Bricks and Tiles for your Next Building Project

[cmjc]

The ubiquitous machine-extruded bricks flake, crack and crumble in a year or two, but these handmade bricks I used to make an outdoor bread oven, and rocket stove, are in daily use and good as new! 

 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/kkeRb7nMLAvRro8g7

 

I bought them from here, a few pennies each. It's a family run business, so support your local artisans.

 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/kkeRb7nMLAvRro8g7

[spidermike007]

Fantastic idea, anything to avoid standard Thai bricks is a great thing, they are an absolutely horrific building material, with no insulation properties whatsoever, difficulties with running wiring and plumbing through them, and a very impractical material. 

 

I'm going to be building a house soon and I'm going to be using super adobe brick I've already purchased all the equipment required and these bricks are a minimum of 200 cm in depth with tremendous insulation qualities in addition to a gorgeous aesthetic as shown in these images. 

 

 

[IsaanT]

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

these bricks are a minimum of 200 cm in depth with tremendous insulation qualities

In terms of insulation properties in isolation, did you consider AAC bricks?  If so, I'd be interested to know how they stacked up against adobe bricks (pun intended).

 

[spidermike007]

51 minutes ago, IsaanT said:

In terms of insulation properties in isolation, did you consider AAC bricks?  If so, I'd be interested to know how they stacked up against adobe bricks (pun intended).

 

Are those similar to Q con bricks? Those would be my first choice but they're quite costly. 

[IsaanT]

33 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Are those similar to Q con bricks? Those would be my first choice but they're quite costly. 

Yep.  Autoclaved Aerated Concrete - lots of air bubbles, which makes it good for heat and sound insulation.

I currently live in an attractive looking rented house but the heat insulation is non-existent so I'm determined not to have the same issues in my house build.  Starting at the top of the house, we have heavy roof tiles but there is no foil backing to reflect heat, and no insulation above the ceilings.  I measure temperatures with my handheld IR thermometer and the ceilings can reach 38-40C when the sun's out.  The walls are made of normal thin Thai clay bricks and they can reach similar temperatures when the sun shines on them.  Thus the interior is uncomfortably hot all day and I retreat to the bedrooms where we have aircon.

I started my build last month.  I'll be using 15cm AAC blocks.  I've been in a nearly-built house near me that is using 10cm thick AAC blocks, which seems to be the norm for AAC builds in Thailand, and it was very cool.  Prestige builds use 20cm thick blocks.

I'm also using SCG heat-resistant roof tiles, and the lovely thick silver foil backing that apparently blocks 95% of radiant heat.  Then I'll be putting 6" of insulation above the ceiling.  The house is 1m above the ground which insulates it from the ground but also because my other half dislikes snakes even more than me.  Lastly, the house walls will be painted in heat-reflecting paint (it really makes a difference).

I appreciate you are taking a different direction to me but most expats desire comfortable temperatures so you may be interested.

The photos show progress to date.  The view is our pond, taken from the house - it's 73m long and 30m wide so very tranquil (apart from adding some banana trees along the fence, we haven't done much landscaping yet so there's lots of potential to improve the view).

 

[Hummin]

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Fantastic idea, anything to avoid standard Thai bricks is a great thing, they are an absolutely horrific building material, with no insulation properties whatsoever, difficulties with running wiring and plumbing through them, and a very impractical material. 

 

I'm going to be building a house soon and I'm going to be using super adobe brick I've already purchased all the equipment required and these bricks are a minimum of 200 cm in depth with tremendous insulation qualities in addition to a gorgeous aesthetic as shown in these images. 

 

 

Have you considered double brick walls? And if with or without insulation between? 

[IsaanT]

p.s. Our rented house (picture taken just before we moved in, hence no signs of life 😉).

It looks OK but absolutely no attempt was made in the design and construction to keep it cool.  Still, we only took it for a year and we're past April now so the worst has already occurred.

[IsaanT]

1 hour ago, Hummin said:

Have you considered double brick walls? And if with or without insulation between? 

I'm from the UK so they were definitely considered (almost all houses in the UK have cavity walls construction, as you may know).

From visiting building sites here and wandering around a few part-built houses made from 10cm AAC blocks, I consider sufficient and 15cm blocks can only be better.  If you ask AI nicely, it will calculate the thermal performance of several building materials and tell you how they compare (see picture - I asked it to include a refridgerator case for comparison because they are very well insulated).

Of course, double-thickness walls with a foil radiant barrier, polystyrene sheets (or both) in the middle would be the ultimate but I'm not sure the complication is worth trying for.  I say 'trying' rather than 'paying' because I'd like to stay within the competencies of our builders.  Having said that, we've yet to build the walls so the option is still there - I'll be discussing our final choice with my builder soon.

 

Ours is a three-bed, two bathroom design and we estimate around 1.75M baht for the house.

The house is north-facing - we've got lots of windows on the front, much smaller ones on the sides which will receive the sun, and the back doesn't matter (see below).

Once the house is completed and we have a house number, we'll be moving straight on with building a covered patio and parking spaces (see pictures from similar house that we used for inspiration).  Our house is 15M wide and 9m deep: the patio area will also be 15m wide but 18m deep so plenty of space for sitting outside and parking cars and motorbikes.  The photos show some steel pillars supporting the roof where the cars are parked - I intend to make that part of the roof cantilevered so there are no pillars to hit! 😉.

And the shallow-sloping patio roof will provide the perfect location for a few unobtrusive solar panels...

One of the most satisfying aspects of building your own house is the absence of bills once completed.  We've dug two wells on our land, and testing has proven that the water is already safe to drink but I will filter it.  We're fitting two septic tanks so no sewage costs.  Solar panels and batteries will eventually provide the electricity.  And, especially for UK readers, no council rates (I'm paying nearly £200 a month on my UK house).  So, apart from the electricity bill initially, there won't be any other bills.  It's almost too good to be true. 🙂

 

[spidermike007]

1 hour ago, Hummin said:

Have you considered double brick walls? And if with or without insulation between? 

Certainly not double brick walls with Thai brick. I will avoid using Thai brick aways, as I consider it a horrific building material. 

[Hummin]

13 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Certainly not double brick walls with Thai brick. I will avoid using Thai brick aways, as I consider it a horrific building material. 

Ah, OK, I just understood the super Adobe brick system. That indeed are one great way to build. I once looked in to the old car tire/sand/clay structure as well.

 

If I come bak to Thailand I will for sure make something more sufficient than how we built now, and spend more time and not rush anything. 

 

Eartship house

https://taos.org/explore/landmarks/taos-earthships/

[recom273]

3 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Are those similar to Q con bricks? Those would be my first choice but they're quite costly. 

 

Not actually that costly - I dont know how that compares to making your own - but AAC blocks go up a lot faster. Instead of a sand mortar. they use a type of glue cement which you use very little of, The price of cement has gone up considerably, the price of sand is also adds up, although it is 600B / cu m. To get the benefits of the AAC you should only use a light skim of render, thats a premix bagged.

 

We used red bricks in our bathrooms, it isnt even necessary, you can use AAC, but Thais believe that red bricks dont absorb (so much) water, they are better for holding sinks, etc (idk) but they are good for building shelves and alcoves, etc, also removing for floating shelves. - the bathrooms took forever, we had two different crews, one guy was really good, but you could see the difference with the second bricklayer. 

 

Its general consensus amongst expat homebuilders, that when you take in to account the speed which AAC can be laid, the price of the glue vs sand mortar, then the ease of render - the difference if negligible these days. I wouldn't like to say either way.

[spidermike007]

1 hour ago, recom273 said:

 

Not actually that costly - I dont know how that compares to making your own - but AAC blocks go up a lot faster. Instead of a sand mortar. they use a type of glue cement which you use very little of, The price of cement has gone up considerably, the price of sand is also adds up, although it is 600B / cu m. To get the benefits of the AAC you should only use a light skim of render, thats a premix bagged.

 

We used red bricks in our bathrooms, it isnt even necessary, you can use AAC, but Thais believe that red bricks dont absorb (so much) water, they are better for holding sinks, etc (idk) but they are good for building shelves and alcoves, etc, also removing for floating shelves. - the bathrooms took forever, we had two different crews, one guy was really good, but you could see the difference with the second bricklayer. 

 

Its general consensus amongst expat homebuilders, that when you take in to account the speed which AAC can be laid, the price of the glue vs sand mortar, then the ease of render - the difference if negligible these days. I wouldn't like to say either way.

Good tip. I will look into it. 

[cmjc]

Ahh! How refreshing to read decent brick-chat.

 

It's wonderdful to create something... anything... from bricks.

 

Excuse me whilst I muse on a new folly or two.

 

PS. The business in the original post has built a tall brick house behind the shop, and it has a lovely fireplace. He showed me inside... superb.

 

 

[TigerandDog]

21 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Are those similar to Q con bricks? Those would be my first choice but they're quite costly. 

the bricks themselves are costly. However, when you look at the overall costs, viz. render, labour & time costs to build, mortar costs etc. they are overall cheaper.  we used AAC bricks to build our house. Saved quite a lot of money and time in the long run by using them.

[IsaanT]

@spidermike007 I tried to PM you but you don't appear to be receiving messages.  Perhaps if you send me a PM with your email address I could use that.

 

 

[IsaanT]

59 minutes ago, TigerandDog said:

the bricks themselves are costly. However, when you look at the overall costs, viz. render, labour & time costs to build, mortar costs etc. they are overall cheaper.  we used AAC bricks to build our house. Saved quite a lot of money and time in the long run by using them.

 

What thickness AAC block did you use?  What can you report from your experience of using them?

[TigerandDog]

3 hours ago, IsaanT said:

 

What thickness AAC block did you use?  What can you report from your experience of using them?

we used 600mmx200mmx75mm.  You need ensure that the special premixed mortar for AAC blocks is used. This way there is no sand required to be purchased and not as much mortar needs to be applied. The same goes for render, special premixed.  Once the render had dried and was ready for painting we had a plastic skin applied to the render, then the undercoat and then the top coat. With painting we used Dulux paint, BUT if you use that paint you MUST insist on NO watering down of the paint, as Thais love to add stacks of water so the paint goes on easier, but that then reduces the life span of the paint. As a result of using the AAC bricks, which we purchased from Global Warehouse, we don't need to run air con on the lower level, just fans, and in the top floor bedrooms only need air con on for 1 hour before hitting the sack. Noise reduction is pretty good to and the one big thing we've been happy about is no rising damp, especially as the ground water level is only 1 metre below the surface here, and no need for double bricking on the western side of the house.

[cmjc]

On 6/11/2025 at 3:36 PM, TigerandDog said:

With painting we used Dulux paint, BUT if you use that paint you MUST insist on NO watering down of the paint, as Thais love to add stacks of water so the paint goes on easier, but that then reduces the life span of the paint.

 

Ahh that explains why all the white emulsion paint in side and outside of my rented house is flaking in platefuls. Plus no dampcourse was used, and we live right next to paddy rice fields!

 

You'll have used a proper dampcourse I'm sure?