Bricks and Blocks, which to use

[dirtydog]

Bricks or blocks, which to use?

Basically as these are only considered infill and not load bearing here in Thailand there is a lot of stuff you can use to build the walls in your house.

First up we have these red blocks, I have to admit I have never seen a house built with these, well that is untill we built one, these are a bit pourous and some of them do have holes all the way through them so can have problems with the rain, but damn they look good

With these it is best to color the cement with red oxide and rough finish the joins, for some reason if you smooth finish the joins the color looks crap, plus these are more your olde worlde type blocks so the rough finish does look better.

Inside you need to render off and then it is best to use insulation and plaster board as these bricks do absorb the heat from the sun, on this one we just used the cheapy insulation plastic stuff with the reflective coating and plaster board with the reflective coating.

These 20 by 40 center meter blocks can be bought in Salaburi for 20 odd baht each, or in Pattaya for nearer 40 odd baht each.

[dirtydog]

As you can see houses look quite nice made out of these red bricks.

[BrickFactoryBurners]

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As you can see houses look quite nice made out of these red bricks.

[dirtydog]

Q-Con Blocks are great, nice and square, 20 by 40centermeters, great insulation qualities and about 25baht each.

In the first picture you can see a block being cut down to size using an ordinary wood saw, on the wall you can see that the joins are tiny between the blocks, for joining these blocks you use crocodile cement, this is a premixed cement based product that comes in 20 kilo bags, due to the blocks all being the same size and shape it makes it a very quick and easy job to build a wall.




Putting the form work up for the concrete pour round the window frame, although now I believe they do lentals so you could just chuck one of them on top and have done with it.

[egeefay]

Q-Con Blocks are great, nice and square, 20 by 40centermeters, great insulation qualities and about 25baht each.

In the first picture you can see a block being cut down to size using an ordinary wood saw, on the wall you can see that the joins are tiny between the blocks, for joining these blocks you use crocodile cement, this is a premixed cement based product that comes in 20 kilo bags, due to the blocks all being the same size and shape it makes it a very quick and easy job to build a wall.




Putting the form work up for the concrete pour round the window frame, although now I believe they do lentals so you could just chuck one of them on top and have done with it.

I was told by a builder that you wouldn't want to hand cabinets from a wall built with these blocks. They are great for insulation on outside walls (they actually float in water) But for load bearing and walls where things will hang the builder said they aren't a good choice. I think it had something to do with how easily the crack if you try to nail or drill into them. The builder said that any walls that are going to bear any weight ..like cabinets or mirrors...need to be made out of the little red bricks.

[fred2krabi]

[quote=dirtydog;268861]Q-Con Blocks are great, nice and square, 20 by 40centermeters, great insulation qualities and about 25baht each.

In the first picture you can see a block being cut down to size using an ordinary wood saw, on the wall you can see that the joins are tiny between the blocks, for joining these blocks you use crocodile cement, this is a premixed cement based product that comes in 20 kilo bags, due to the blocks all being the same size and shape it makes it a very quick and easy job to build a wall.


Hello, i plan to build my house, one floor 160sqm2, the workers want to build the wall with only Q-con with thickness 7,5cm do you think is enough ? Strong and insulation enough ?

Thanks a lot for your advice

[bkkpla]

Good day all
Trying to refire this thread on AAC bricks for home building. I saw the quote below which caught my eye from 2011. I also have a builder now quoting me on a home using 7.5cm wide bricks for the outside walls. It seems this is common in Thailand and they provide enough load bearing - for a one story home with metal insulated roof, enough strenth to hang a few cabinets - we do not plan on lots of built in furnitire, have too mauch already as it is.
Wondering if anyone out there now has had experience with AAC and in particular witht he 7.5cm thck bricks, and can comment.
Thanks in advance for any and all on topic input, appreciate it.
Cheers


[QUOTE=fred2krabi;1969053]

Q-Con Blocks are great, nice and square, 20 by 40centermeters, great insulation qualities and about 25baht each.

In the first picture you can see a block being cut down to size using an ordinary wood saw, on the wall you can see that the joins are tiny between the blocks, for joining these blocks you use crocodile cement, this is a premixed cement based product that comes in 20 kilo bags, due to the blocks all being the same size and shape it makes it a very quick and easy job to build a wall.


Hello, i plan to build my house, one floor 160sqm2, the workers want to build the wall with only Q-con with thickness 7,5cm do you think is enough ? Strong and insulation enough ?

Thanks a lot for your advice

[Shutree]

AAC blocks are easy to build with and have good thermal insulation once built.
Walls in Thailand are not usually load bearing in the structural sense. They are fine for hanging cabinets, aircons and the like.
There are AAC lintels to bridge doors and windows although builders often dodge buying them and make their own concrete lintels in situ or even no lintel at all, relying only on the strength of the window frame to support the bricks above, which is not recommended.

[bkkpla]

Shutree
Thanks for your repsonse, appreaciate it. I hear what you say and indeed in this case the builder (from worksite photos we have sen) does just as you mention, he builds concrete frames around the windows and doors and skips the lintels.
I will talk to thim on that point, as it surely must be less work to just lay a lintel on top instead of forming a concrete frame - but I cant say from any experience.
As for the brick depth, still hoping to get input on 75mm vs 100mm or more...the houses I am in now is built with the standard cinder blocks, and it seems fine construction wise, but is prone to get hot, which the q-con should address
Cheers

AAC blocks are easy to build with and have good thermal insulation once built.
Walls in Thailand are not usually load bearing in the structural sense. They are fine for hanging cabinets, aircons and the like.
There are AAC lintels to bridge doors and windows although builders often dodge buying them and make their own concrete lintels in situ or even no lintel at all, relying only on the strength of the window frame to support the bricks above, which is not recommended.

[dirtydog]

Breeze blocks are the lowest of the low, if you are just building a shack for your dog or pets then these are the things to use, at 3.50baht each this is the cheapest way to go, these things are so weak you can break them in one hand, again about 20 by 40 center meters each they are perfect for garden walls and that is about it.

[The_Dude]

How do you run conduit in the Q-Con Block. Is it done with a router bit. And if so how long do the bits last.

[dirtydog]

We use an angle grinder and then chip it out, I think a router would do it but they are damn heavy and the bits quite expensive.

[The_Dude]

Does anyone know if this product or somthing similar is in the states- California/ sacramento area to be exact? I would like to do some test on this stuff. Damm I wish I checked this out while I was there last!!!!

The Dude.

[dirtydog]

q con website

[Rigger]

I am going to use these things to build a new bike work shop on a bit of spare land my wife has across the road it is going to be 4m x 9m with toilet shower and fridge and a bit of a sit down area out the side.
Will be a basic build apart from the re-inforced beams for using a block and tackle. They tell me it can be done for about 30,000bht with a roller door fitted
I dont know fok all about building so I am just having a BBQ a piss up and inviting a few mates over that are builders

[dirtydog]

Damn sure I wouldn't build it for that

[Rigger]

Damn sure I wouldn't build it for that

So how much would you build it for and I want a tile roof as well.

[dirtydog]

15k baht for the roof, about 8k baht for the roller shutter, 10k baht for the block work minimum, beam work about 6k baht using preformed beams, floor at 10cm concrete about 14k baht.

[dirtydog]

^ Your builder is an uneducted Thai i reckon

[daveboy]

The builder said that any walls that are going to bear any weight ..like cabinets or mirrors...need to be made out of the little red bricks.

Thats bollox you just need to use the correct fixings

[farrang]

The builder said that any walls that are going to bear any weight ..like cabinets or mirrors...need to be made out of the little red bricks.

Thats bollox you just need to use the correct fixings

Yeah and those little red bricks are not lego ones, now wounder the cabinets are falling off the walls.
And as Davey says use the correct fixings, and by the way i have not seen rawl plugs in home pro or mart have any of you lot?

[dirtydog]

So onto the most common building material in Thailand, yep red bricks, at 65 satang per brick they are cheap, here in Pattaya and surrounding areas these are hollow and sun baked, going into rice growing areas they are solid and then baked using rice husks, yep not a very hot bake.

These are not load bearing, nor are they straight nor are they the same size as each other, they are a right pain to lay as they are so small and you use a pointing trowel to lay them, normally you would go like 5 to 8 high on each end then put a line up and follow that as close as possible, which here isn't very close.

For some reason on these pictures taken today in jomtien they have decided to use them in a decorative way, pretty ropey job and probably lucky if they got paid, they also never bothered coloring the cement for the laying of the bricks and didn't clean up each day, yet, they rendered off the walls with colored cement, weird.

[Panda]

Those Q-CON blockd certainly look like the go for me. The thermal insulation qualities sold me on them.

I will probably use those Q-CON flooring planks for the second story floor also. The only concern there is that they will need to span 4 meters. I know they come in lengths of up to 6 meters. The floor itself wont be load bearing except for furnature etc.. Can anyone tell me if they can span 4 meters?

Thanks.

[midas]

I am new to this forum and find your posts extremely informative, if you have the time I wondered if you could point me in the right direction in regards to a very small project I would like to do. I would like to build a small water feature/pond in an alcove on my balcony, I was thinking of using Q Con blocks at the front of the alcove thus making a rectangular feature. This would leave me with an existing tiled surface on the bottom and existing plastered and painted sides and back, in addition to the proposed Q Con front. The whole project will be only around 600mm x 1500mm x 200 mm, I would like to tile the inside of the feature (including the bottom if required) with say a black slate type tile. Obviously it will all have to be watertight, any ideas especially in view of the 3 different surfaces involved ? Your help and time in this matter would be most appreciated.

[jumbo]

I guess that the guys using the Q-Con blocks work for one of your competitors DD. You would surely not allow your guys to cut and store blocks on an unprotected tiled floor?