Brickwork-like Cladding Texture

Some design and implementation points of decorative building exterior employing the Diat energy effective curtain walling.

Historically, one of the most popular textures of premium developments is brickwork. Since the current energy efficiency standards can not be met by a minolithic exterior walls consisting only of brickwork (for example, for Moscow the thickness of the brickwork should be 2.0 m at least), it is obvious that for such a shell should be the multilayer structure using effective heat insulation. Since 1996 to 2007, the classic option and the basic brickwork-like structural wall was the so-called “laminated masonry”.

This system comprises the following elements: interior brick tier, expanded polystyrene or mineral wool insulation, external brick tier braced by various links to the interior (carrier) tier. Actually, the negligent companies trying to reduce costs made these links from low grade steel or didn’t install them at all. The internal tier was made of self-bearing cellular concrete blocks of minimum density, ventilation clearance was stuffed by construction waste, with no air holes in form of hollow joint at top and bottom of the brickwork.

Ten years of “implenenting” of such a “technologies” caused violations of health standards (including freezing and soaking of walls with subsequent efflorescence), and lots of emergency situations due to partial collapse of the external tier. This, in turn, led to giving up of such schemes, and in some regions - and to banning of such structures prescribed in relevant regulatory and technical documents.

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Text by EUGENY TSYKANOVSKY,
Cand. of Tech. Sciences, Honorary Builder of Russia, laureate of the RF
Government Science and Technology Prize, the Diat Group board chairman,
photos by Diat Group