the bricks of the entire row are laid out. cement mortar applied immediately to the entire row, when bricks are laid on the mortar, they must be installed on the mortar and pressed against it. In order for the seams between the bricks (both horizontal and vertical) to be beautiful and the same everywhere, special spacers are used.

There are also different types hollow bricks, for example, which have special cutouts on the sides, which provides a more reliable and simplified laying of hollow ceramic bricks.