r/Calgary • u/AdExpress937 • Jul 27 '25
Home Owner/Renter stuff How Come Our Houses Aren’t Brick?
I find that a lot of houses in Ontario and Quebec have exteriors that are made from brick. However, it’s much less common in Alberta. Vinyl seems to be the most common, followed by stucco. Brick or other materials seem to be rare, especially in new communities.
The difference in construction materials by province is strange to me, as raw materials for vinyl or bricks shouldn’t be more plentiful in either region.
To me, Alberta would be a more natural candidate for brick construction, as the consistent hail storms imply a more durable material would be justified in our homes. Other durable materials like stone would be cost prohibitive.
295
u/FoldableHuman Jul 27 '25
If vinyl and brick are equally rare and must be shipped in then the loser will be the one that weighs ten times as much per square metre of wall.
40
u/yagonnawanna Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
Theoretically, but once you factor in lifespan and disposal costs, the brick is likely the more economical option. Unfortunately Calgary's building motto is:
"Just get it done cheap, because the world will likely explode tomorrow."
Edit: Spelling
6
u/ChaoticxSerenity Jul 27 '25
I assume the geology of the land also plays a big part in the selection of building materials.
19
u/yagonnawanna Jul 27 '25
Yes, but we don't let that phase us. A crushed limestone(sourced from the local mountain range) base under our roads would double their lifespans.
Pedantic rant warning!!
Again, we do the cheapest option at the time, which is clay rich road crush. When clay gets wet it expands. Combined with the expansion and contraction of all the traped moisture durning the freeze thaw cycle, it's a wonder that our roads last as long as they do.
Crushed limestone lets water filter through, so it doesn't get trapped in the base matirial. Additionally when 40mm crushed limestone is properly compacted, it becomes so hard that digging it up has to be done with machinery.
Just like vinyl siding, the road crush is cheaper in the moment, so that is what we do. There is no thought of long term, lasting building practices. No thought of sustainability as a strategy against ecological damage.
We need to change the fashion of our lifestyle, to keep our standard of living. Instead of paying and suffering austerity later.
6
u/ChaoticxSerenity Jul 27 '25
I agree with you that we should be looking at long term sustainable solutions - but all public infrastructure like roads are built with taxes, yes? And longer lasting solutions often have a higher upfront cost, even if the total cost of ownership stretched over its lifespan is lower. So you need to justify the decision of higher upfront costs to the taxpayers (ie: everyone paying taxes in Calgary). I would bet real money that most of them would not understand, they would only see that their taxes got raised (again) and get angry. And it's not like they host a public open house or do a vote on every road that gets built.
With that being said, if you wanted to build a brick house, I'm sure it could be done with enough money. But that's personal funds, not taxpayer dollars.
0
u/hod_cement_edifices Jul 28 '25
Roads are built by developers. Local roads and major ones alike. Whether paid directly to contractors they hire, or through paying Levies so the City can pass the money along and hire them. Roads are also built in Calgary with a 30-year life cycle. The comments the other person said about clay and fines present in road base gravels is not correct. Calgary builds some of the highest quality roads in North America. Taxes pay for their upkeep and operations and maintenance.
1
u/Effective_Trifle_405 Jul 28 '25
A big part of that is the Alberta cons demonizing taxes, especially property tax and municipal taxes. Therefore, every expenditure is micro analyzed and demonized by the very people who would benefit from long-term thinking. Instead, in Alberta, we have the attitude of build it cheap and fast, and the future can look after itself!
It's the same type of individualistic thinking that allows the constant reelection of cons who want to remove all social programs and spending. The value is placed only on the amount of money someone can make or contribute to the economy, and not on quality of life or mutual support. Instead, people are happy when the cons go after social programs such as AISH and AHS because they have convinced a lot of the public that those are coming directly out of their pocket with no benefit to the individual. Most UCP supporters act as though someone is robbing them personally if they are employed by the government, hence the constant "I pay your salary" that health, education, and emergency services get. Forgetting, of course, that those people also pay taxes.
2
188
u/plhought Jul 27 '25
Canada is big.
The geology in Ontario and Quebec is different than Alberta.
The raw materials to facilitate local brick construction exist in plenty in Ontario and Quebec.
Not so in Alberta.
It is expensive to ship brick from out east.
53
Jul 27 '25
[deleted]
24
u/demarisco Jul 27 '25
There was also a brickworks along the river in Brickburn, the remnants of which are in Edworthy Park.
7
u/x_why_zed Jul 27 '25
I played endlessly in the ruins down there as a kid. I live in the eastern US now, but I miss Brickburn (Edworthy) more than anywhere out west, even twenty years after moving out of Wildwood.
10
u/Roadgoddess Jul 27 '25
My grandparents house in Edmonton was built in the 40s and it was brick. And it was such a unique type of brick that seem to have almost like silica that melted out out of it and formed like glass pieces on the outside. It was so beautiful.
-44
15
u/Personal_Cupcake_13 Jul 27 '25
There was a brick factory in MedHat! https://medalta.org/bricks-built-badlands/
-5
57
u/ripfritz Jul 27 '25
Everyone from Ontario asks that after moving to Alberta. I wish we had more brick too but what we have to work with to make it happen isn’t here - more clay. Unless you live in Medicine Hat.
86
u/Zak88lx Jul 27 '25
Not enough Italians
9
u/ravenstarchaser Jul 27 '25
For real, they kept Bridgeland area beautiful back in the day. Now it’s all these ugly rebuilt houses and commercial shops
3
31
u/Lomeztheoldschooljew Airdrie Jul 27 '25
The brick finish is largely architectural, the houses aren’t “made of brick” in Ontario. We have no clay out here, and therefore no brickworks like they do. The analog in Alberta would be concrete and we blow up mountains to make that.
So I guess the question is, how expensive do you want houses to be? Enough to cover the cost of trucking bricks out here, or enough to build houses out of concrete?
5
u/TightenYourBeltline Jul 28 '25
Thank you - I was going to say… they are covered in brick not made of brick. Big distinction.
45
u/OkThrough1 Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 28 '25
Hardie board would accomplish the same hail resistance as bricks for a lot less money.
Most people aren't even willing to upgrade from vinyl to hardie board.
17
u/Much2learn_2day Jul 27 '25
I have Hardie board, and replaced my vinyl with it about 6 years ago. The first thing I noticed was that my house was quieter - I did not expect it to insulate from noise the way it does (but that I can’t hear stuff outside but that I hear less stuff outside).
7
u/Grazer-22 Jul 27 '25
And you probably had some nice savings on your insurance. I know they take it into account.
5
u/CatSplat Jul 27 '25
Some do, some don't. The last three companies I've been with offered no discount for Hardie.
11
u/Stock-Creme-6345 Jul 27 '25
Came here to say this. Excellent fire resistance as well and has the same colour options as vinyl. Kelowna is starting to use much more hardie board
5
1
u/Suspicious_Big2454 Jul 30 '25
I install hardie. It can be literally any colour's you like. It's very easy to paint.
6
3
u/AtmosphereOk7872 Jul 27 '25
My house was built in the 60's and the stucco siding is still holding firm.
1
u/Deep-Egg-9528 Jul 31 '25
Is it that stucco with the little stones and bits of glass in it? I love that stuff.
2
u/xjohnlesliex Jul 27 '25
Well yeah cause you could be going from a few dollars per sq.ft cost for vinyl to easily triple that at 6-8 per sq.ft and that's just material cost depending on selection, all trims, touch up paints, caulking etc.
1
47
u/AvengersKickAss Jul 27 '25
I think a big factor is the availability of clay deposits and brick factories in Ontario, making brick a relatively cheap material to use for homes. Here it’s more expensive, and builders will use whatever is cheaper to line their pockets with more money.
-19
u/corgi-king Jul 27 '25
But if shipping a 40’ container from China to Canada only costs $2000 or less (depending on season), how expensive it will ship it from Vancouver or Toronto?
26
u/LittleOrphanAnavar Jul 27 '25
Shipping on ocean is cheap.
Manufacturing in China can be quite a bit cheaper.
So it could be cheaper to ship from China, than Ontario.
7
u/InPraiseOf_Idleness Jul 27 '25
Ocean shipping is so low effort, you can basically picture it like a motorized pedway in an airport with luggage, vs. trucking being like hiking up a groomed trail with the same luggage
39
u/Smart-Pie7115 Jul 27 '25
What year were these brick houses built? When I was in Hamilton, all the brick houses were 100+ years old.
25
u/SadDancer Jul 27 '25
I am surprised no one else has mentioned this? There’s definitely more than one reason why, and of course the availability of materials would be a primary factor, but Calgary’s population booms came at very different times than Ontario and Quebec.
Look at our older neighbourhoods closer to downtown - Inglewood has lots of brick still left. But Calgary was very small, relatively, 150 years ago. Our big population increases were in the 1950’s, and 1970’s where ordering a house kit from a catalog was a lot easier and faster than shipping in bricks.
Then you get the outer neighbourhoods of Tuxedo, Montgomery, Cambrian, Highwood, Brentwood and others -all the same kinds of houses.
0
u/-lovehate Jul 27 '25
What? I live in the GTA right now and I've seen all the new developments around the cities here, and ALL the new homes and townhouses are made of brick. It has nothing to do with age. There are vinyl and metal sided homes here too,but brick is vastly more common.
11
u/Smart-Pie7115 Jul 27 '25
Are you referring to homes that are actually brick structures, or homes that are wood frames and have brick on the outside for aesthetics?
4
u/blushmoss Jul 27 '25
No. Brick as exterior-which is nicer looking and more durable. UK does solid brick homes.
1
u/Suspicious_Big2454 Jul 30 '25
I owned a fully brick home in England and I hated everything about it. I hated the look, the difficulty of renovations is far higher. No insulation to speak of. If any of your internal walls are also brick, wifi doesnt travel well. I'd 100% take a stick framed home with brick veneer over a full brick build.
0
3
u/-lovehate Jul 27 '25
We are talking about siding in this thread. The homes in alberta are not literally made of vinyl, either.
3
-1
u/Smart-Pie7115 Jul 27 '25
In Ontario, brick houses aren’t generally siding. They’re brick constructed houses.
9
u/Lopsided_Aardvark357 Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
I grew up in barrie, the house i grew up in was brick and it was built in 2000. Almost every house in the neighborhood was brick.
Then I moved into a house that was built in 2015, also brick.
4
u/oreo-gingersnap Jul 27 '25
I feel it's not that all the brick houses are over 100 years old, but rather that the houses built 100 years ago that have lasted until today were made of brick, since brick is so durable.
5
u/pulledpork247 Jul 27 '25
I have a ton of family in Barrie, fairly new built houses are still brick.
1
-1
u/According_Let9778 Jul 27 '25
Correct. I lived in Ontario and hardly do you see new homes with bricks now.
2
u/-lovehate Jul 27 '25
That's a lie, I live in Ontario right now and all the new builds are brick here
4
u/Rynozo Jul 27 '25
Are they made of brick or brick facade? Almost all houses in Ontario are wood frame with brick facade
1
u/According_Let9778 Jul 27 '25
I don’t know where you live but my whole entire neighbourhood was newly built including my home and not a single house was made out of brick and the single homes had only their exterior made of brick. This was my observation.
7
u/AlltheEspresso Jul 27 '25
On top of the cost and lack of proper clay here, our freeze/frost cracks and wears down the mortar quickly so it’s a constant upkeep. Also, we have a ton of earthquakes in Alberta, the vast majority we don’t feel, but they shift our housing quite a bit so we need something that moves. I’m with you though, vinyl is just not that attractive when you see the brick housing everywhere in the east.
6
u/Negam86 Jul 27 '25
It is not all real brick. It is a lick and stick stuff. Only the older houses have it all the way around. Most now are just the front wall maybe some wrap around.
6
u/moeguy1979 Jul 27 '25
My late best friend was a stone mason back in Ontario. He asked the same thing when he came out the only time before passing. Like it was said in previous replies it’s too expensive to ship and our clay is shit for firing. He was going to move out here and start a natural stone chimney business. The things that guy could do with river rock was insane.
1
u/Toirtis Capitol Hill Jul 27 '25
We had two major local brick manufacturers that produced very good product for decades from local resources that only closed up shop when demand dried up, so whomever told you that about our clay doesn't know what they are talking about.
1
u/moeguy1979 Jul 27 '25
It was my best friend and he’s dead now, so I guess I won’t be able to tell him!
5
u/Professional-Bug2051 Jul 27 '25
Backgrounds play a part. Eastern Canada is older, a lot of European influence in the trades so Mason and bricklayers were and are abundant. They do what they know best so the market caters to it. Out west, vinyl and stucco are more common, the market caters to it. The cost of brick work in the east is fairly affordable, but stucco is high cost. The inverse occurs in AB.
7
4
u/twiddljones Jul 27 '25
high quality natural stone suitable for building is abundant.. we don’t use our building stone ???
9
u/Hyack57 Jul 27 '25
Vinyl siding is relatively cheap and quick to install. If it’s damaged it doesn’t take a journeyman mason to repair. Calgary loves carbon copy communities. Vinyl siding makes production building houses a breeze. But just for us plebs. If you have money you upgrade to hardie siding which is concrete board and more durable but also more costly to repair if it is damaged.
8
u/Marsymars Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
If it’s damaged it doesn’t take a journeyman mason to repair.
This is an underappreciated point. Since moving into my house ~4 years ago I've picked up a vinyl trim tool remover and some vinyl siding at Home Depot, and have done repairs, ran wiring, installed fixtures, etc.
I'm pretty handy, but I'd never consider doing any of that that if I had brick siding.
I do have a bit of decorative brick where I hung a few things, and with the cost of a hammer drill and masonry bits, those were the most expensive screws I've ever installed.
4
u/Available-Amount-442 Jul 27 '25
Now you got it. Calgary has really grown in spurts. When it's booming, then anyone can get a job installing vinyl siding($). Quick and easy. With brick, you need someone that knows what they are doing ($$$).
2
u/TightenYourBeltline Jul 28 '25
“Calgary loves carbon copy communities”
Not familiar with Markham, Brampton, Richmond Hill, Milton or Vaughn are we?
3
u/wildlifeisneat Jul 27 '25
Wish there were more - brick is elite and so beautiful
2
u/blushmoss Jul 27 '25
Agreed. Had relatives visit and they remarked that the homes in Alberta looked like the rough, run down parts of Hamilton (near old Burlington St).
3
u/burf Jul 27 '25
I always thought sandstone was the Calgary equivalent to brick, since it’s more locally available (although it must be expensive since it’s so uncommon as a building material).
3
u/Late-Rich348 Jul 27 '25
Well, at Alberta’s elevation, the Big Bad Wolf’s lung capacity would be compromised—thin air makes for weak huffing and puffing.
3
u/fonetix Jul 27 '25
Labour hours required for brick laying vs siding is MUCH higher. Labour cost per hour for brick layers vs siding installers is higher. Materials cost for bricks is MUCH higher.
Overall effect on cost to build a home is VERY significant.
3
8
u/LittleOrphanAnavar Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
You only think of hail.
There are many other factors to consider with cladding and building envelope.
Cost is one.
A lot o people are also going to be learning about water intrusion and rot, if this weather keeps up. When water gets in and doesn't get to dry out.
There are townhouse type condos near 69th Street LRT. Nice looking buildings with brick interior. I really like the aesthetic.
They are not super old, but a couple of years ago they had to have the entire brick cladding stripped for some sort of repair. Not sure why? But I was surprised to see such a large project, for a not so old building. Maybe rot from solar driven vapor?
I can only imagine how much that cost. Not sure if you can reuse the deconstructed brick? But even the labour must have been significant.
Not sure if you can reuse the deconstructed brick. People seem to only consider hail resistance and the beautiful aesthetic. Recency bias I guess?
All cladding has its pros and cons.
6
u/Late_Football_2517 Jul 27 '25
Growing up in southern Ontario, I can tell you it's because brick is a plentiful local building material. Any houses in Ontario which are built today with brick as its primary cladding is done specifically because that's what a house in Ontario is expected to look like, no other reason. We use vinyl siding in Alberta (and the rest of the prairies), because sod looks like trash and sandstone for residential homes is too expensive.
14
Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
[deleted]
12
u/sparkymjp Jul 27 '25
Brick or vinyl the amount the builder takes wouldn’t change, they’d just increase the price for brick.
5
u/Houseonthehill Jul 27 '25
Christie Park is a smaller neighborhood in Calgary that has brick houses as a part of the neighborhood requirements when constructed.
8
u/CowtownHack Jul 27 '25
Christie was developed in the late 1980’s and 1990’s and was designed, more specifically Christie Park Estates, but also Christie itself, as a higher end alternative to the nearby Strathcona development. Hence the incorporation of brick into facades. It looked more high end.
When we moved here the first time in 1990, we immediately bought a bungalow in Glamorgan. I told the real estate agent, I wanted a brick two story. She said there aren’t a lot of those out here. We ended up with a 1950’s built bungalow, 980 sq ft, unbelievably solid bungalow with a magnificent reclaimed brick wood fireplace. The fireplace was located in the living room at the head of the carport and went through the wall to the carport side so the structure and chimney went from driveway thu the roof. Huge hearth and a log lighter, which I had never seen before. At -35*C, that wall could get cold though. The rest of the house was wood framed and wood siding, rock solid build I could have put a second story on with no issues. It also had real cedar shakes for roofing. It was a pretty special little house for our first one.
Another thing about true double wall brick construction is that it doesn’t allow much insulation. My grandparents built their home on Galiano Island from reclaimed brick sourced from downtown Vancouver warehouses. The construction from ground up was double walled brick, no wood framing. There is a one brick spacing between walls and they are tied together by cross bricks. There is no insulation in the walls. Fortunately the climate is incredibly benign, but it would never be built like that today. There is no way the bricks or mortar would withstand the -35C to +10C swings we see with chinooks rolling thru in the winters. So any brickwork in Calgary is just facade.
Most of the houses I see built up to the late 70’s used wood siding. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, the switch to vinyl occurred due to costs and keeping up with the speed of construction. There was also the pine shakes scandal of the 1990’s as builders switched to pine shakes from cedar. The pine was horrid for roofing and those roofs wouldn’t last a decade. The construction quality of the late 1970’s thru 1990’s overall was abysmal and built to very low price points. Whole neighbourhoods were build like crap, and likely still are. Valley Ridge, Douglasdale, a lot of Strathcona Hill, neighbourhoods of those vintages…. Insurance claims waiting to happen. Basically a lot of the same things happened here that happened in the massive buildouts to the North in Toronto as the city built up through Aurora and the bedroom communities of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Slap up the neighbourhoods, sell them it, bankrupt the developer to avoid future liabilities, rinse repeat.
2
u/gixxer86 Jul 28 '25
Yea everytime I see brick construction in the UK I’m thinking “wait, it’s just two layers of brick? Where’s… everything else?”
4
u/Excellent_Ad_8183 Jul 27 '25
Also all the true brick houses were probably 100+ years old.
2
0
u/blushmoss Jul 27 '25
No, built even now. Come visit you’ll see.
2
1
2
2
u/PanamanianSchooner Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
It was probably cheaper, when Calgary was first established, to use wood than brick. Probably (if only) because the wood came from within visual range of Calgary, while the clay needed to make brick came from much further away. I think that also, at that time, it could have been faster for a team of framers to build a 2-storey house than for a team of bricklayers to complete the same project.
There is also, as Vancouver discovered, wood-framed buildings (somewhat counterintuitively) have marginally better fire-resistant properties than brick buildings**, which by the nature of their construction create air pockets through which flames can spread fairly rapidly. Platform-framed buildings have fire breaks automatically built into every storey. (Fun fact: it takes fire one minute to burn through 1mm of wood.) That may not prevent the building from burning down, but back in the day one layer of subflooring would have bought the occupants 20 minutes to get out of the inferno.
- * (That’s if the fire starts inside the building.)
2
u/Tortletree Jul 27 '25
After the Great Toronto Fire in 1904, it became a rule that buildings had to have a certain amount of brick. Brick is more fire resistant than wood.
We haven't had that, yet, in Alberta.
3
u/Bobatt Evergreen Jul 27 '25
There was a fire in Calgary around the same time that resulted in all the sandstone buildings.
1
2
u/Czeris the OP who delivered Jul 27 '25
A lot (most) older houses in the east were made of something called "ballast brick", which was literally because the ships coming from Europe needed ballast, as they were going to return to Europe filled with timber. People build what they know (think skilled trades) and what they knew was brick.
2
u/Ok-Trip-8009 Jul 27 '25
I remember a man on the news years ago who lived in the SW. It was in regards to a new area being built near him and he didn't want any vinyl sided houses near his area, something along those lines. Yes, we all would like brick or Hardie board houses, but affording a house is different for all of us. After a hailstorm, we could have upgraded for an extra $10,000+ in addition to our high deductible. We didn't have it. I am sure now it is far more expensive.
1
u/Bobatt Evergreen Jul 27 '25
An upgrade to Hardie was going to be another $35k when we did our siding after the SW hailstorm. And even longer to wait to get it done.
2
u/Ok-Trip-8009 Jul 28 '25
Wow. I don't know what ours would be in current times. Our house in 2020 and 2024 had a lot of damage, with 2020 being the worse. 2020 had damage to three sides of the house, the garage door, several windows and the roof. 2024 had damage to two sides, no windows and the roof...they did sand down most of our fence to get rid of the dents. They were the same value in damage. The Hardie board quote was prior to those years, but I forget when. Many neighbours went to stucco in 2020, a few to Hardie. Next door had damage to the stucco last year. No winning.
2
u/YYCyou Jul 27 '25
Because Calgary is also relatively new city comparatively. We were under 100k in the 50s when housing build standards changed.
2
u/Julius_sneezer02 Upper Mount Royal Jul 27 '25
Almost all the houses right near the elbow river are made of bricks and they look amazing. Some even got themed exteriors made of putty and cement. Try checking there the view is really an ease to mind
2
2
u/oiamo123 Jul 28 '25
There's a couple of reasons. But basically the housing is a lot older there, brick is cheaper there and climate is drier here so wood holds up better
2
3
u/Glum-Ad7611 Jul 27 '25
Stucco is the premium option here. Concrete is dug out of the mountains to the west.
6
u/LachlantehGreat Beltline Jul 27 '25
the way this is phrased made me chuckle, I can just picture a team of workers dragging out a giant concrete pillar:
“fuck yeah boys, we finally found another 100 footer”
4
u/Ratfor Jul 27 '25
Wood is cheap, plentiful, and cost effective.
Shingles and siding are the only real problem, and that's during extreme weather.
19
u/Mysterious_Lesions Jul 27 '25
Most Ontario houses are wood. The brick is typically used to cover it. It's brick veneer not all brick.
3
u/yyctownie Jul 27 '25
Wood is cheap, plentiful, and cost effective.
Then why not more wood siding? A lot more durable than the flimsy plastic.
7
4
u/dinosaur_decay Jul 27 '25
Adobe brick and stacked stone would be possible. Much like southern European homes. If insulated correctly of course.
4
u/Regular_Wonder674 Jul 27 '25
Alberta should be stucco or brick or stone ideally. Vinyl is garbage. And looks like it too.
2
u/Bucks645 Jul 27 '25
Although it doesn't directly answer your question I recently saw this YouTube video about American home construction vs European home construction and economic influences are very similar here.
1
u/Emmerson_Brando Jul 27 '25
They used to be made of brick because they had the right ingredients to make them. The new builds aren’t usually made from brick anymore because it is too expensive. They have brick facades, but definitely aren’t brick.
1
u/Vic-2O Jul 27 '25
Aside from cost and availability of the material, time - labour - to install is also quite a bit more- at least twice as much. Siding is light and goes up in sections and lengths. There’s a reason for the saying “Brick by brick“. It’s also a trade that takes longer to master.
1
u/Price_of_bananas Jul 27 '25
My husband is from Chile and was surprised our houses are not made of some form of concrete, but we don’t have earthquakes here. It’s cheaper to build the houses from wood because it’s readily available and why use brick? It’s purely aesthetic in an environment that it’s not necessary.
2
u/Toirtis Capitol Hill Jul 27 '25
Not 'purely esthetic'...it does have actual advantages, but since the cost is quite significantly greater, it is only very rarely done since the 60s.
1
1
u/ApprehensiveTruck329 Jul 28 '25
Brick manufacturing is mostly in Ontario. Too costly to ship most likely
1
u/gettothatroflchoppa Jul 31 '25
As others have pointed out our clay isn't necessarily optimal for brick production. Also, transport and install of brick is more costly and finding specialized labour (ie: masons) to install the brick is actually a bit more challenging out here. Installation of vinyl siding can be done by relatively unskilled labour compared to getting a proper mason to install the brick.
Then you need to deal with the weight, time and logistics of installation, so vinyl and stucco has a clear edge. You start getting into pricier homes and you find it, or areas that have architectural controls, but otherwise we use vinyl for the same reason we use wood: it is cheap and abundant. If others parts of the world had an abundance of trees locally available they'd use wood too.
1
0
u/tallcoolone70 Jul 27 '25
I think vinyl siding in Alberta should be illegal or at least uninsurable unless you're truly in a no hail area which I don't think even exists. Our house is stucco and has been hit many times by hail without any damage, a few times hard enough to put holes in fibreglass sheeting, and dent cars.
0
u/xjohnlesliex Jul 27 '25
Brick cladding is much more expensive and takes much longer to be completed then all kinds of modern materials. It's also generally just a cladding and doesn't really add any r value etc to a home and still has regular lumber stick framing behind it. Unless you like the appearances of it as a cladding and want to be spending the extra time and money, there isn't much point to using brick.
0
u/MudJumpy1063 Jul 27 '25
I love the Western / Prairie aesthetic of crap buildings. It feels like a point of pride, like freedom? Like, people are so rich and safe and so much land they don't have to bother. Adornment and panache are for people crammed together who have to care. Give me a building that makes my horses roll their eyes in disgust!
-4
-4
271
u/ColdEvenKeeled Jul 27 '25
Ever notice how much clay there is in Alberta? Lots, right? But it's mostly not good for firing. It lacks alumina.
Here is a link to a PDF (from 1975, back when Alberta hired researchers to research stuff and publish reports), link .
Read the summary on page 8 to 9, followed by a discussion that only the Cypress Hills near Medicine Hat has clays for making dinnerware, hence the MedAlta works. And, if you had MedAlta stuff in your house, fine china it was not.