Exposed Brick Wall

[srinihome]

Hello All,

Any good recommendation on Mason for Exposed Brick Wall.

We are thinking to have an Exposed Brick Wall for our Living Room, or Mason is not confident to take up the task hence looking for an experienced Mason who has done this kind of work.

Thanks.

[ganeshncm]

An easier option if that works.(might work cheaper also)

bricks for exposed type walls are expensive, plus they need to have well defined edges..

You can get the wall done and plastered the normal mechanism.. on top of it, you can get earthern brick like tiles stuck .. any tile layer would do it and you dont need specialized skills.. plus, your walls will be more water proof due to plastering.

[Visualizer]

All the facade and walls in drawing room and living are exposed brick in my underconstruction home a. The work was done by normal masons who did RCC and block work under supervision of contractor.
Since the work is on full contract and i pay per cubic feet. Contractor got the mason can't share mason number.
However there is an easy technique to bring uniformity first choose the groove gap you want to maintain ( say 12mm) cut strips of plywood of the groove size and this strip will be kept at bottom of the row to maintain groove gap and a smaller plywood piece will be used to maintain gap between two bricks. This way any normal mason can construct uniform wall with good finish.
Few points to note.

1. Use good quality bricks. After testing so many bricks we used Mangalore bricks with 3 perforations each brick was 21 rupees in lot of 10K.
Test method collect 3 sample of brick keep them dipped in water for 72 hours after drying notice colour and edge erosion.

2. Perforated brick is better as it gets backed from both inside and outside. However it will eat up lot of mortar. 2 ,3 and 5 perforations are available use 3 or 5 hole ones. Also rectangular perforation is better than lots of circular holes.

3. Cement sand ratio of 1:4 should be used for masanory M sand is OK. Use coarse sand not plastering M sand.

4. Use OPC53 cement not PPC though texts mentions PPC should br used for lower cracks and heat of hydration. The reason is PPC has flyash and on curing it will leach blakish colour on bricks ( personal experience). OPC will give only white effervescence of lime with curing water.

5. Give foam, coconut fiber roap to masons to clean any cement spill immediately.

6. Grouting of grooves will be done after wall is cured

7. After curing period of Grouting the wall needs to be washed with acid ( HCl) and then with water. This is to clean the effervescence deposits and any leaching of colour by cement.
As easy and cheap alternative some people get wall painted with terracotta paint at this stage instead of cleaning but that gives an artificial colour and what is point in spending so much if you can't get natural texture.

8. If your wall is exposed to rains get a clear coat of MYK Laticrete (not required for indoors). Again varnish is used by many people but that gives unnatural shine.

The labour is high and I had to pay 200 rs per sq feet for wall construction and 25 for cleaning grouting etc.

After getting work done I understood anyone who can enforce above 7 points can get the work done and you need not pay through nose.

[srinihome]

@ganeshncm thanks for the inputs.
We had checked this, the cost would more or less is the same. The finish with Bricks with recessed pointing and arrangements would be good, hence planning with bricks instead of wall cladding.

@Visualizer thanks for the detailed pointers.
I had actually shown a couple of videos to Mason. There is definitely pushback on something they are not sure about. Anyhow, I am talking few other folks and will work it out.

[ganeshncm]

awesome.. pls do post pictures of the wall when it is done

@ganeshncm thanks for the inputs.
We had checked this, the cost would more or less is the same. The finish with Bricks with recessed pointing and arrangements would be good, hence planning with bricks instead of wall cladding.

@Visualizer thanks for the detailed pointers.
I had actually shown a couple of videos to Mason. There is definitely pushback on something they are not sure about. Anyhow, I am talking few other folks and will work it out.

[Raju091117]

Can you share any vendor contact, from where we can purchase exposed bricks in Bangalore

[Visualizer]

AK.Mangalore Tiles Doddanekundi Outer Ring Road
+918197578269
+91 99024 62425

[Raju091117]

Can anyone share with me exposed brick wall and wall cladding work mason contact...

[ardesarchitects]

Hi, Raju
Exposed brick walls are generally done by masons with good experience and generally old school masons are good at these. In case you are looking for mason only for a specific wall in your entire project I suggest you to go with some one recommended by your main mason as he needs his support for scaffolding, helpers to mix mortar, grouting etc.
Wall cladding is done by most of the tile/granite/stone layers in general. Only in case of real stone walls or solid butch works you need stone specializer

Regards,
Ar.Praveen.N
Ardes Architects and Interior designers
ardesarchitects@gmail.com
www.ardesarchitects.com
https://www.instagram.com/ardesarchitects

[srinihome]

awesome.. pls do post pictures of the wall when it is done

@ganeshncm thanks for the inputs.
We had checked this, the cost would more or less is the same. The finish with Bricks with recessed pointing and arrangements would be good, hence planning with bricks instead of wall cladding.

@Visualizer thanks for the detailed pointers.
I had actually shown a couple of videos to Mason. There is definitely pushback on something they are not sure about. Anyhow, I am talking few other folks and will work it out.

Attached pic of the exposed wall which we got done.
Suggestions from everyone here came in handy, giving us an idea of how and what it takes.

This part of Brick Masonry was labor intense for sure, but careful execution leads to satisfactory output.
1. Used Zuvari OPC 43 Grade (OPC 43 was recommended by the Brick supplier, also by Visualizer)
2. Mason had created a Template for grooving using Shuttering Plywood
3. Pointing/Grouting is still pending, we are waiting for the wall to be cured.

Bricks were procured from Prashali Conmats Pvt Ltd