Brick Exteriors - Building Homes with Brick

Walls, roof, windows, and doors: these are the parts of your home that serve its most basic function: providing shelter. These days, they can go much further than that, offering greater protection from the elements, unprecedented energy savings, and surprisingly little maintenance. And don’t forget: the walls, roof, windows, and doors also function as the face of your home, visible every day to visitors, neighbors, and passers-by.

Brick can withstand the force of a hurricane as well as the breath of the Big Bad Wolf. And it’s a great insulator, particularly in hot climates. Brick is also produced in a huge array of colors, shapes, and sizes. So called "thin brick" weighs less than traditional brick and can be used as veneer.

Using Brick on the Exterior of your Home

Fortunately, today's brick gives you all the benefits of modern building technology without sacrificing curb appeal; for example, see House Plan 927-409, below.

In some house plan designs brick is used with stone, for example in House Plan 927-11 (see below) where stone provides accents on an exterior that is mostly brick. Read about building with stone here.