Building In Hebel

If you want to get builders passionate about something, just mention that you are thinking of building in Hebel.

Hebel seems to be a product that instantly polarises people in the building industry.  We spoke to one volume builder at a display centre who builds only in Hebel, while another builder refused to use it point-blank.  Others offer it as an option, and everyone wants to tell you their opinion on it.

What is Hebel?

The Hebel product is relatively new in Australia, but has been used in other parts of the world for many years.  The product itself is a type of aerated concrete.  To understand it, just imagine a solid concrete block, and now imagine it pumped full with tiny air bubbles - that's what Hebel is.  I don't pretend to understand how it is manufactured, but it is the combination of concrete and air bubbles that gives Hebel its purported properties, namely excellent thermal and acoustic insulation.

A house built in Hebel is either assembled by fastening large Hebel panels (not load bearing) to the timber frame, or by building the house out of Hebel "blocks" which are basically large bricks.  According to the Hebel literature, the blocks can be load-bearing, removing the need for a timber frame.

Because Hebel is fundamentally concrete, all the builders we spoke to finished it as a "rendered surface".  Therefore, homes built in Hebel always have a very modern / contemporary appearance.

Benefits of Hebel?

We got curious in Hebel as an option for our house, so got a couple of builders who work with Hebel to provide quotes to build their standard brick house in Hebel.  In all cases, the Hebel option was an "upgrade" to brick, with additional costs.  At the time, we were toying with the idea of a fully rendered house and what was really interesting was that the "upgrade" cost of building in Hebel was about 1/3rd of the cost of rendering a brick veneer house.

In other words, while Hebel was more expensive than brick, it was much cheaper than rendered brick.  That raised a question in our minds as to what the difference in the rendering was.  It turns out that while a Hebel building is finished with a rendered appearance, it is not rendered per se.  Rather, something called a "Texture Coat" is applied.  The texture coat is apparently much thinner than render, which is the big difference here in terms of cost and labour.

Our investigation petered off at this point, not so much because the coatings turned us off, but because we got more interested again in the classical appearance and aesthetics of a brick house, which ruled Hebel out.

Reasons to Build with Hebel

• You want the look of a contemporary fully rendered house
• You want the benefits of the thermal and acoustic insulation that Hebel provides

Reasons to Not Build with Hebel

• You don't want fully rendered house
• You don't want to pay more