Brickwork Arch Design can be a very complicated area of the visual feeling of your building. There are many types of brickwork arches that are used in the construction of brickwork faced buildings. The introduction of an arch in your building will require many different considerations when in the design stage. The most important element will be the structural integrity of the arch and its importance as a support. The use arches to span openings can be traced back many 1000`s of years, but it is thought the Romans were the first to adopt the structural capabilities of an arch in building design.
A brickwork arch commonly comprises individual bricks bonded in mortar. The method works by transferring the load both; sideways and downwards. There are basically two ways brickwork arches are constructed in brickwork…
- Segnental Arch
- Rough Arch
Rough Arch
Rough arches are constructed using standard bricks, this method is not acceptable when building the arch and can lead to performance issues in the future. The use of standard bricks will create the formation of very large mortar joints towards the Extrados of the arch. For a detailed description of the parts of an arch, please click here. You can see from the image below that using standard bricks in your arch is a very poor choice. One of things that bricklayers strive for is keeping constant joints between each brick, this is referred to as Brickwork Gauge. This should always be considered in your brickwork arch design.
This type of method can be used where there is no real structural considerations and would be often rendered and hidden from view.
Segmental Arch
This method is by far the more preferred method when considering your brickwork arch design and requires each of the bricks to be tapered towards the Intrados of the arches radius. These segments are referred to as “Voussoirs”. Using these types of segments will not allow them to fall out. In a rough arch, it is the mortar joints that are tapered and they solely rely on the mortar to key them together. As you can see from the image below, the use of Voussoirs in the arch is much more ascetically pleasing and has a greater structural integrity.
The Tapered or Voussoirs bricks in your segmental arch can be either cut by the Bricklayer on-site or purchased from a Brick Manufacturer. Purchasing pre- made segments will increase the accuracy of your arch and in turn will be a lot easier fro the Bricklayer to achieve consistent results.
There is obviously a cost issue in the initial purchase of the tapered bricks for your brick arch design, this would be off set by the amount of time it would take the Bricklayer to mark and cut each individual brick. I would recommend purchasing the bricks if there are many arches to form on your structure, but often the work would involve the insertion or replacement of one arch. In this case, I would cut the bricks individually, one of the other considerations when buying the tapered bricks is the lead time from design to delivery, this could often be months.
Hi . I am currently building my own house in Essex.
I am having some Voussoir arch forms above 13 windows equalling 40 linear meteres.
I wondered what you charge per m2
Also is it the norm for specialist companies like yourselves to cut the bricks for the brickie to then point in. Or do some brickies do this all by themselves?
Many thanks for your time.
Hi,
It is not a simple answer, it depends on the height of your arches. For a very shallow arch it is possible to get good results using standards bricks and a good bricklayer. If your arches are high then i would recommend buying arch kits from a brick manufacturer. These can be designed for your specific project and would look so much better.
I would not recommend that you try to cut your own Voussoir or segments for this many arches, results could be very inconsistent and very tricky to actually cut the bricks, even with a brick saw.
I would contact a local builders merchant, they will certainly be able to put you in touch with a brick manufacturer or why not ask your architect for advice, they often have a lot of contacts for this type of design criteria.
Happy to help in any way i can – just ask and good luck
Hi there, we need to cut some of our bricks in to arched segments for our one radial arch of 879-880mm. The reason I say that is we are just waiting for the lintel to arrive on Monday and this will be the basis of our arch. We do not think we will have time to send the bricks off to be cut in to an arch. With the lintel as a guide do you think it would be possible for us to cut the bricks into segments ourselves?
Many thanks
Jodie
Hi,
Of course you can cut your own bricks, but this is not for the faint hearted unless you have a lot of experience.
The best way to do it is to mark it out on a sheet of ply, use your lintel as a template. Then find the centre along the base and use a
piece of timber as a guide screwed at the pivot point. Then place the bricks on it and mark them. Dont try to use a disc cutter or bench saw unless
you have the experience. Let me know if you need any further help.
its nice information thanking you