Brick is reliable and durable. This material looks attractive and presentable. But brick walls have one significant drawback: thermal conductivity. Even relatively warm ceramic material conducts heat well and does not adequately protect the building from the cold. In our climate, it will be necessary to erect walls 64–90 cm thick in order to provide sufficient thermal resistance. A more rational option would be to manufacture the exterior walls of the building from other materials with insulation and cladding. How to clad a house with a facing brick? It is not difficult if you know the technology and the nuances of work.
The house, lined with bricks, looks thorough and presentable, it is protected from the wind and other unpleasant weather events. This type of finish is used both for houses made of light concrete and wooden.
How to choose a facing brick for the house
Before you brick a house, you should carefully choose the material. It is important to choose the cladding not only by cost, but also by technical characteristics and properties.
Most often, ceramic brick is used in construction. This material has quite good (compared to other types) thermal insulation performance. The disadvantage in this case will be high hygroscopicity. Technology implies the use of both ordinary ordinary material and special facial material.
In the first case, it is highly recommended to perform the processing of the outer surface after laying with a hydrophobic composition. Front brick does not need such processing. The composition for processing is selected with sufficient vapor permeability. This is especially important when bricking a wooden house. It is required that the impregnation does not form a film on the surface that impedes the permeability of the walls to air and steam. Which brick to choose for frost resistance? The brand should not be lower than F35 by the standards, and not lower than F50 according to the recommendations of the builders.
Another popular option is silicate material. It costs the least, but does not differ in durability. Facing a house with a brick of this type conducts heat well and absorbs moisture. More often than not, silicate is heavier than ceramic. This option is not recommended when finishing a timber house (we also include a frame house and a log house here).
For brick decoration with your own hands, you can use clinker material. It is specially designed for cladding at home, therefore it has low moisture permeability and high strength. Clinker finish looks attractive, but this pleasure is not cheap: prices are on average 50-150% higher.
How to brick a wooden house
Brick and wood have too different characteristics, so in the process of work certain difficulties may arise. Facing a wooden house with brick must necessarily include adequate ventilation of the main part of the wall. Otherwise, the wood will begin to rot or mold.
Before you overlay a house with a facing brick, you should carefully study the wall cake. The three-layer walls with brick cladding in this case will include:
- wooden bearing part;
- vapor barrier;
- insulation;
- waterproofing and wind protection;
- ventilation gap min. 50-60 mm;
- brick lining.
It is important not to confuse vapor barrier and waterproofing. The latter should be permeable to steam so that it freely leaves the insulation and brick into the ventilation gap. It is recommended to use modern vapor diffusion windproof membranes.
To ensure the free movement of air, facing a wooden house with a brick, it is necessary to provide vents in the lower part and outlet openings in the upper part. It is recommended to use mineral wool as thermal insulation. It is characterized by low cost, ease of installation and good air permeability.
Before you properly brick a wooden house, you must wait a while for the walls to shrink. This process can take a couple of years, so it will be easiest to overlay the old house.
Pros and cons
In construction, it is very difficult to combine materials of different properties. In this case, nuances and negative aspects always appear. Brick facade decoration for a wooden structure has three drawbacks:
- reduced ventilation, the probability of moisture accumulation in the insulation;
- different shrinkage of parts of the wall, which does not allow rigidly bonding the cladding and the main wall;
- the high mass of bricks compared to wood (more than 3 times) makes it necessary to build more powerful and expensive foundations.
In general, we can say that it is better to finish the old house with brick. In new construction it is recommended to consider other more economical and effective options.
But technology has its advantages:
- improvement of thermal performance (especially when using ceramics);
- fire hazard reduction;
- reliable and durable protection of the tree from negative atmospheric phenomena.
Technology
Facing the facade of the house with a brick is performed after processing the wood with an antiseptic. Composition for impregnation should choose a special one - for outdoor work. It will protect the wall from mold, fungus and other dangerous microorganisms. Further, a vapor barrier is attached to the wall on the construction stapler. Installation is carried out with an overlap of at least 10 cm.
Facing the facade with a brick begins with the installation of the lathing. The dimensions of the bars of the frame depend on the required thickness of the insulation. The thickness of the insulation can be selected approximately based on the recommendations of neighbors or the Internet, but it is better to use a special calculation. With the help of a fairly simple program "Teremok" even a layman can make a heat engineering calculation. You need to know only the thickness of the wooden wall and its thermal conductivity, as well as the thermal conductivity of the selected insulation. Brick (and all layers after the ventilation gap) are not taken into account in the calculation.
The frame bar is attached to the walls with self-tapping screws or nails. Next, the house needs to be sheathed with insulation. Mineral wool fits tightly between the crate. For this, the distance between the bars should be 2-3 cm less than the width of the insulation.
On top of the insulation, waterproofing and wind protection are fixed. Mounting is carried out on a construction stapler. After such preparation, they proceed directly to bricking the house.
The thickness of a brick verst is usually 120 mm. This is not enough to ensure stability, so the wall must be connected with the main part of the external structure.
There are two methods to do this:
- fixing the reinforcing mesh to the wall and putting it into the facing layer half the width (such a mesh is installed over the entire width of the wall with a certain vertical step);
- separate special bindings, which are nailed to the wall and put into masonry.
The installation technology of decoration is also relevant for frame buildings. The only difference is that the bonds between the wall and the external materials are attached to the racks of the frame. In all cases it is necessary to revetment taking into account a ventilation gap.
Reinforcement
To brick a building, it is recommended that reinforcement be provided. To increase strength and stiffness, a mesh of wire with a diameter of 3-4 mm and mesh 50x50mm is used. The mesh is laid in seams between horizontal rows. The frequency depends on the brick:
- lining the building with a single brick (65 mm high) - every 5 rows;
- one and a half (88 mm high) - every 4 rows.
The dimensions of the joints with and without reinforcement should be the same. For control, the mesh is, on the one hand, slightly taken out of the masonry. This option increases reliability, but increases the cost and complexity of the work.
How to clad a house of light concrete
In this case, a revetted house can be built of aerated concrete, gas silicate, foam concrete, cinder blocks, expanded clay concrete. A house made of cladding brick lets air through worse than the listed materials. For this reason, just as in the previous case, it is necessary to provide for a ventilation gap.
The installation method is very similar to a wooden house. The only difference is that you can use rigid connections between the wall and the cladding. The minimum number of links is 3 pcs. on 1 sq.m. Communication is not allowed to be laid in the seams of the main wall, they are nailed to the surface.
When erecting a building from fragile cinder blocks, it is recommended to erect a frame that will take the load from the ceilings and other structures of the building. In this case, the walls will be self-supporting. Decorating the house with a facing brick is attached to the cinder block very carefully.
A bricked home is beautiful and reliable. But when carrying out work, certain recommendations must be followed.