How do you build a brick wall?

Our experiences with construction methodologies for multi-storey
residential developments.

It wasn’t that long ago when there was basically one accepted solution to construction brick facade on a multi-storey buildng…you erected either an insitu concrete or steel frame, set a blockwork inner leaf on the floor slab edge, adhered an insulation board, formed a cavity and supported the external brickwork off shelf angles.

There are now a plethora of differing methodogies that can be adopted with and which have gained experience in over recent years.

The approach described above is still regularly adopted, but with the inner leaf now more commonly replaced by a “Steel Framing System” or SFS, manufactured by the likes of Metsec and Kingspan.

This system of cold formed steel sections and mineral fibre infill insulation sections, encapsulated with lining boards, brings the benefit of reducing structural weight with the associated cost benefits, negates wet trades, hence speeding up construction programmes and when covered with an appropriate vapour control membrane, can produce a largely weathertight enclosure allowing internal fit-out to proceed in advance of the external walling being complete.

Many of the blocks within the £250m Goodluck Hope residential led mixed use development we are completing for contractor Ballymore in London, utilise this approach.