Exterior bldg material that looks like faux brick?

[omni550]

They're building an LA Fitness club a few miles from my home.

I was driving behind their construction site the other day and saw them painting the exterior walls with a brick-colored paint. The walls in question looked to be covered with a white surface that had debossed 'brick mortar lines' in it. And after being painted they looked like brick walls.

The only real brick being used was in the entrance surrounds which jut out considerably from the walls of the 'big box' building giving it some character.

When painted, driving past at 45 mph, the painted walls do resemble brick.

This community might have building codes that require new retail/commercial construction to have brick exteriors (or in this case, faux brick) as that seems to be the trend for all the recent construction I've seen.

Does anyone know what this faux brick material is? It has to be a lot cheaper that paying for real bricks and the labor to install them.

omni

 

[Live And Learn]

I believe it is called "brickface". It is basically stucco, where the mortar is "drawn" on by removing a bit of the surface, leaving the "brick" raised.

Edit: found a video on Youtube

 

[omni550]

I believe it is called "brickface". It is basically stucco, where the mortar is "drawn" on by removing a bit of the surface, leaving the "brick" raised.

Live And Learn,

What an interesting method to dress up an otherwise ugly wall. Alas, what was utilized at LA Fitness wasn't this nice.

What I saw at LA Fitness (exterior walls look to be ~30 feet high) appeared to be made of very large panels with the debossed mortar lines already in them. I'm calling them panels, as I don't know what they were...but they appeared to be very flat with 'factory uniformity'.

As I only saw this project in midstream, I'm not sure if the panels were white from the beginning, or if they had been spray painted white prior to being roller-painted with the brick color paint (this is the part I observed).

When these white panels are painted with a paint roller, the debossed lines remain unpainted and appear to be white 'mortar'.

omni

 

[Live And Learn]

any of these similar ? Shop Brick Veneer & Accessories at Lowes.com!

They also have stone veneers which are really pretty.

 

[Rustic23]

In Fl., cerca 1977, they were putting brick accents on houses using this method. Stucco over cinder block for the house with faux brick accents.

 

[Idnar7]

Some athletic stadiums are using this to save money. I believe the new Baylor stadium in Waco, TX has this. From television it looks like real brick.

 

[Badger]

Faux brick and stone was heavily advertised on TV in North Florida a few decades ago as an alternative to stucco. It was mainly popular in very low cost housing areas. I haven't seen it advertised since the 70s. Some folks bought into the idea and while there are still a few houses remaining with the stucco like facing you can tell it is not the real thing even from a distance.

Cheers!

 

[FUEGO]

We spec'd some "brick" walls to surround the toll plazas when I worked for the NC Turnpike. They are precast concrete panels with the brick shapes cast in the form work.

After the crane dropped the wall panels into the vertical supports, some dude came to paint the bricks slightly different colors plus paint recesses between the "bricks" a whitish mortar-like color. Looks great at highway speeds and from 100+ feet away, looks crappy from 3' but no one ever gets that close to them.

Edit to add: the benefit of the pre-cast wall panels with the brick texture are cost and speed of construction. Dropping the panels in place takes less than a day and you have instant brick (other than the paint guy coming in, which is also no more than a day if you have a large enough crew).

 

[Sunset]

Long ago, in really poor areas you would see fake brick in a roll roofing material put on the sides of houses. It looked bad then too.

 

[omni550]

Some athletic stadiums are using this to save money. I believe the new Baylor stadium in Waco, TX has this. From television it looks like real brick.

Very likely. I imagine this is a style of fascia that is used to cover large expanses that no one spends much time looking at. But they look fine from a distance or a 'drive by'.

omni

 

[omni550]

We spec'd some "brick" walls to surround the toll plazas when I worked for the NC Turnpike. They are precast concrete panels with the brick shapes cast in the form work.

After the crane dropped the wall panels into the vertical supports, some dude came to paint the bricks slightly different colors plus paint recesses between the "bricks" a whitish mortar-like color. Looks great at highway speeds and from 100+ feet away, looks crappy from 3' but no one ever gets that close to them.

Edit to add: the benefit of the pre-cast wall panels with the brick texture are cost and speed of construction. Dropping the panels in place takes less than a day and you have instant brick (other than the paint guy coming in, which is also no more than a day if you have a large enough crew).

I'll have to do an 'up close' inspection of the faux brick walls after they take down the 'construction zone' fencing to see if these are concrete or what...


omni

 

[omni550]

I stopped at the construction site yesterday, took a closer look, and snapped a few pics. It looks similar to what Fuego described.

These do look like they were originally large white concrete panels with a debossed faux brick pattern on the top portion and some stucco-looking finish on the bottom portion. The faux brick portion was painted a brick color after the panel installation. It appears that the white 'mortar joints' are simply the original white panel color (no retouching/going over to fill in, etc.)

Between adjacent abutting panels, you can see that there's been some sort of caulking/adhesive applied as an adhesive and/or sealant.

You can also see that the faux brick pattern has some pattern discontinuities along a foot or so of both the edge portions that really show up when multiple panels are in place.

I also am attaching some pics of the real brick sections (which are limited to the entry areas which jut out from the building) adjacent to the faux brick panels, a wall section of faux brick above the white 'stucco' bottom portion, a small section of faux brick peeking out above the real brick portion of window and entry surrounds.

omni