Specification Focus: Bricks and blocks

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Building the case for brickwork

Brick Development Association
director Michael Driver says
its time to set the record
straight on brickwork as a
choice of cladding.
he off-site lobby has had a field day
lately, portraying brick as expensive
and brickwork as a dying art. Its
wrong on both counts as a report
by the Royal Institute of Chartered
Surveyors has demolished the misleading claims about its cost. And it
says that brickwork beats just about
any other cladding material on price.
Also, there are no shortages of trained bricklayers in
this country. According to ConstructionSkills, there
were nearly 120,000 of them at the last count. And the
transformation of Londons St Pancras railway station
into an international rail terminal shows that precision and skill in bricklaying are alive and kicking.

Favourite choice
Brick has long been a favourite among architects,
contractors and the public. Its warm and humanising
character brings buildings to life. An external brick
wall adds scale, colour and texture. Then theres the
choice. About 1,200 different varieties of brick are produced in the UK alone, from handmade bricks made
by traditional techniques to mass-produced extruded
and stock bricks.
Brick blends easily and naturally with its surroundings. It needs no decoration or routine maintenance.
Brick can be adapted as a building changes use and be
recycled or crushed to an aggregate.
Yet this unique set of attributes is twinned with
exceptionally low cost most bricks are priced like a
commodity. Compared with glass, steel and timberbased cladding systems, brickwork enjoys the lowest
installed cost and whole-life cost.
The study, commissioned by the Brick Development
Association, explains this in detail. It took a range of

18 | 30 APRIL 2008

data, from major price books to bills of quantities for

live projects. The UK projects ranged in value from
356,000 to 10.5m.
The RICS Building Cost Information Service compared the installed cost per square metre for brickwork
and facing brick came in at 59m2, which is less than
most cladding material. Cheaper materials included
single-fibre cement sheeting and painted render. Such
options have a lower life expectancy or higher lifecycle costs than brick.

Performance comparison
Compare this proven performance with, say, the price
of timber, which rose more than 25% for imported
softwood last year and is predicted to rise further, or
glazed cladding, which has been hit by soaring costs for
glass, aluminium and stainless steel. With the building
materials industry heavily reliant on imports and
the price inflation that goes with it the availability of
brick, short lead times for brickwork and competitive
pricing, brick offers contractors a major competitive
advantage.
Brick also scores on cost in use. With reasonable maintenance, a brick wall will last indefinitely.

Brickwork can be
a cost-effective
cladding option.

Repointing might be necessary after 70 years, but

no regular maintenance is required. And brickwork
weathers gracefully and mellows with age. Finally,
brick wins high marks for its environmental cost
an increasingly influential part of building design.
BREEAMs Green Guide scores all brick construction
A+ or A, the best ratings.
Critics have also tried to damage bricks reputation
on site that it is dangerous, dirty and time-consuming. None of these accusations hold up to close
scrutiny. Brick is one of the most successful building
materials ever devised. It is been used to shape the
built environment since the beginning of civilisation.
Yet members of the BDA are constantly developing
the product.
The skill and techniques on site are still there. Yet
brickmakers are making site work easier and quicker by
producing pre-assembled feature brickwork details and
panels. Other innovations include the development of
tile bricks, large format clay blocks, thin-joint brickwork, and brick-clad timber-frame buildings.
Separating the facts about brick from the fiction is
straightforward. The key fact is this: brick is a strong
competitor. On price, its hard to beat; on versatility
and pure aesthetics few rivals come even close.

Difficult times ahead for building block companies

Since the peak of the building blocks
market in 2003, the industry has seen a
fall in demand. The only respite was in
2007 when the market increased 2%.
However, sales began to fall at the end
of last year.
These are some of the finding of a biannual report published by BDS
Marketing Research, which adds that the
indications in 2008 suggest a significant
fall in demand this year, with March
being particularly disappointing. A total
of 10 building block plants have closed in
recent years as the industry adjusts to
lower volumes.

The report says the growth of flats and

apartments now appears to have
reached a peak. A move back towards
houses will benefit building block
companies. However, uncertainty over
the housing market as a whole a key
sector for block suppliers - could affect
block companies for the next 12 months.
Tarmac continues as the largest
building block company, with a near20% share of the market. The top five
companies identified by BDS are Hanson,
H&H Celcon, Cemex and Aggregate
Industries, which together are estimated
to have about 60% of the market.

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