Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Recycled brick should be soaked before laying. If one side is covered in soot
from a chimney, this must never face the outside as it would penetrate the ren-
der.
Bricks that cannot be dismantled can be ground and in certain cases used as an
equivalent to pozzolana in cement. Larger pieces of brick can be used as aggre-
gate in concrete. In Denmark, blocks are manufactured with beautiful pieces of
brick used as aggregate.
Smaller brick structures
Brick structures above ground can be built as walls, columns, arches and vaults. Arches
and vaults are used in roof construction, but they are labour intensive and require a good
knowledge of the material. The arch is the most usual way of spanning an opening for win-
dows or doors without having to use steel reinforcement. The following rules of thumb
should be used when building a wall without reinforcement:
•
The building should not be higher than two storeys
•
The largest distance from centre to centre of the structural walls should not exceed
5.5 m; the distance between the bracing party walls should not be more than 4-5 m
•
The main load-bearing walls should be at least 20 cm thick, i.e. two bricks wide.
Alternatively they can be one brick thick with 30 30 cm piers
•
Window and door openings should
be above one another
Solid or cavity walls can be built. Solid
walls are straightforward to build, and
can be insulated either inside or out-
side, e.g. with woodwool slabs which
can be plastered or rendered. If the
woodwool is on the outside the brick's
capacity to store heat when warmed is
better utilized. Internal insulation caus-
es colder brickwork and increases the
risk of frost damage.
Cavity walls are normally two leaves
of single brickwork with a distance
between them of 50-75 mm. A hard
fired brick that will withstand frost is
necessary in the outer leaf to make
use of the maintenance-free aspects.
Extra- hard-fired bricks which are high-
ly vitrified have a low capacity for water
Figure 13.15: A small Danish building entirely constructed in
fired clay without using reinforcement.
