What is a Reclaimed Brick?
Reclaimed bricks are bricks that are rescued from old buildings and cleaned up.
Their edges are typically worn and irregular and they may have remnants of mortar due to their original use.
Their edges are typically worn and irregular and they may have remnants of mortar due to their original use.
Good quality reclaimed bricks only require 2 workable sides, 1 bond and 1 stretch.
Many will have fine creases, characteristic folds and variations in colour that typify old brickwork. It is this combination, which many feel gives "Reclaims" a charm and character all of their own.
Many will have fine creases, characteristic folds and variations in colour that typify old brickwork. It is this combination, which many feel gives "Reclaims" a charm and character all of their own.
Most reclaimed bricks are typically more than 60 years old.
They have two types of reclaimed bricks which are Hand Made Brick and Machine Made Bricks.
- Hand Made Brick :- moulded by hand in wooden moulds, these were four sided and rectangular in shape with no base or lid. Moulds were placed either directly on the ground or on a roughly made brickmakers table.Firing methods were fairly primitive and a certain amount of distortion and shrinkage took place during firing, so generally, hand made bricks are less even in colour , texture and shape than their more modern counterparts. As clay colours vary from region to region, so the colour of hand made bricks also varies, and accurate matching is essential. Hand made bricks vary in height from approximately 60mm(2½") to 89mm(3½") and in length from approximately 240mm (8") to 11"(330mm).
- Machine Made Bricks :- With the advent of the industrial revolution, the brick making industry was transformed. With the introduction of steam power, brick making became mechanised where volume justified it. Steam driven extrusion plants became the norm which greatly increased production. Transportation of the finished goods became easier and less expensive with the dawn of the canal and later rail systems. machine made bricks were far more uniform in colour, size and texture than their hand made cousins. As time went by, brick manufacturing became increasingly more sophisticated, and decorative feature work. Machine made bricks can be divided into several different types. By far the most common being the Wire cut brick, which to this day remains a firm favourite with our customers. Less common but still widely used is the pressed common brick, similar to the Wire cut, but generally more consistent in colour and containing a shallow indentation known as a Frog on the laying faces. The Rolls Royce of the machine made brick family is the Facer. These bricks are highly consistent in colour, texture and depth and as their name implies were used on the front face of buildings.
TYPES OF RECLAIMED BRICKS
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| RECLAIMED YELLOW STOCK BRICKS |
- Found all over London and the home counties a full yellow brick that sometimes has a black fleck on the face coursed by the peat content in the clay which turns black when the brick was fired, The colour often varies from a very bright yellow to a dark mustard yellow.
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| RECLAIMED LUTON RED BRICKS |
- Found predominately around Luton & surrounding area's this brick can be light red to dark red in colour with a faint white pebble dash look to the face, like grains of sand in the clay.
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| RECLAIMED FLETTON BRICKS |
- Flettons are used all over the country and are normally used as backing bricks. They come in two colours from a pinkie shade of red to medium red, a very hard brick very popular from about the late 1950s to build cheaper housing.
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| RECLAIMED RED STOCK BRICKS |
- Red Stocks are full red bricks that sometimes have black flecks on the face caused by the peat content in the clay, which turns black when the brick was fired. The colour of these bricks often varies from a light red to a dark plum red.
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| RECLAIMED YELLOW MULTI BRICKS |
- When the brick was originally produced it had the same appearance as a Yellow Stock, but because the brick is a red clay brick rolled in yellow brick dust as the years go by the yellow face wears off in places and the brick face starts to turn pink and red but with a yellow tinge running over the face.
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| RECLAIMED MIX STOCK BRICKS |
- Mix stocks are a mix of Red Stocks and Yellow Stocks. 60% of the bricks in a pack will be Red Stocks and 40% will be Yellow Stocks.
- Soft Reds can vary from a very smooth face with a slight crease to a very textured face. The colour varies from a very light red to a deep dark red. Used mainly for finishing in soldier course work or similar, Soft Reds can be very ornate in designs. These bricks are not suitable for paving.
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| RECLAIMED SOFT RED BRICKS |
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| RECLAIMED YELLOW STOCK BRICKS |
- Found all over London and the home counties a full yellow brick that sometimes has a black fleck on the face coursed by the peat content in the clay which turns black when the brick was fired, The colour often varies from a very bright yellow to a dark mustard yellow.
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