bricks Building with brick and mortar instead of timber frame

[mrrikp]

Hi all,

 

I'm new to Chief Architect Home Designer and currently evaluating its usefulness in a self-build home extension project.

 

It looks like a great software package, but out of the box, it looks like it caters more to a timber-frame construction market (more common in the US) than in the UK, where we mostly build houses usring bricks, mortar and more importantly, the cavity wall.

 

My question is really to do with materials calculation, and how to configure walls that consist of bricks and mortar:

 

• Using the Define Wall function, I can set up a cavity wall, no problem. I can define the brick dimensions... But I cannot see anywhere to define the mortar joint width between the bricks. This is important because, for Materials Calculator to work properly, it has to know that for every 50 rows of bricks, there is effectively half a metre of vertical space occupied by the mortar, therefore requiring 'less' bricks than is calculated by the Materials Calculator.

 

I'm wondering if anyone in the UK has had to do something similar and whether they found this product useful for that, and, if they did, how the product was configured? I'm wondering if the solution is simply to 'increase' the specification of the brick size to accomodate the mortar - for the most part (i.e. a 210mm brick width becomes 220mm for a 10mm mortar run), but this strikes me that there will still be some inaccuracy particularly at the sides and top.

 

Unfortunately, after contacting tech support, the only answer I got related to the texture - and the appearance - not the materials calculation, which was unhelpful. I wasn't even able to find out what the default mortar joint width is for the Masonry wall types already defined.

 

I'm sure I can't be the only one who wants to use bricks and mortar!

 

Any help anyone could offer would be most appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Rik.

[solver]

I don't use the materials list, but my first thought was to increase the brick size as you have suggested.

 

For brick quantities, I'd want a few extras, maybe quite a few extras for future projects if there is a place to store them.

 

I would create a test structure using the larger brick method and manually figure quantities and compare to the materials list. I'd also ask the person who will be doing the work about how many extras are usually ordered.

 

UK users typically have problems with doors and windows too, so you might want to check those as well. Searching the forum should provide some insight into the issues.

[mrrikp]

Hi @solver, thanks for your input.

 

I'll try expanding the brick size to accommodate the mortar join and then use a traditional brick calculation to determine over/under count, and share results soon.

 

I'll also have a look at the issues you mention other UK users have reported with doors and windows...

 

Thanks,

 

Rik.