Red brick - all the secrets of the most popular building materials

Who are you, the red brick?

Nobody knows the official date of the "birth" of the red brick, it is known that in Russia it was first used only in the 15th century, although the simplest examples of the "man-made" stone were found in the Egyptian pyramids of the era of the great pharaohs. It is believed that even a primitive man, overlooking his hearth with petrified brown clay, noticed her marvelous transformation and began to apply material for her modest construction needs.

The brick of the red ordinary is a stone-tetrahedron, made of special clay( with impurities) and passed the final firing in the furnace. It is often called ceramic.

This is now the process of manufacturing construction materials fully automated, earlier it was molded by hand, adding heat-effective additives( straw, sawdust, etc.) to the clay mixture. And in the oven billet did not fall, and roasted yourself in the sun for 10-14 days. Such a brick was called "raw".

Now the material is necessarily tempered by fire, and in modern brick factories produce two types of building materials, differing in appearance:

• Red building( ordinary) brick. This is a rough sample, in the body of which there are noticeable defects( cracks, chips).Presentable appearance is not necessary for it, as it is completely closed during finishing works with a finish coat.
• Red facing brick. This "handsome stone" with a smooth surface and ideal shapes, used for decorative decoration of the building.

The size of the red brick is strictly regulated and depends on the type of sample:

1. 250 mm / 120 mm / 65 mm( length, width, height) - single.
2. 250 mm / 120 mm / 88 mm( length, width, height) - one-and-a-half.
3. 250 mm / 120 mm / 138 mm( length, width, height) - double.

The weight of red brick is not a constant constant, in the code of building rules and norms of GOST only one sample can not weigh more than 4.3 kg. Therefore, in the course there are heavy and "lightweight" variations of the stone:

• Brick red solid, which has no holes.
• Sample with through holes of different shape and thickness.

The latter is especially useful because it is much lighter than its full-bodied "colleague", and thanks to the presence of air "pockets", it also has improved heat-saving characteristics. How much does a red brick of a certain type weigh, you can find in the accompanying documents of each batch of material.

How useful can a brick boast?

1. Long service life. History is known for brick buildings, whose age is estimated for several centuries, so the material is classified as "long-livers".
2. Fortress. Stone is a stone, so it perfectly holds the impact, perfectly tolerates all kinds of loads( up to 15 MPa).Due to its high density( up to 1950 kg / m3), the material has an excellent load-bearing capacity.
3. Naturalness. The mixture for the preparation of bricks consists exclusively of the gifts of nature, there are no harmful chemical additives in it.
4. Wear resistance. The stone easily transfers all impacts of elements( a frost, a snow, a rain, etc.).Moreover, the recipe of the material is adjusted to different operating conditions, giving it increased resistance to compression, bending( characteristic M) and frost resistance( characteristic F).
5. Ease of use. Using the bricks of different types and sizes, you can build a building of any complexity;ordinary stones instead of facing allow to reduce the price of construction, and hollow stones instead of solid ones - to ease the weight of construction.

There are special types of this building material, which are distinguished by some unique technical characteristics. For example, a refractory brick made of chamotte clay, which serves to build stoves and fireplaces.

Where is brick used in construction?

First of all, brick is used to build a building box. Masonry is performed with the help of different techniques by hand, this is a rather labor-intensive and unproductive building stage, because in one day the walls "grow" only by 1.5-2 meters.

Knowing approximately how much a standard stone weighs, you can easily calculate the foundation of a future house. The latter can also be constructed from this material, but only if the depth of the base is no more than 1.5-1.8 m.

In addition to building multi-storey buildings, the "classic" finds application in the arrangement of small structures( erection of fences, wells, stoves and fireplaces made of brick by their own hands).