The case for using reclaimed brick in a modern, low-carbon family home
7 min
The best thing about this
Almost no reclaimed brick comes from the romantic source people imagine. The bulk of good stock is hand-cleaned lime-mortar brick from nineteenth-century demolition, sorted by a handful of yards who know exactly what they hold. Anything much cheaper is usually cement-mortar brick tumbled to look old, and it will not behave the same way in a wall.
Creating Lasting Value
Reclaimed brick arrives already weathered, so it skips the awkward five years where new brick looks new. Lime mortar lets the wall move and lets moisture out, and the joint can be raked and repointed in fifty years without damaging the face. That is the real return on the premium, and it only shows up over decades.
Designed for Your Lifestyle and Chances
Expect the material to cost two to three times new stock and expect slower laying because the sizes vary. On a recent extension the brick was eighteen per cent of the facade cost and the labour premium another eleven. Presented per square metre of finished wall rather than per thousand bricks, the number is much easier to live with.
Built Around Lifestyle and Opportunity
There are three cases where we would specify it again without hesitation: an extension to a period building where matching matters more than cost, a garden or boundary wall seen close up for decades, and any project where the client genuinely wants a material with a history rather than a finish that imitates one.
Project Summary
Where we would not use it is on large, flat, repetitive elevations. Reclaimed brick is at its worst in long unbroken runs, where size variation reads as sloppiness rather than character. On those walls we specify a good new brick and spend the saving on the mortar and the bond.
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