Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Red clay masonry works

Building work consist of numbers of major work component. Four(4)  major components of building work are Structure work, Architectural Work, Mechanical Work and Electrical Work.

In this article we will discuss on building the building wall which is another small component of work which fall under Architectural work. Building Wall can be describe as External wall and Internal wall. Both of this wall can be build using various building material. Among the material used is Red clay brick. Building wall that was constructed with Red Clay brick, commonly known as common brick is a type of wall that being design not to carry any loading apart of its own weight.

What is common brick? Definition of common brick is " acceptable burned clay brick for the purpose of general usage of brickwork with no special claim for attractive value". Walls built with common brick required rendering or plastering for a fine finishing prior to any painting work or introducing of wall paper. Wall that required tiling as it finish surface usually required plastering to ensure that the built wall have a flushing surface in order to properly fixed the tiles.

*Standard size for masonry or Red clay Brick according to BS: 3921: 1985 or MS 7.6 : 1972 are as follows;
Length = 215 + 3 mm
Width  = 102.5 + 1.875 mm
Height = 65 + 1.875 mm
(* quoted from http://www.claybricks.com/more_info/brick-specifications.html )



In building a brick wall for any building we often heard of this terminology.
1. Half brick thick wall
2. One brick thick wall
3. One and a half brick thick wall.

All of those terminology is base on the measurement or the length of a standard brick. 
- Half brick thick wall = 1/2 x length of the brick,
- One brick thick wall = 1 x length of brick 
- One and a half brick thick wall = 1 length + 1/2 x brick length. 

Apart form the thickness of the wall another important part of the brick wall construction is the bond type between the brick. This bonding is to provide integrity between each of single piece of Red clay brick. Some of the type of bond are;

1. Stretcher Bond.

2. English bond

The application of those type of bond can be seen base on the wall thickness requirement. 

Half brick thick wall : stretcher bond



One brick thick wall : English bond



One and half brick thick wall : English bond and Stretcher bond.