Brick and concrete house in Batumi

A brick and concrete house is one where the weight of the floors and roof is carried by cast-in-place concrete columns, beams and slabs, while the brick serves as infill, as cladding or as both at once. How such a house differs from one with load-bearing brick walls is covered in the comparison of concrete and brick, and we describe brick types and masonry with ring beams on the page about brick houses. This page is about what comes up when brick meets a concrete frame.

Three wall options

Under one name, estimates can contain quite different walls, and they are easy to mix up. Before the frame is calculated, we agree which one you will have:

We most often recommend the second option. The brick goes where it is strongest: on the facade, in the rain. Inside there is light block, which doesn't add weight to the frame. We compare how the two materials handle heat and moisture in the comparison of aerated concrete and brick.

The weight of brick and seismic loads

A brick wall is several times heavier than an aerated concrete wall of the same area, especially if it is solid brick. In an earthquake this mass sways along with the slabs, and the structural engineer builds it into the calculation: the columns and joints get more reinforcement, and the foundations become wider. So we decide where the brick will go before the frame is calculated, not on site.

The second issue is stiffness. Dense brickwork wedges into the frame and starts working together with it. If solid brick walls stand on three sides and the fourth, facing the sea, is almost entirely glass, the house twists around the stiff part in a tremor. The structural engineer evens this out with a concrete shear wall on the glazed side, or separates the masonry from the columns with joints, and these solutions appear on the drawings before the pour.

We tie the infill masonry to the columns and reinforce it with mesh as the design specifies, and leave a joint under the beam so that the slab doesn't come down onto the brick as it deflects. The other measures against tremors, from the calculation for the ground to the column joints, are described on the page about earthquake-resistant structural design.

Cladding on a frame: support at every floor

In a frame house, cladding isn't built as a single leaf from the foundations up to the roof. Over two or three storeys it becomes heavy and may come away from the wall in a tremor, so it is supported at every floor: on a projecting slab edge or on a stainless steel support angle fixed to the edge of the slab. The cladding is connected to the main wall with flexible ties, whose spacing and fixing are set by the calculation.

That gives rise to a crack you don't get in a house with load-bearing brick walls. Over time a concrete frame shortens slightly from shrinkage and under load, while brick, on the contrary, expands slightly with moisture and sun. If the cladding is pressed tight against the support of the floor above, stress builds up and comes out as a horizontal crack along the slab or as spalling at the corners. So under every support we leave a horizontal movement joint with a flexible filler, and on long walls and near corners we form vertical joints.

The slab edge under the support conducts cold. If the insulation is interrupted here, a damp stripe shows on the ceiling next to the external wall in winter. We design the support so that the insulation runs without a break, or fit an angle with a thermal break. Above windows the cladding is carried by stainless steel lintels: by the sea an ordinary steel angle rusts, swells and tears the masonry apart.

Windows and water in a three-layer wall

By the sea, cladding lets some wind-driven rain through, and for cladding that is normal. The water runs down the back of the brick, and the whole question is where it comes out. In a frame house the cavity is closed off by a support at every floor, so above every support and every lintel we lay a cavity tray that discharges outwards, and leave weep vents. If the vents are only at the bottom, water from the upper floors collects on a support and goes into the insulation.

In a three-layer wall we set the window within the insulation layer or tight against it, so that the installation joint doesn't end up in the cold masonry. We bring the sill out beyond the face of the cladding with a drip, and seal the side junctions with tapes. On brick facades this detail is where leaks happen most often, so we photograph it before the reveals are closed.

During laying we make sure mortar doesn't drop into the cavity. Hardened droppings block the drainage and become bridges along which water crosses to the insulation. We also show the cavity and the vents in the report before the next course covers them.

Brick between guest rooms

In guest houses and mini-hotels brick often goes not into every wall but only where quiet is needed: between guest rooms and along the corridor. The external walls are then built of block with cladding, and the frame gets less heavy than with brick throughout the house. The internal brick walls also work with the frame in a tremor, so the structural engineer receives their layout before the calculation, just like the external walls.

A heavy wall blocks voices only if it has no gaps. We fill the joint under the beam with a flexible material through the full thickness and seal it on both sides, pass pipes through the wall in sealed sleeves, and don't put the sockets of neighbouring rooms back to back, otherwise conversation can be heard through them. Everything else we build into a guest house with rooms to let, from bathrooms to drain stacks, is decided at the sketch stage.

Sequence of work and timeline

The frame rises the same way as with block infill, and the bricklayers work one storey behind the concrete crew. Brick is smaller than block, so a metre of wall takes more courses and more mortar, and the shell of a 150–200 m² two-storey house with brick infill usually takes us 4–6 months.

We lay the cladding last, from scaffolding and only once the roof is on, otherwise water from the slabs and the unfinished top goes into the cavity. It adds another 1–2 months to the schedule. We stop facing brickwork in heavy rain, so it is easier to plan for spring and summer; if it falls in autumn, we cover the scaffolding with mesh and plastic sheeting and work on dry days.

How much a brick and concrete house costs in Batumi

The shell of a house with a concrete frame and brick walls costs from 960 ₾ per m² of floor area. It includes the foundations, cast-in-place columns and floor slabs, brick infill and the roof. Cladding, windows, building services and finishing are priced separately.

Facing brick cladding with materials costs from 180 ₾ per m² of facade, and brick infill masonry from 240 ₾ per m² of wall. If there is block inside and brick only on the facade, we take as the basis the shell with block infill, from 690 ₾ per m² without windows, and add the cladding to it. A turnkey house with brick walls costs from 1,950 ₾ per m² of floor area. It costs more with solid brick in all the walls, cladding with bay windows and arches, and stainless steel supports and lintels, and less with block infill and a simple facade with identical openings.

We send a preliminary estimate from a facade sketch, a house plan and photos of the plot within 24 hours on business days. The final cost is set on the basis of the design, after a visit to the plot and once the estimate is agreed.