Characterization and Appraisal of Technical Specifications in Brick Façade Projects in Spain

Abstract

This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative study of deficiencies in the design of brick façades, by identifying the most common mistakes by analyzing projects' technical specifications. To this end, 64 brick façade projects, produced in Spain between 2000 and 2013, were analyzed. In most cases, of the 29 parameters studied, 45% correspond to a lack of definition in the designs and 34% to a lack of data. The most frequent issues are the lack of detail in thermal bridges and the lack of indication of the characteristics of permeability, water sealing, and resistance of the exterior carpentry. Only 13% of the monitored projects were of high quality (8), 66% were of medium quality (42), and 22% were of poor quality (14). Furthermore, a methodology is presented to identify the aspects of the projects that will lead to nonquality costs during the service life of the buildings, and a tool is proposed to allow minimizing errors in the design stage, so as to avoid them in subsequent works. It is shown that the use of this methodology constitutes a suitable preventive strategy, directly improving the infrastructure's sustainability by preventing between 65 and 75% of damages in façades. © 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.