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Thread: idle question about brick walls

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    Default idle question about brick walls

    Why do most brick walls have rows of half-length bricks? They're usually there every five or six rows -- instead of normal-length bricks, they're half as long. I was thinking they might be a way to use up ends of bricks left over from cutting them in half at the edges, but there's way too many for that.

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    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    I believe those are not half-bricks, but rather you are seeing the end of a brick rather than the side of it. If you are building the wall two bricks thick, you need make sure they stick together, and so every 5 or 6 bricks high, you rotate a row so that that row of bricks is laid down across the two.

    Does that make sense?

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    Oh, okay. I didn't know they made them two bricks thick. That makes sense.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    I haven't really noticed this very much. Could it be much older buildings when they use to put in special touches to their work? In older building around here you see many brick flourishes but not the one you described. Newer brick buildings, I would guess 50s and on you see very few touches.

    Can you find a pic of what you mean? I think I can picture it but I am not sure.

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    Elephant Feirefiz's avatar
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    I don't know about the exact pattern you describe.

    But a traditional load-bearing brick wall made is typically made with a single size of bricks (and only a minimum is cut apart), but it is thicker than the width of a single brick. Because you do not want several skins of bricks that might come apart you need connections through the wall. That means that the 'short' bricks in a traditional wall are the short side of the same kind of brick as the others. There are various patterns for walls one or more brick lengths thick that create different looks, but the general ideas are always similar. You avoid placing gaps over each other and you connect the inner and outer parts of the wall.

    Now, in a modern brick wall that is mostly not true anymore, but that's why it is supposed to look like that. The load-bearing part of modern brick walls is typically made with much bigger but mostly hollow bricks so that one layer of bricks lengthwise is enough. Visible bricks are mostly cosmetic and typically one width thick. In order to look more traditional and appealing they often contain actual half-bricks that pretend to stick inside out.

    On preview: I am far too slow.

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    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Feirefiz View post

    On preview: I am far too slow.
    Well, you certainly explained it better than I did, anyway.

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