All Need To Know About Choosing Bricks When Building An Extension

Choosing Bricks For Your Extension

During the construction of your extension, the builders, gently coaxed along by yourself, will hopefully have chosen materials that are completely sympathetic to your existing building and other surrounding properties.

Your builder will want to use the cheapest and most readily available materials, get the job done, get paid and get on to the next job.

It's only natural and understandable. But stand firm and hopefully the architect will have stipulated all these requirements on his drawings following consultations with yourself.

There is nothing worse than seeing a rendered box with a flat roof abutting a lovely Victorian yellow stocked semi.

Or even bricks that don’t match properly – just look at the uproar Jack and Vera caused all those years ago. There is really no excuse. Bricks can be found to match just about any colour and style.

It's just they will cost more. We were shelling out an eye-watering pound per brick on a recent job. But it looked brilliant when it was finished.

Just as brick matching is critical, pointing is extremely important. Hopefully your builder will select and match the existing pointing perfectly.

He needs to gauge his mix exactly the same every time to avoid inconsistent colouring.This wont really show itself in its full glory until the pointing has fully dried out leaving your walls looking as blotchy as a fat man’s legs.

There are a few styles of pointing so let's just go through them.

Weatherstruck Pointing

This is possibly the best joint for keeping out the elements. The brickie will fill the joint with his trowel at an angle before cutting neat straight lines using his level as a guide.

This way he can match the widths of the existing joints perfectly. It’s a slow process but worthwhile for the effect.

Concave Pointing

Best known as bucket-handle finish, this type of pointing forces the mortar into a concave shape and hence weathers the joint. Its quick and easy to do.

Flush Joint Pointing

This type of pointing is neither recessed nor protruding from the wall. It is pretty much carried out after laying a course as excess mortar is cut off leaving a flat finish.

Recessed Joint Pointing

A recessed joint is raked out so that it is recessed in relation to the surrounding brickwork. It can look great but is not the best at keeping out the weather as it can allow moisture to lie in the joints.