Brick Walling Systems and Construction

About this course.

The three main brick walling systems used in Australia are the solid (single-leaf) wall, the cavity wall, and brick veneer over a framed structure — and they differ in how many leaves of brick there are, whether there is a gap between them, and what actually carries the load and resists the weather. Being able to tell them apart matters, because each behaves differently in the way it keeps water out, carries load and moves, and because repairs, alterations and defect diagnosis all depend on knowing which system you are looking at. This module describes each system and the practical signs that distinguish them.

A solid or single-leaf wall is a wall built of brick with no continuous cavity — either one leaf of brick thick, or two or more leaves bonded together into a single solid mass. Historically many older buildings used solid walls, often several leaves thick and bonded across their thickness with header bricks. A solid wall relies on the thickness and quality of the masonry itself to resist water penetration: because there is no cavity to interrupt the path, water that soaks into the outer face can, in severe or prolonged exposure, track through to the inside. Solid walls are still used in particular situations — some internal walls, boundary and freestanding walls, piers, and some engineered or heritage work — but for external walls of habitable buildings in most of Australia the cavity and veneer systems have largely superseded the solid external wall precisely because of that moisture path. A tell-tale of a bonded solid wall is the appearance of header bricks (bricks laid end-on) in the face, showing that bricks span across the wall's thickness.