Absorption
Commonly known as suction rate. The amount of water absorbed when a dry brick is immersed to a depth of 3mm for a period of one minute.

Absorption- water
The amount of water the brick will absorb when immersed in either cold or boiling water for a specific length of lime. It is expressed as a percentage of weight of the dry brick.

Additives
A broad term that encompasses all of the ingredients added to an emulsion to impart certain properties that improve the performance or properties of this emulsion.

Anchor
See also TIE. A piece or connected pieces of metal used to attach building parts, such as plates or joists, to masonry materials. Also describes the attachment of masonry to the building structure.

Arch
A structural space used to span openings or recesses. Structurally, an arch is a component or assembly of components arranged over an opening so that the supported load is resolved into pressures on the side supports.

Auto ignition
The temperature at atmospheric pressure that the vapor will ignite spontaneously.

Average porosity masonry
Masonry with cold water absorption of approximately 6-10%

Bagged Brickwork
A rough method of finishing brickwork. Usually used in preparation for a painted finish by applying thin, sloppy mortar with a hessian bag or similar material.

Bat
A piece of cut or broken brick; also known as half brick.

Boiling Range
A range of temperatures that mark the onset of boiling.

Bone
Tying the various parts of a brick wall by lapping one brick over another. The adhesion of the mortar to the bricks is also referred to as the Bond. The term Bond is also used to describe the various patterns formed by the exposed faces of the bricks.

Colonial Bond: Three courses of STRETCHERS followed by one course of HEADERS.

English Bond: Alternate stretcher and header courses.

Flemish Bond: Alternate stretchers and headers in each course.

Garden Wall Bond: Three stretchers to one header in each course.

Slack Bond: Stretchers laid above the other with perpendiculars in line.

Stretcher Bond: All stretchers, except where the header is needed to complete a course. Also called a Half Bond.

Breathing
In this regard it means allowing air and water vapor carried in air to pass through its pores.

Brick
A solid or perforated unit of clay formed into a rectangular prism and hardened by a firing process. The size of the brick is limited by the following:

Its length shall not be less than 1.5 times its width and not more then 390mm.

Its height shall not be greater than 60 percent of its length.

These provisions do not apply to bricks cut or purpose-made to complete a bond.

Air Brick: Terra cotta or similar fired clay brick built info walls to allow circulation of air through walls.

Base Course Bricks: A brick with one edge bevel led allowing a neat reduction in wall thickness.

Clinker Brick: A hard, bloated and sometimes distorted looking brick. This is caused by the brick being burnt almost to the point of complete vitrification.

Common Brick: Any brick not treated for special texture or colour variations, and made primarily for the purpose of building. Also used to describe reject facing bricks used in non visible part of a wall.

Dough-Boy (or callow): An unfired clay brick.

Extruded Brick: Made by forcing a continuous column of clay with an 14 -25% moisture content through a die. The clay is then wire cut to the required length.

Fire Brick: Made from refractory ceramic material which is able to withstand high temperatures.

Facing Brick: Made primarily for use in facing walls. The bricks used in the Austral Mediterranean Collection are facing bricks.

Hard-Fired/Burned: A term specific to high temperature fired bricks. This produces low water absorption and high compressive strength.

Brick on Edge Construction
A wall constructed where traditional size bricks are laid on their narrow edge, normally with the visible face rendered.

Bricky's sand
Sand used for making mortar. Contains a high proportion of clay that acts as an mortar plasticizing agent.

Brick veneer
Construction where the load-bearing structure is made of steel or timber frames rather than brick. A single leaf of brickwork is used for the exposed exterior of the building. The non-structural brickwork is tied to the building.

Buttering
The act of placing mortar on the full head of the brick before it’s laid.

Caulked
A flexible caulking that is inserted over the expansion gap and expansion joint to keep weather and insects out.

Chock
A piece of brick used to fill a small hole.

Closer
A less than full-size brick used to bring a wall to a vertical face.

Bevelled Closer: A brick cut so as to have one end half the normal dimension and full width the other end.

King Closer: A brick with one comer cut off between the mid-points of adjacent sides.

Queen Closer: A brick which has been cut half longitudinally.

Coping
The material or bricks used to form a finish or cap on top of a wall. This will protect the brickwork below from water penetration above.

Course
One of the continuous horizontal layers of bricks which are bonded with mortar to form the brickwork structure.

Dags
Lumps of hardened mortar left on the brick face by untidy bricklaying.

Damp Course
A layer or course of impervious material in a floor or wall to prevent the downward and upward movement of moisture.

Decorative contrast band
A band or course or several courses of brickwork that is coloured in a contrasting colour to that of the main brickwork for aesthetic reasons.

Efflorescence
The salty residue deposited or appearing on the surface of masonry. It can be due to a number of soluble salts moving from wet masonry to its dry surface. The salts can be from the brickwork or from the environment surrounding the brickwork, e.g., fertilizer from garden beds, etc.

Expansion joint
A compressible expanded rubber or polymer membrane inserted between panels of brickwork to allow for brick expansion and thermal expansion of the brick wall.

Face
The long surface of an exposed brick, or the exposed surface of a wall.

Flash Point
The temperature at which the vapor of a liquid compound will ignite, at atmospheric pressure, when exposed to a naked flame.

Footing
A specific part of a structure designed to transfer loads to the foundation.

Foundation
The earth-supported structural elements.

Full flush joint
The full flush joint is a full bed of mortar (grout) approximately 10mm in thickness that is cut off flush and level with the edges of the brick. This joint is a standard finish for face quality brickwork.

Grout
In unreinforced brickwork, mortar of a consistency such that it will flow without segregating the materials to be joined. In reinforced brickwork, a specially-made material, like concrete, that will flow without segregation.

Hacking
Scarring the face of a brick surface to provide a hold for an applied finish such as plaster.

Header
A brick laid with its greatest dimension perpendicular to the face of the wall.

Header course
A continuous bonding course of header bricks.

Heritage
Buildings or dwellings of historic significance and usually protected by local councils to preserve the historic appearance of such buildings.

Infill
An infill is a contrasting panel of brickwork in a wall that is either laid with different laying bond or mortar finish or different coloured bricks for aesthetic reasons.

Joints

Flush Joint: The mortar is scraped off flush with the brick face. This is always used when a smooth finish is required. This is the joint used for the Austral Bricks Mediterranean Collection.

Flush Joint Gray Mortar

Raked Joint White Mortar

Rolled Joint: A round, iron bar is drawn across the wet mortar, smoothing the finish and creating a half-circle indent.

Rolled Joint Cream Mortar

Struck Joint: A trowel is used to remove the mortar at a slight angle to the face of the brick.

Struck Joint Off-white Mortar

Neutralizing compounds
Compounds with a high alkalinity that when applied to masonry surface that have been treated with acids etc., it will neutralize the masonry. Bring its pH back to approximately pH 7 to 8.

Permanent brickwork colour tinting
The recolouring of masonry surfaces, such as brickwork. This permanent tinting is effected by application of a permanent masonry stain over clean dry masonry. The dry masonry absorbs the stain into its surface pore structures, whereby the binders in the stain bond the colourants which are oxides to the walls of these pores. The result is a final colour change to the surface of the masonry whilst its natural texture and authentic brick and mortar look are retained.

QUV
A standard accelerated weatherometer testing apparatus that is designed to assess and rank the durability of a surface coating or finish with regards to UV radiation.

Resin solids
The dry weight of the resin in the emulsion of the Nawtint.

Rundown
When spraying on water repellent emulsions this is the amount of distance the liquid excess runs down the wall below the area being sprayed.

Run of kiln
Burned clay bricks from one kiln which have not been sorted or graded.

Salt Attack /Damp
The fretting of brickwork caused by the drying out on the surface of salts dissolved in the water that is wetting the brickwork.

Sharp
The term used for sand that contains little or no naturally occurring clays or silts. Such sands are usually obtained from quarrying operations on beaches and dunes, or on river beds or former river beds. Sharp sands are not suitable for use in mortars used with Nawtint applications by themselves without modifications to the mortar mix.

Soldier
A brick laid on its edge so that its greatest dimension is vertical.

Spec built
This is a dwelling or building constructed by the builder or developer for the purpose of sale.

Stable oxides
Oxides used in colouration rather than dyes and synthesized colourants. These oxides are stable.

Stain
A liquid substance applied especially to brick that penetrates the surface and imparts a rich colour. Painting and Staining are different terms. These denote two different processes. The first is mechanical, the other chiefly chemical. To paint a thing is to spread a coat of colouring matter over it and hide its surface. To stain a thing is to impart colour to its substance. To stain is said chiefly of solids, such as wood, glass, brick, paper, etc. The first is commonly a simple process, such as applying a wash. The other is more complex, such as fixing colours by mordants.

Staggered Wall
A wait incorporating alternating left-hand and right-hand returns. This is often used to increase a wall's stability.

Stretcher
A brick with its greatest dimension parallel to the lace of the wall.

String Course
A horizontal, narrow course of brickwork that is molded and slightly projected from the rest of the wall.

Substrate
The masonry surface, whether it be brick, block, mortar, etc.

Tie-wall
Metal used to attach two leaves of a cavity wall together or to attach the single masonry leaf of brick-veneer construction to its supporting frame.

Tuckpointing
Where the mortar projects as a fine edge between the bricks. The joints are raked and joined with mortar, and are usually coloured to match the bricks. A shallow groove approximately 8mm wide is formed in the joints and the grooves are filled contrasting colour projecting 2 to 3mm.

Walls

Base Wall: That portion of the wall below the level of the adjacent grade or below the structure of the floor.

Bearing Wall: A wall which supports a substantially vertical load in addition to its own weight.

Cavity Wall: A brick wall built so as to provide a continuous air space at least 25mm wide, and rarely more than 110mm wide within the wall. The facing and backing are tied together with metal ties.

Dwarf Wall: A wall or partition which does not meet the ceiling.

Exterior Wall: Any outside wall or vertical enclosure.

Spandrel Wall: That part of a wall above a window in one story, and below the sill of a window in the story above.

Weathering
A sloping surface arranged to throw rainwater clear of the face of lower brickwork.

Weepholes
These are intermittent spaced vacant perp end joints (gaps between bricks laid side by side where by mortar was deliberately left off the brick during laying.) These gaps allow water to drain out of the wall cavity at floor level if water inadvertently were to enter the cavity between the brick wall and the internal wall.