What has your Experiences With Reinforced Brick Walls been?

[GWHH]

I am helping to build a large storage building complex. After a long debate we are going to use reinforced brick walls for the exterior (8 inch). They will each have a 5/8 inch piece of rebar going through them and be fully grouted along with horizon reinforcing.

The roof will be a trussed construction with I beam from floor to roof providing the vertical and horizon stabilization and lateral bracing and allowing the trusses to rest on the I beams. The roof will be poured in place concrete over metal decking. The wall will support only its own weight.

This is being built in the NE. What has your experiences with this type of wall construction been? I have good thing about reinforced brick walls for this type of complex. I wanted to see what you all have to say about it.


http://www.emcoblock.com/products/wa...rced-brick.php


What has your Experiences With Reinforced Brick Walls been?

[speedy1979]

A large number of 8 to 10 story buildings have been built in Bronx (1 of 5 boroughs in NYC) using a similar design. There are differences however. Instead of using bricks concrete masonry units are employed. The floor is made of pre-cast concrete slabs.

[speedy1979]

Here are some picures.

[GWHH]

Interesting. I think they would use a bit more steel in that building. But it looks like they are using pretty thick rebar instead instead of putting one in each block cell.

I would have gone with one bar of rebar per concrete block cell. As they old timers told me when I first started working in this business told me. If its a hollow block fill it up all the way with concrete and steel.

Are they putting a skim coat over the (entire) pre-cast slab or just on the ends so they can lay the next layer of block? If they are laying a skim coat over the entire thing. How much are they putting down over each slab in thickness?

Looks like they are going to brick over the entire exterior. Always a nice touch.