All you need to know about bricks

Service Description

All you need to know about bricks

Nowadays, brick is one of the most popular construction materials having few advantages undeniable related to aesthetic, structural and economic sides.

The brick is one of the construction materials with a real history, being used since ancient times, some of the examples are the building and walls of Jericho, The Great Wall, The Colosseum in Rome and so forth, confirming this. The brick production industry is in a continuous evolution, this material being also in our days among the most common in construction. Some statistics show that in our country over 60% of the new buildings completed in a year are built of brick.

What is a brick?

This construction material is made of a combination of the four natural elements (ground, air, fire and water), the mixture having as material supply the clay, to which other materials are added like sand and different adjuvants through because of which the consistency and the porosity of the material are established. Following being dried by the sun, this mixture is burned at high temperatures in special ovens.

The brick has a wide range of usage, in residential structures being used for the resistance structures as well as for separation walls, also for various interior and exterior finishing, fencing structures or paving.

Types of bricks

Nowadays, there are several types of bricks on the market. These include the full ones, the hollow ones or the porous ones. The fully compressed brick or the classic one is the simplest ceramic block and the most well-known, even if in our days it is not so used for masonry because it does not have the thermal insulation qualities of the other modern types and it requires a lot more labor. It has the both sides smooth and we find it as a square or rectangular shape and it can be used for masonry without plaster, resistance brickwork or different floors.

In their turn, the hollow ceramic blocks are divided into three categories like: with vertical, horizontal and longitudinal holes. The first category is the most commonly used nowadays to do the masonry, being advantageous for bricklaying and having good qualities in terms of thermal and noise insulation. The ones with horizontal holes have a reduced weight and they are used primarily for non-structural interior walls and they are not recommended for use in load-bearing masonry in seismic areas. This type of brick can be used for separation walls, regardless of the resistance structure that you chose. The bricks with longitudinal holes are used mainly to raise the separation walls.

The porous ceramic blocks are produced by moulding of clay mass with different products or combustible materials and it is mainly used for non-load-bearing masonry. There is also the apparent brick which has a reduced width and it is intended for wall cladding, its role being mainly a decorative one and over it you should not apply any other layer of plaster.

The advantages of bricks

A brick building has a long life being solid and resistant with a little need for repairs during the time, the maintenance of such a construction is simple and easy. In addition, a brick structure can support any type of cover and can have almost any shape and height if it is strengthened with concrete.

At the same time, the ceramic blocks that have holes give to the structure a good thermal and sound insulation, in this case the building constructed with this type of brick present natural thermal inertia (they get cold slower in winter and they get warm slowly in summer time). It should be also noted that they are immune to pest attack and they require no special treatments as in the case of wood. Last but not least, the brick is a good fireproof material being able to withstand at temperatures of 1000 Celsius degrees. In other words because it is heat-treated, this type of construction material remains neutral to any kind of reactions and subsequent changes, it means that it does not burn, it does not age, it does not absorb water (it allows the water to infiltrate which represents a drawback) and it is stable to the freezing-unfreezing phenomenon.

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