ET Clay Products and Wienerberger: The perfect partnership
ET Clay Products have teamed up with Wienerberger to bring our customers some of the finest bricks available on the market today.
Wienerberger Ltd offers their United Kingdom customers one of the broadest product portfolios in the brick business, including clay facing bricks, both stock and wire cut, specialist engineering bricks for ultimate strength, the Porotherm clay block system, façade solutions including SVK fibre cement panels, the Corium cladding system and a wide range of gorgeous brick slips.
Wienerberger Peak Madeira brick
The Wienerberger Peak Madeira brick is a fantastically natural looking yellow buff wirecut brick. The Peak Madeira is the perfect brick for building anything where you want the natural, warm and earthy tones that abound in nature.
The Peak Madeira is often favoured by builders who have projects such as farmhouses or buildings that want to maintain that quaint country village look. That said, the Peak Madeira can look equally good in a modern setting too. It is such a versatile brick.
All too often, certain areas will dictate the colour of brick that is used in the construction industry for that particular location. This used to be because of the raw materials that were available locally. Today with haulage and transporting methods, anywhere can benefit from a particular type of clay that is sourced elsewhere.
One thing that is very common is the many different styles of buildings and the colour of bricks used in the different areas of a town. This could simply be that as a town expands, the newer parts may adopt a different colour and texture of house brick.
It may even be a deliberate attempt to identify different parts of a town. There may be a sandy, soft deep red brick used for housing in the older part of a town, a greyish and smooth brick used in another and a buff yellow brick such as the Peak Madeira used in another part.
One can often determine the different ages or phases of a town development by the different bricks that are used in the construction of the buildings. A village on the other hand is more likely to remain uniform in the bricks that are used. As mentioned above, the Peak Madeira bricks is a warm, buff yellow brick that is particularly suitable for a more rustic or natural setting, such as a village.
Buff yellow bricks
The Wienerberger Peak Madeira brick is a gorgeous buff yellow brick that is always highly sought after. So what is it about the buff yellow bricks that make them so popular in the building trade?
Buff is a term used to describe a glorious light yellow to brown colour that is frequently found in nature. Buildings that use buff bricks tend to look natural and rather earthy. The buff brick tends to afford the building with a warm appearance and this is particularly desirable when the building is to be a home. Buff bricks are an superb colour choice when one is looking for a natural aesthetic in the completed build.
One only needs to walk in nature for a short time to see the many different natural hues on the trees and foliage that the buff brick will blend and contrast with perfectly. There is nothing overstated or stark about buff bricks, just natural earthy tones that radiate a warm and simply pleasing look and feel.
If you crave something different to the traditional red or brown brick, buff bricks offer a far more contemporary aesthetic.
ET Clay Products offer a variety of buff bricks that vary in colour, texture, and type.
The wirecut brick
Wirecut bricks are simply cured or fired pieces of clay that have been formed into brick shapes with the aid of a wire cutter. The simplest cutters just consist of a wire that is pressed into large mounds of clay to divide it into smaller pieces.
There are a number of options, including wire cages and cheese cutter type grates that can be pressed over wet clay to form it before it has a chance to harden. Apart from hand formed bricks, wire cutting is one of two primary means of brick making. It is a very efficient method and will produce bricks that will be consistently uniform in size.
Wirecut bricks may also have a rough edge or finish to them, this is owing to the friction and tension as the wire is pulled across the surface. Often this addition to the bricks texture is actually considered a desirable trait, although sometimes a totally smooth finish will be required.
The bricks are formed by slicing a brick sized piece from a length of clay with a wire tool. This cutting procedure often occurs as the clay emerges from a press or mould, sometimes under pressure, known as extruded.
After the clay is formed into a large, rectangular piece of material, it is sliced into several brick sized pieces by pushing wires through the clay. The slicing of the clay in wirecut bricks leaves a noticeable mark in the cured surface of the brick. The slicing may create a rough texture as the wire is pushed and forced through the clay.
The advantage of wirecut bricks
One of the main advantages to the wire cutting process in brick making is that it produces a far more affordable brick. The process has less waste, using less material, and also takes much less time to create a brick than it does using individual moulds. When the clay is extruded, the clay is forced under pressure through an opening of the correct shape and the wire will cut the clay as it emerges. This ensures a very uniform dimension to the brick.
The uniformity of wirecut bricks such as the Wienerberger Peak Madeira brick ensures a neat, clean finish to the building project. When one couples that with the glorious yellow buff colour and finish, one has the perfect building block to create some stunning looking buildings.