Exterior wall bricks: Choose unfilled, filled, or project bricks?

Hello everyone,

I have meanwhile waded through countless "stone discussions". However, some questions regarding the construction of our single-family house remain open. In the meantime, we have decided on bricks without ETICS as the building material.

However, the question remains whether to use filled (perlite), unfilled, or possibly even a (more stable) special brick from the product lines of well-known manufacturers. It is important to us that the brick is not too "crumbly" and that kitchen cabinets etc. can be securely and reasonably easily attached. Sound insulation also plays a role.

What are your views on the following points:

[*]Which category of bricks is "more stable" or holds fastenings better?

[*]Are bricks with lambda values from 0.09 to 0.12 practically "more stable" than those with 0.07-0.08?

[*]Are unfilled bricks "more crumbly" than filled bricks?

[*]Is the extra cost for special bricks for multi-family residential buildings worthwhile (from sound insulation and stability reasons)?

[*]Do sound insulation values of bricks > 45 dB make any sense at all if no soundproof windows are installed ("the weakest point" for sound would then be the windows)?

[*]How do filled bricks compare to unfilled bricks in terms of price, i.e. which is more expensive? (As a layperson, I unfortunately only found very conflicting information in the price lists of well-known manufacturers)

Thanks for your assessments ufr123

For a normal single-family house in a normal location with normal requirements, the unfilled Poroton bricks are more than sufficient. As you can see, many "normals..".

If you have a railway line or something similar, you have to also pattern the windows anyway.

Poroton filled with perlite is better in sound insulation, and the additional cost for a single-family house with 160 m² is about 6000 euros (shell construction surcharge).

Fastenings hold there only minimally better as well.

If you really want good sound insulation with no problems with fastening, you have to use sand-lime bricks and [WDVS].

Personally, I can only recommend unfilled Poroton to you, a great building block and best in 42.5 cm thickness. With that, you always have some reserve if something breaks out during shell construction or is milled.

I have meanwhile waded through countless "stone discussions".

Then you will have seen that the sermonic content usually outweighs the informational content.

The "crumbly" nature of the earthen part of the brick itself is not affected by the filling. However, the behavior of this, let's say loosely, "cream filling" (hardening, settling, ...) can definitely influence the choice of anchors for fastenings. In case of doubt, the unfilled brick is better, as one can introduce a "local" chamber filling with properties of one's own choice through the drill hole. A chamber filled with a settling filler would have to be pessimistically regarded as filled with undefined quality and tending towards a cavity.

That is not entirely correct. The filled brick has much thicker and stronger inner walls. The myth of the crumbling brick when drilling has also been debunked many times.

That is not quite correct. The filled brick has significantly thicker and more stable inner walls. The myth of bricks crumbling out during drilling has also been debunked many times.

Even from manufacturer to manufacturer, the crumbling effect varies in intensity. There are brick manufacturers that Rohnbauer do not like to use.

However, the statement is correct that filled bricks are rather thick-walled compared to unfilled ones with the best possible thermal insulation properties (more air layers = better insulation).