Survey: Which building material/construction method have you chosen?

Sand-lime brick. And for us, it was one of the central criteria in choosing the general contractor.

But why?

(Since links are forbidden, here is a comparison):

Brick – the flexible classic
Brick is the oldest building material of all and still the stone from which most walls are made. A special advantage: the air trapped in the structure of the brick gives it excellent thermal insulation properties. You can safely build with bricks in a single layer, i.e., without an additional insulation wall. Especially insulating and thus energy-saving are bricks filled with perlite, a granular volcanic rock. Rule of thumb: The more perlite in the brick, the lower the heating costs.

While it keeps heat inside, the brick also effectively fends off attacks from outside: pests and water can do nothing to the resilient masonry. Moisture is absorbed but quickly released again in dry climates – keeping the indoor climate pleasant. The classically plastered brick wall is

also free of cracks and joints that could let wind through and cause heat loss.


Sand-lime brick – the stable quiet achiever
Sand-lime brick is the second most commonly used building material after brick. It is extremely environmentally friendly and, because it is relatively heavy, provides excellent sound insulation. When it comes to load-bearing capacity, sand-lime brick is unbeatable: even with a wall thickness of only 11.5 centimeters, the stone is highly load-bearing – and slim walls create more living space. The material also provides good fire protection. Only in thermal insulation is it somewhat lacking: to provide optimal thermal protection, a sand-lime brick wall requires an additional insulation layer or a double-shell wall construction.

Conclusion for me:
Brick > Sand-lime (unless you live by the highway)

Best regards

Maybe he lives by the highway. KS makes sense if you want to use facing bricks or another curtain facade. KS+ETICS if you want to build as cheaply as possible.

We are building with Dennert Massivhaus (precast concrete modules + ETICS). The U-value is 0.15; whether it was the right decision will become apparent at the end of 2019.

After numerous model home, construction site, and other visits, we are optimistic.

We knew: plastered, not brick-faced, because of the cost. My brother, who is a professional, then said: plastered, but without ETICS. Monolithic. You can do that with Ytong. Don’t do anything else. No mold, no holes, no algae, good fire protection. Solid wall. – I went to the contractor with that. He said, we build it like that as a standard anyway. ETICS only on the explicit customer request and reluctantly. So everything was clear. K.

It is simply completely irrelevant for the average single-family house builder, unless you are actually building next to the highway. The most important thing is and remains that the company is well acquainted with the chosen system, because if processed incorrectly, all the mentioned combinations can end badly; properly processed, nowadays all systems survive by far (whether prefabricated house, ETICS or monolithic), without causing problems.

By the way, we have Kalksandstein + [Klinker]. Alternatively, we would have taken Kalksandstein + [WDVS].

Solid wood + ETICS

Passive house, preferably with regional companies, the chemistry with the general contractor must be right, no intermediaries and then the air got very thin.

Our general contractor builds passive houses or KFW 40, KFW 55 is already exotic, but the houses are also affordable there. We had comparison offers from prefabricated house manufacturers in KFW 55 and they were sometimes above our passive house - with similar equipment and size