High ceilings - advice needed

Hi All,

We are in the process of building our home and are busy putting together the building draft / contract. One of the extras we decided to go for was the high ceilings.

I think the high ceilings added about $4500 to the overall cost for a timber infill and about $6000 for a brick infill. The house is all brick, except for the front (which has been rendered).

Some questions..


1: Is it just me, or does timber / rendered infill look silly above doors and windows when the wall is brick?

2: Would a brick infill on a brick wall look better?

3: Should I just consider rendering the whole house (if not too pricy)? Easy to change the colour of a wall when its rendered opposed to bricks!

4: Are high ceilings really worth it?


Would love to hear your thoughts.


Cheers,
Robbie

 

1. Depends on the design of the house.
2. Depends on whether 1. Would look cheap/odd due to design of the house.
3. Face brick is very low maintenance. Render often gets dirty ‘runs’ from water etc.
4. Yes.

have you changed the head height of your windows or increased the total length to fit in with the higher ceilings?

 

The agent sent me these sample pics of how the infill looks..

Doesnt really match nicely against brick walls, but obviously unnoticeable on rendered walls.

 

Is the infill the same material in the rendered and non rendered versions?

Even though the colour may be the same in the rendered one, it will be obvious if the material isn’t the same as in the rest of the wall - over time different textures may show.

 

The reason many builders do this is the need for a costly steel lintel to support courses of bricks is removed. We have rear rumpus windows with cement sheet above those windows (only) and I rolled them with same render coating as walls the week we moved in. 15 years later its still as good as new and hard to notice. Obvious a unrendered wall cant have that approach. I question if the paint colour should match the windows rather than be a third colour.

One other benefit of full brick is lack of water ingress and pests eg spiders.

 

As per others suggest brick above the windows & yes high ceilings if your budget can allow.
You will get the investment back if you ever sell, otherwise enjoy the feeling of the extra ‘space’ / larger rooms if PPOR.

 

Many 1980's houses have a timber infill. Some look great, others not so.

 

what am i missing they're only $30 a lintel? have i found the wrong product in relation to ones used over windows?

 

Multiply that by the number of openings. Then you got the cost of supply and lay the bricks on top of lintel. OP has been quoted $6K. Using timber is much cheaper and makes the place look cheap imo.

 

It depends on the size of the opening - flat bar is fine ‹1.2m over that you will need an angle, still not a major expense.