This document defines and describes various types of bricks and brick masonry terminology. It discusses the ideal composition of bricks, common brick sizes, and terms used to describe parts of bricks like headers, stretchers, arrises, and beds. It also explains different bonds used in brick masonry like English bond, Flemish bond, stretching bond, and their characteristics. Closers like queen closers, king closers and bats of different sizes are also defined.

1. BRICKS
-MOHAMMEDHASAN

2. • A brick is a block or a single
unit of a kneaded clay
bearing soil, sand and lime,
or concrete material, fire-
hardened or air-dried, used
in masonry construction.

3. • Good bricks are characteristics with good & uniform shape, correct
rectangular shape and shard edges and uniform colour.
• Brick used for construction purpose should contain pure material instead
unnecessary lime, impurities like organic material and must not have any
kind of crack and distorted edges.
• Bricks are ideal only if they absorb not more than 20% of water after
immersed in water for at least 24 hours.
• Ideally Bricks should contain appropriate composition of raw material in
respect to clay 20 to 40%, sand 30 to 40% and silt 25 to 35%.
• The actual size of a modular brick is 190mm x 90mm x 90mm
• With mortar thickness size of such brick becomes 200mm x 100 mm x 100
mm
• It is found that the weight of 1m of earth brick is about 1800kg
• Hence average weight of a brick will be about 3 to 3.50 kg

4. • STRETCHER : This is a brick laid with its length
parallel to the face or foot or direction of wall
• HEADER : This is a brick laid with its breadth or
width parallel to the face or front or direction
of wall

5. • ARRISES : The edges formed
by the intersection of planes
of brick is called Arises
• BED : The lower surface of
brick when laid flat is known
as bed
• MASONRY : The construction
process with bricks is called
masonry

6. • PERPENDS : The vertical joints separating
bricks in either length or cross directions are
known as perpends
• CLOSER:A piece of brick used to close up bond
at end of brick courses is known as closer
• BAT : When a brick is cut across the width, the
resulting piece is called bat. Thus a bat is
smaller in length than the full brick.

7. SOME IMPORTANT TERMS USED IN BRICK
MASONRY
• QUEEN CLOSER
• QUEEN CLOSER QUARTER
• KING CLOSER
• BEVELLED CLOSER
• MITRED CLOSER
• HALF-BAT
• THREE QUARTER-BAT
• BEVELLEDBAT-LARGE
• BEVELLED BAT-SMALL
• BULL NOSE
• COW NOSE(DOUBLE BULL NOSE)

8. QUEEN CLOSER
• When a brick is cut along
its length, making it two
equal halves then it is
called queen closer.
Thus a queen closer is a
broken brick portion
whose width is half as
wide as the original
brick. This is also called
as queen closer half.

9. QUEEN CLOSER QUARTER
• If a queen closer is
broken into two
equal pieces then
it is known
as queen closer
quarter. Such a
closer is thus a
brick piece which is
one quarter of the
brick size.

10. KING CLOSER
• If a brick is cut in such a way that the width of one
end becomes half that of a full brick, while the width
at the other end is equal to the full width, then it is
called as king closer. It is obtained by cutting out a
triangular portion of the brick between the centre of
one end (width side) and the centre of the other end
(lay side). Thus it has half header and half stretcher
face.

11. BEVELLED CLOSER
• It is a form of king closer in
which the whole length of the
brick (i.e. stretcher face) is
chamfered or beveled in such
a way that half width is
maintained at one end and full
width is maintained at the
other end.

12. MITRED CLOSER
• It is a portion of a brick whose one end is cut
splayed or mitred for full width. The angle of
splay may vary from 450 to 600. Thus one longer
face of the mitred closer is of full length of the
brick while the other longer face is smaller in
length.

13. HALF-BAT
• If the length of the bat is equal to half the
length of the original brick, it is known as half
bat.

14. THREE QUARTER-BAT
• When a brick is cut across the width, the
resulting piece is called bat. Thus a bat is
smaller in length than the full brick.

15. BEVELLED BAT-LARGE
• It is obtained by cutting a portion of brick such
that the three fourth part of one face of brick
and the half part of the other face

16. BEVELLED BAT-SMALL
• It is obtained by cutting a portion of brick such
that the half of one face of stretcher and the
quarter of face of another stretcher of the
same brick

17. BULL NOSE
• Bullnose brick is a style of brick that has one,
some or all of its corners rounded off. These
brick can be used to create soft and attractive
curved edges to steps, sills, or in capping
walls.

18. COW NOSE(DOUBLE BULL NOSE)
• A brick molded with a rounded angle is
termed as a bull nose. It is used for a rounded
quoin

19. BONDS IN BRICK WORK
• The different types of bond commonly adopted are :
• ENGLISH BOND
• FLEMISH BOND
• STRECHING BOND
• HEADING BOND
• GARDEN WALL BOND
• FACING BOND
• RAKING BOND
• DUTCH BOND
• ENGLISH CROSS BOND
• ZIG-ZAG BOND

20. ENGLISH BOND
• English bond consists of alternate course of headers and
stretches. In this English bond arrangement, vertical
joints in the header courses come over each other and
the vertical joints in the stretcher course are also in the
same line. For the breaking of vertical joints in the
successive course it is essential to place queen closer,
after the first header in each heading course.

21. FLEMISH BOND
• This arrangement of bonding
brick each course contains
alternate headers and
stretchers
• The alternate headers of each
course are centered over
stretchers
• Every alternate course starts
with a header at corner

22. STRECHING BOND
• In this all bricks are laid as
stretchers
• The over lapping of half brick
is obtained by commencing
each alternate course with a
half brick bat
• This is also termed as
running bond

23. HEADING BOND
• In this all bricks are laid as headers on faces
• The overlap which is usually of half the width of
brick is obtained by introducing a three quarter
bat in each alternative quoins
• These bonds are used in footings in foundations

24. GARDEN WALL BOND
• This is suitable for 1 brick thick wall
• This is not strong as English bond
• This is mainly used for constructing cavity
walls
• There are two types of garden wall bonds
• ENGLISH GARDEN WALL BOND
• FLEMISH GARDEN WALL BOND

25. ENGLISH GARDEN WALL BOND
• This arrangement is similar to
English bond except the
heading courses are only
inserted at every 4th or 6th
course
• Usually it consists of one
course of headers to 3 courses
of stretchers
• A queen closer is laced next to
quoin header

26. FLEMISH GARDEN WALL BOMD
• This consists of alternate
course composed of one
header to three or some
times even five stretchers
in series throughout length
• Each alternate course
contains a three quarter
bat placed next to a quoin
header
• A header laid over middle
of each central stretcher

27. FACING BOND
• This bond consists of heading and stretching
courses arranged that one heading course
comes after a stretching courses

28. RAKING BOND
• This is a bond in brick work in which bricks are
laid at any angle other than zero or ninety
degrees
• There are two common forms of racking bond;
• HEERING BOND
• DIAGONAL BOND

29. HEERING BOND
• This type of bond is suited for very thick walls
usually not less than four bricks
• In this arrangement of brick work, bricks are
laid in course at 45 degree in two directions
form centre

30. DIAGONAL BOND
• This bond is best suited for
walls
• This bond is usually
introduced at every 5th or
7th course along height of
wall
• In this bond, bricks are
placed end to end in such a
way that extreme corners
of series remain in contact
with stretchers

31. DUTCH BOND
• This bond is modification of
old English cross bond of
alternate courses of headers
and stretchers
• Each stretching course starts
at quoin with a three-quarter
bat and every alternate
stretching course has a
header placed next to three-
quarter brick bat

32. ENGLISH CROSS BOND
• This is similar to English
bond
• Consists of alternate course
of headers and stretcher
• Queen closer are introduced
next to quoin headers and
each alternate stretching
has header placed next to
quoin stretcher

33. ZIG-ZAG BOND
• This is similar to hearing bond
• In this bricks are laid in a zigzag fission