Brick & Block Wall Building - width saving ideas.

[darrenh]

Hello all

I am having an extension built (at some point soon).

I am trying to conserve the width of the external walls as the extension is going into quite a thin space.

I know from tradtional brick and block builds with the cavity that this takes up about 300mm of space.

Is there a solution (permission to building control) that reduces this?

A different width of block, smaller cavity etc etc?

Any help much appreciated indeed

Darren

 

[jeds]

Not really. You could probably get it down to 275mm by using super expensive insulation but you won't get much less than that. 25mm either way won't be noticeable in the finished job.

 

[^woody^]

A timber frame can be about 160mm thick

 

[darrenh]

Needs to be brick for the planning rules I have been set!

Do breeze blocks come in a thinner size?

 

[Paul-man]

If they do, you will struggle to meet the U-values.
Have a look online for U-Value calculators. I believe you need to get down to 0.25 these days.

The celotex one looks quite good:
http://www.celotex.co.uk/Other-Resources/U-value-Calculator

 

[^woody^]

Needs to be brick for the planning rules I have been set!

Really? You must be in a listed building then

Otherwise, why can't you do a timber frame and brick slip facade? Or even alter the external facing material specification to something else

 

[darrenh]

Can you expland on that - all I need it to match the external brick.

Are you suggesting external red brick and then a wooden internal frame?

Will that work for the Building Inspector?

 

[^woody^]

The thinnest wall you will get is a timber frame with external brick cladding, not external brickwork

The frame can be about 160mm thick from the external sheathing to internal finish face.

You will then need to clad the external face, and if you want it to look like brick, then you would use a brick slip system which is real bricks cut down to about 15mm thick and these are then stuck onto a metal or plastic support sheet, which is in turn fitted to something like 25mm timber laths.

Or you can clad in tiles/slate, timber or render

 

[ajrobb]

You might like to see the brick-clad construction shown in
http://www.proctorgroup.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=MduChnxxmjs=&tabid=96