Apartment Milnerton

The owner of the flat is an Architect by profession and was looking for a lightweight building block which has the required versatility to suit the needs of the renovation. Aertec AAC was selected as the walling material due to the lightweight characteristics as well as the fact that the blocks can be cut like wood, therefore shaping the blocks into any shape or form as required for the application.

In particular, the bathroom originally required the toilet system to be chased and mounted into the wall. Upon investigation, by removing the plaster it was found that the wall was a concrete shear wall and therefore chasing into the shear wall was not possible. The decision was made to construct a false wall in front of the shear wall and enclose the toilet cistern using Aertec AAC. The blocks were cut and shaped according to the dimensions of the cistern as well as the water pipes leading into the cistern.

The return wall, forming the shower, needed to be fixed to the existing clay brick wall. The client wanted to avoid using a lintel over the opening leading into the shower to test the capabilities of Aertec AAC. Due to the versatility of the Aertec AAC block, the client decided to rout out 2 blocks about 30mm deep across two block lengths and embed a steel rod into the blocks as reinforcing, essentially creating a lintel out of 2 AAC blocks. This block lintel was fixed to the existing clay brick wall, by bearing it on a piece of angle iron which was anchored into the clay brick wall. The underside of the AAC block lintel was recessed in order to hide the angle iron.