Residential Brick

Brick is a traditionally maintenance-free material. But if you live in a climate that can’t make up its mind, you may need to pay closer attention to your home’s structure and appearance. With winter well on the way, it’s important that your home is kept in shape for the cold, wet season. Whether you’ve spotted a leak or your bricks are starting to crumble, here are four signs your brickwork needs maintenance.

Your Bricks Are Starting to Crumble

Crumbling brickwork is often a telltale sign of brick spalling. Spalling occurs when moisture trapped inside a brick expands due to freeze thaw cycles. This repeated expansion and contraction causes the mortar and brick to crumble, causing potential structural damage. Replacing crumbling brick with the same size and color brick is the only way to prevent any further structural damage to your home.

A Guide to Brick Matching

There’s White Powder on Your Bricks

White, dusty stains on bricks are often an indication of efflorescence. Efflorescence happens when moisture is able to enter the wall cavity and is not allowed to escape. The moisture trapped inside the wall dissolves soluble salts that are present in many different building materials. As the water evaporates out of the face of the wall, the soluble salts are left behind, creating a white stain.

You can remove efflorescence by washing down the brick with a specialized efflorescence cleaner. Do not use muriatic acid, as the combination of water and acid-based solutions may worsen the problem if not done correctly. Efflorescence doesn’t harm a brick’s structure, but it is a sign that excess moisture is being allowed into the wall cavity. To prevent the efflorescence, one must locate the source of the moisture, and stop it from entering at that point.

Your Chimney Is Starting to Leak

A leak is never a good sign. Water coming from a chimney or ceiling can indicate a potential opening that is allowing water to enter your home. Water damage can be a serious thing that affects your brickwork and can lead to wood rot. Leaks should be assessed as soon as possible to prevent further infrastructural damage.

Even homes made of brick need maintenance – The Seattle Times

Your Home Is Starting to Crack

If the side of your house is showing any signs of cracking, that’s an indication of some serious structural movement under or behind the brickwork. This type of cracking not only puts a damper on your homes appearance, it also affects your home’s stability and structure.

If your home bares any trace of failing brick work, it may be time to start thinking about getting your home’s infrastructure and appearance back in shape. Give us a call or visit our website to see the vast selection of brick, stone and veneer work that Champion Brick has to offer.

Once you decide to work with bricks, the next step is figuring out what kind of brick to use in your project. Some types of bricks are built for strength, while others are designed mostly for their appeal to the eye. But finding the right one for your needs can get tricky.

And, while bricks may seem modest and simple, when deployed properly, they can be downright glamorous. To find out about different types of bricks and how you can use them, read on.

Basic Types of Bricks

There are almost as many ways of classifying bricks as there are different types of bricks. But if you classify them based on where they go, you need only remember two: facing bricks and backing bricks.

• Facing bricks are used on the outside of buildings, which means they have to be durable enough to endure rain, storms, and other unfavorable weather conditions.
• Backing bricks, however, are placed behind facing bricks. So, while facing bricks must be at least mildly pleasant to look at, no one cares what backing bricks look like.

If you’re talking to someone about the types of bricks used in construction, there’s a good chance they’ll classify the bricks they use based on raw materials. In that case, you should know five basic types.

Burnt Clay Bricks

Burnt clay bricks are made by placing molded clay into a kiln and firing it up.

These bricks are kind of like white bread: They’re versatile and can be used in a lot of different ways, even if they’re not the most exciting bricks in the world. Because they’re so popular and widely used, talking about types of brick masonry without mentioning burnt clay can be a challenge.

There are four classes of burnt clay brick, with first-class offering the best quality and most strength. High-grade burnt clay bricks don’t have any noticeable flaws, but they’re also going to cost you more money.

Searching for a versatile clay brick for your patio? Try red paved bricks for a high-class look that never goes out of style.

Concrete Bricks

Looking for a solid brick for your fence or facade? If so, consider concrete bricks. The quality isn’t top-notch, but they’re good at blocking heat and reducing sound.

Concrete bricks aren’t often a popular choice, probably because they offer such a bold aesthetic. But, if you really want this brick without the gray color, you can choose a different pigment during the production process.

Sand Lime Bricks

These are a mix of sand, lime, and fly ash. The materials are bonded through a chemical reaction that takes place in the middle of wet mixing.

If you’re looking for a brick that can carry its own weight, try these. They’re famous for their stellar load-bearing capacity.

Engineering Bricks

Engineering bricks can stand the heat because they’re made using incredibly high temperatures, which gives them high density.

True to their name, engineering bricks work best for civil engineering projects. For example, they’re commonly used for things like sewers, manholes, and retaining walls.

Fly Ash Clay Bricks

Mold fly ash and clay together, add extremely high temperatures, and you’ve got fly ash clay bricks. These are less porous than burnt clay bricks.

Fly ash is a byproduct of coal-based power plants. It may sound contradictory, but fly ash brick production can actually be better for the environment than other types of brick manufacturing. It’s already reducing carbon emissions in India.

What Type of Brick Do You Need?

If you still aren’t sure what type of brick you should use, we can help. We carry a large selection of residential bricks in many colors and styles. And, we’re a family-owned business that provides bricks to builders of all skill levels in New Berlin, Milwaukee, and throughout southeastern Wisconsin. That means we’re happy to talk about the types of bricks we carry, their uses, and much more!

Want to talk about your next project? Contact us today.

The two main components of brick matching are color and size.

Having matched bricks is important because if you can’t find new bricks that are the same color and size, your new brickwork will look out of place or sloppy. This, in turn, can affect the value of your property.

So, before you start extending that brick wall, adding a new brick fire pit, or making repairs to your brick building, check out these brick matching tips. This size and color brick guide can help you make the right choices.

Why Does Size Matter?

When you’re looking for new bricks, matching their size to the original bricks can be more important than matching the color. Why? Because color can be changed, but size cannot.

The mason will have a hard time laying bricks that aren’t the same size. If the length and face height of the new bricks don’t match the original bricks, you’ll end up with an irregularly shaped wall. This type of wall will look sloppy, and in some cases, it won’t even match up with the original one.

Why Does Color Matter?

You don’t have to exactly match the color of your new bricks with your old bricks, but the closer you get, the easier your job will be.

When it comes to color, there are three things you need to keep in mind.

The blend: A blend is made up of different colored, patterned bricks. A brick wall that has four different colored bricks is called a four-way blend.

Each color in this blend has to match. If even one color is slightly off, the non-matching color will look obviously out of place.

The percentage: A four-way blend might have one color that makes up 40% of the wall, a second that makes up 30%, a third that makes up 20%, and a fourth that makes up 10%.

Your new matching brickwork must make up the same percentages with the same colors. If the color that should only make up 20% of the wall suddenly makes up 30%, the wall will look sloppy.

The arrangement: All the colors in your matching brick must be arranged the same way as the original brick. If your black bricks never touched red bricks in the original design, they must not touch in the matching brick either.

These rules may make it difficult to find the right brick for your new project, but the effort and patience required are worth the result.

How to Match Brick

The best way to find the right kind of matching brick is to track down the original manufacturer of your old brick. Unfortunately, this might be harder than it seems.

Sometimes a manufacturer will change facilities. Though they might make the same type of brick by name, the switch in raw materials, machinery, and process that comes with changing facilities can make the brick look much different than it did before.

If you can’t find the original brick, look for something that’s the same size and the same texture as your original brick.

What if the Color Doesn’t Match?

Just get the color as close as possible. If it doesn’t match your original brick, you can stain it the right color.

Make sure your brick is absorbent (you can find out with a simple water test) and use a proven masonry stain system. This will take more work than usual, but it will make your matching bricks look the same as the original bricks.

Get the Best Brick Matching

Matching brick color and size can be a long process, but being patient and looking at all your options will get you the best result. If you just settle for something that doesn’t match to save time, you’ll end up with sloppy, discolored brickwork.

Need some help with your brick matching? If your project is near Milwaukee or in southeastern Wisconsin, we may be able to help you. Take a look at some of our services.

There’s a reason for brick’s longevity as a building material: its strength, durability, and efficiency are unmatched. The long history of brick’s use in construction is a fascinating subject, and Champion Brick enjoys any opportunity to talk brick history with our great customers. As your brick experts in Milwaukee, New Berlin, and Southeastern Wisconsin, we’re proud to continue our series of blog posts about the history of brick. Read on for more brick information:

The Victorian period saw revivalism in domestic architecture and industrial building. Domestic architecture sought a return to exotic building forms, differing from the common styles of the Machine Age. Industrial building, however, used bricks extensively for their properties of low cost, durability, and low maintenance.

During this period, a greater number of bricks were made and laid than during all the previous periods in the history of brick. Brick manufacturing methods had improved in all respects including quality accuracy, regularity and in range of colors available. The mid-18th century marked a change in manufacturing methods as well, towards mechanized production, and brick manufacturing methods were no exception. This enabled the use of deeper clays, pressed into dense bricks for use on civil engineering projects. With new developments in brick technology, communities were able to build more robust infrastructure and services, vastly improving the quality of life during this time of advancement in civilization.

Improvements in the production of mortar also occurred during the late 18th century through the use of washed and graded aggregates, often with coloring. Also, the development of natural types of cement including Roman cement and other hydraulic limes, which set quicker and stronger, were vital to the speed of construction that the Industrial Age demanded. Along with these advancements came the ability to distribute brick products farther due to improvements in travel and communications.

Without this rich history and hundreds of years of research and development, Champion Brick wouldn’t be able to bring you the affordable, beautiful, and durable brick products we provide. Our success is built on the work of all of those who came before us, who developed brick into the outstanding building material that it is today.

Contact Us for Your Next Brick Project!

Champion Brick is your Milwaukee, New Berlin, and Southeastern Wisconsin brick and paver experts. If you have questions about any of our products or services please call us at 262-786-8260 or submit your message on our contact form to message us.

Everyone knows brick construction is the ultimate in stability, longevity, and energy efficiency. Even so, the evolving use of brick throughout human history is a fascinating subject. Last time, we talked about bricks use in early civilization, and now Champion Brick, your brick and pavers experts in Milwaukee, New Berlin, and Southeastern Wisconsin, is back to present to you with more details on the history of brick. Read on to learn more about this fascinating and historical building material.

During the 12th century, bricks were once again introduced in northern Germany, as the Italians bought their methods of construction over from northern Italy. The brick Gothic Period which resulted from this new construction boom was a reduced style of architecture borrowing from the Gothic architecture of northern Europe. Fired red clay became the most commonly used brick to build buildings in this time, and brick Gothic style buildings can be found in the Baltic countries of Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Germany, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, and Russia. The architectural style is noted for a lack of figural sculptures, which had been previously carved in stone. Bulky bricks did not work well for Gothic figure sculpture. Most buildings can be identified by the use of split courses of bricks in varying colors, with red brick, glazed brick, and white lime plaster. Eventually, specially shaped bricks were introduced and used to imitate the architectural sculptures.

Renaissance architecture followed next, known for its emphasis on symmetry and proportionality in design. Simple, orderly arrangements of columns and other forms seemed to replace the more complex and irregular profiles of medieval buildings, and the use of arches and domes became commonplace. Straight courses of brick generally made up external walls, adding an orderly arrangement to the exterior of the building. In the interior, exposed brick walls became unpopular and brickwork was generally covered by plaster.

This continued through the Baroque period, with its heavy use of red brick walls. Only during the mid 18th century did visible brick walls once again regain some popularity.

Check back for our next post as we continue to examine the fascinating history of brick!

Contact Us for Your Next Brick Project!

Champion Brick is your Milwaukee, New Berlin, and Southeastern Wisconsin brick and paver experts. If you have questions about any of our products or services please call us at 262-786-8260 or submit your message on our contact form to message us.

All of us were taught by the story of the Three Little Pigs that brick construction is the sturdiest and toughest way to build a home. Brick homes are still prized and sought after for their stability, longevity, and energy efficiency. Still, the prevalence of brick structures in our daily life leads us to take the material for granted. With this in mind, Champion Brick, your brick and pavers experts in Milwaukee, New Berlin, and Southeastern Wisconsin, is proud to present to you a series of blog posts dedicated to the surprisingly interesting history of bricks. Read on to learn more about this fascinating and historical building material.

The earliest mention of brick making was found in the Bible, and bricks dated 10,000 years old have been found in the Middle East. As the story goes, the Israelites made mudbrick for their Egyptian rulers and built them into superior structures that outperformed any building methods used previously. A mudbrick is a made of a mixture of loam, mud, sand and water mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw, and is very similar to the Spanish style of mudbrick construction called Adobe. The ancient Egyptians and the Indus Valley Civilization used mudbrick as well, where it is evident from the ruins of Buhen, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa.

The first sun-dried bricks were made in Mesopotamia (what is now Iraq), in the ancient city of Ur in about 4000 BC. The Romans further distinguished those which had been dried by the sun and air and those bricks which were burnt in a kiln. Preferring to make their bricks in the spring, the Romans held on to their bricks for 2 years before they were used or sold. They only used clay which was whitish or red for their bricks.

Using mobile kilns, the Romans were successful in introducing kiln fired bricks to the whole of the Roman Empire. The bricks were then stamped with the mark of the legion who supervised the brick production. These bricks differed from other ancient bricks in size and shape. Roman bricks were more commonly round, square, oblong, triangular or rectangular. The kiln fired bricks were generally 1 or 2 Roman foot by 1 Roman foot, but with some larger bricks at up to 3 Roman feet. The Romans preferred this type of brick making during the first century of their civilization and used the bricks for public and private buildings all over the empire.

The Greeks also considered perpendicular brick walls more durable than stone walls and used them for public edifices. They also realized how the modern brick was less susceptible to erosion than the old marble walls.

Check back for our next post as we continue to examine the fascinating history of brick!

Contact Us for Your Next Brick Project!

Champion Brick is your Milwaukee, New Berlin, and Southeastern Wisconsin brick and paver experts. If you have questions about any of our products or services please call us at 262-786-8260 or submit your message on our contact form to message us.