Clay bricks to skin wood frame workshop

[Pallet Fancier]

I saw a youtube video about clay bricks compared to cement render, and started wondering...

Given that you almost need to sell a kidney to afford a pallet of OSB and/or cladding, these days, I'm starting to regard the cost of different materials in quantity as nugatory (learnt that word, recently!). Basically, anything I get in the quantity I will need is going to cost enough to hurt.

So, this suggests a focus on material properties rather than just cost. And clay bricks sound pretty cool for a building that's going to be inhabited in all weathers. Shouldn't have nearly as much problems managing evaporation/condensation if the walls can breath, so don't need to worry about insulating "properly" with multiple layers of increasingly expensive materials (see first paragraph). Also, unlike the clay, not all of these materials are reuseable (I may not be here in four or five years). One of the advertised advantages of clay is that you can effectively reuse it, albeit as a render, unless you want to make it back into bricks. For the same reason, it's less polluting if you want to dispose of it, instead.

Have been reading some things, but thought I'd ask on here in case anyone has direct experience working or living with anything similar.

 

[Jones]

When you say clay bricks what do you mean ? I imagine many people have experience of brick built houses, I know I have. If you mean vertical tile hanging there's traditional types with flat roof tiles which are fairly common particularly on gables . Or modern interlocking tiles which are hung on steel with special fixings, which you might see on low rise blocks and offices etc . If you want a building to stay warm you'll need insulation whatever your wall construction.

 

[johna.clements]

What do you mean by a clay brick. House brick or some sort of cob construction.

 

[Pallet Fancier]

Sorry! Forgot the important information. Clay "cob", that is clay, sometimes with sand, and straw. Like this stuff: Clay Cob Bricks - Strockettes | Lime Stuff

 

[Jones]

I've never used those but have used wattle and daub a mixture of clay,straw and cow pats on a woven hazel wall and have used a lime hemp render as well on a wire mesh background. With either of those and I suspect with the unfired bricks you need a good roof overhang and a clear area around the walls to prevent splash back and keep vegetation away . Basically you want to keep the walls as dry as possible and keep the rain off.

 

[johna.clements]

The only thing I have done vaguely similar is mixing cement with subsoil that I was excavating from a bank that where I was building compost bins about twenty years ago. My garden slopes a bit. Did not want to pay to get rid of it and did not want to do the great escape up the woods so used it.

Had a gravel path that meet a concrete patio with a 75mm step, pain when you were carrying stuff. Filled it up with sieved subsoil and cement then put gravel back. Still solid under the gravel twenty years later.

Also at the same time built some 1.1m high steps up to the highest point in my garden out of dense concrete block. Filled inside with subsoil cement then capped with 50mm of concrete, No cracks so far.

 

[niall Y]

I did some work to an old wool-mill that had cob walls on the upper floor, with stone to the lower storey. It no longer had the water wheel attached, but splashing from the wheel ,had eroded part of the upper wall, away.

The secret of cob ,I am told, is to keep the foot and head of the wall dry. As others have suggested. a large overhang to the roof takes care of the head and building a base with something other than cob will take care of the foot. I was told when working on a property in Norfolk, that they would often use broken glass for the base, but I have not come across this myself.

In the same property I took down an internal wall, built of cob blocks, which if I remember correctly, were roughly 2ft long 1ft wide, and 8/10 inches thick, and laid on their side. This wall was lime plastered, but the barn type outbuildings nearby, were coated with bitumen

Out of interest, a neighbouring village, had some council housed, built in the 1920's out of cob, though from the outside this did not seem obvious

 

[Adam W.]

I have them in my house and they were made originally in the 16th century. They were used as external infill panels for the timber framing, but I took them out and have used them for interior partitions. I think they are lovely things and hope to make some next summer for an internal partition wall.

I have laid them in a lime putty mortar.