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In this video I want to recap the three main points you need to keep in mind if
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you want to combine brick and stone on your project. This house here is a good
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example of of that approach and the first thing I want to explain is
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technical. If you live in a place where temperatures drop below freezing during
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the winter, well then you have to keep your brick at least eight inches away
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from the soil, at least eight inches above, and the way you do that is with
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stone and that's stone that's made to take the freeze-thaw cycles. So if
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you're using natural stone for this then that's no problem. Natural stone can
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usually hold up against that pretty well. If you're using manufactured stone
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you'll want to talk to the manufacturer first to make sure that it's okay to use
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this stuff in ground contact or at least close to the ground. So this house here
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does a good job of keeping the brick away from the soil. It's actually raising
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the brick much more than is necessary above the soil, but there's a very good
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reason to be conscious of this and it has to do with what you see here. This is
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the kind of thing that can happen if brick is used too close to the ground
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When water hits the ground, rainwater hits the ground, it splashes up, it's
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continually wetting this brick and the mortar and if that water is absorbed by
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either of those things and it freezes, the water is going to expand and it's
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going to cause things to crack and flake and fall apart. So that's why there's
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this very strong recommendation, well requirement in fact, that you have your
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bricks sufficiently above the ground level. This is actually almost funny if
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it wasn't sad. This is in a million-dollar house in a major North
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American city and here we have a layer of brick that's actually almost
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completely buried. You're looking at ground level right now. Those are paving bricks as part of a driveway. So that first course of bricks was actually
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almost completely underground and you can see the kind of flaking that sets in
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It's called spalling and it's actually kind of remarkable that the bricks above
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it have not deteriorated because they're pretty much at ground level too. But this
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is what you want to avoid and that's the technical reason for combining brick and
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stone but most of the reason is aesthetic. So it's because of the look
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you want to get and maybe this is something you're after. This is a
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combination of two kinds of stone. So there's some stone here, there's some
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stone here. So combining two kinds of stone with brick and on an aesthetic
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level when you're considering this you want something that matches of course
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And different companies have gotten into the brick and stone combination thing
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It's kind of hot right now and designers have put together color palettes that
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actually work well together. So that's one of the advantages of going with a I
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would say a pre-engineered approach is that you're going to get colors that
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look good together. They don't always. It's not a guarantee so it's good to
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have someone who knows what they're doing looking out for you. So color is
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one thing. The other thing though is dimensions. You can see here where you
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know the brick is meeting the stone and eventually in different places around
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the project that's what you're going to have. And ideally you want the bricks to
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be some multiple of the height of the stone so that things line up. You're not
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going to get mismatch when you're moving from one to the other. So the same
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thickness of mortar joint should yield the same height of masonry moving from
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brick to stone. Sometimes the stones going to be say twice as high as a layer
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of brick. So a layer of brick with a mortar joint under those layers
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will equal the height of the stone for instance. That's all pre-engineered and
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you'll want to ask about that. You don't need to do the heavy lifting on your own
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as far as matching color and dimensions. Here's another another nice looking
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example of a combination and if you look here the stone does continue all the way
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down. So this is a well-engineered project here that the brick is
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kept high and dry and away from any moisture building up. This is actually a
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throwback to the time when all masonry buildings, so buildings made entirely
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with masonry no wood frame, they would almost always start with a stone
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foundation that would rise up above the ground a little bit and then the brick would continue. So standard practice in yesteryear and it still makes a lot of
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sense today. Now here's a nice looking house. It's got a nice a lot of nice
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aesthetic features. The stone looks good. We got arches here. We've got some
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corners delineated. But I hope this home is in a place where they don't see
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temperatures below freezing because look at that. The bricks right there. The
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bricks right there. Here it's right right at the ground level over here. Same over
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here. They would have been far better off to run a course of weather resistant
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stone down around the perimeter. It actually would have made it look nicer
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too I think. But more importantly on a technical level it would just last a lot
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longer. And I guess essentially that's it. Now this course is not just the material
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you've received but I'm here to help you as well. So I can't answer every question
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in the course. I've tried my best to cover everything that's important but
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you will no doubt have specific questions. So track me down. Email is best
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We can phone each other if necessary. I have I do video conferences sometimes
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People just walking around with their phone showing me what's going on and and
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I can help them that way. So anyway let's work together to get the best possible
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new home or addition that involves brick and or stone. Thank you very much
