Choosing the right bricks for your self-build project

What is a brick? It can be described as a perfectly natural blend of the elements of earth, fire, air and water. Typically, it is made from clay formed into a rectangular shape and fired in a kiln to form a unit, which is suitable to clad the facade of a building or to build freestanding walls. Here, Mathew Davies, National Specification Manager at Vandersanden, helps you understand the basics about brick and how to make the right choice when selecting it for your project.

C hoosing bricks for your build

For many people, brick is one of the most obvious construction materials for facades and is a popular choice due to it being strong, cost effective, durable and frost resistant.

B ricks add to the thermal mass of a building. During the day, they absorb and store heat from the sun, and in the evenings and overnight, they release it again. This helps to keep the interior of the home cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

T oday, we are more conscious than ever of our environmental footprint, and brick is a great choice as it’s a sustainable building material. It is fired from clay, an abundant natural resource. Brick is sustainable throughout its life, as it’s reusable and recyclable.

T he warmth, robust nature, character and varied options make bricks a perfect finish for any self-build project.

A quick reminder of brick benefits. A brick is:

H ighly durable and frost resistant

A dds to the thermal mass of a building

I s classed as A1 non-combustible

C ost efficient

C lay is a natural and abundant resource

I s reusable or recyclable

A vailable in a wide range of colours and textures

S uitable for various styles and tastes

B rick offers a low-maintenance finish.

F actors to consider when incorporating

Bricks Into Your Home Design

B ricks are available in various colours and textures, making them ideal for different styles and tastes. The versatile brick can also be combined with other materials. Another important benefit is that a brick facade will improve over the years, taking on an appearance we call ‘patina’. The patina gives your home a unique charm.

B ricks can be used in any type of building design, from contemporary new builds that have a modern look or you can choose an aged or tumbled brick, which will give a more traditional appearance.

T he choice of brick colours is wide and varied. Vandersanden produces a vast array of high-quality bricks in different finishes and colours, ranging from traditional reds and browns to contemporary greys, soft creams and buffs and dramatic black bricks that will inspire and enable the design and construction of any type of building project. All Vandersanden bricks meet the EN 771-1 standards, including F2 freeze-thaw durability and S2 active soluble salt content.

A s well as the colour of the brick, various other factors determine how a facade will look. Size of the brick, joints, patterns – there are all manner of options, so research this carefully.

T he brickwork pattern

T he way in which a brick is laid, the pattern, has a big influence on the look of your facade. A well-considered brickwork pattern gives your project extra aesthetic and character. You could consider a half-brick pattern, stacked pattern, block pattern or random pattern to create something unique for your design. You can even combine patterns for an extra creative twist to your facade.

B rick types

T here are generally three types of brick: stock, waterstruck and wire-cut. Each has its own look, production process and properties. Stock or handform bricks are hand or machine-made. Typically, they include a frog in the bed face and are characterised as having an authentic look, combining a veined appearance with a sandy texture.

W ater-struck bricks have a slightly textured appearance with a soft glazed character. The lip and vertical lines are created when the brick is pushed out of the mould using water release, hence the name water-struck.

W ire-cut bricks are formed by clay passing through an extrusion unit, which is then cut into brick units with a wire. Wire-cut bricks have a relatively smooth appearance, perforated bed faces, crisp angular arrises, high tolerance and are easy to cut into different shapes.

C reative ways to use bricks in home architecture

Many brick manufacturers now have digital tools that enable you to try different facade choices when planning your design. Vandersanden has an online texture generator for its facing bricks and brick slips. This enables architects, property developers and self-builders to design a facade by combining, among other things, different types of bricks and brick slips, colours, mortar choices, laying patterns and joint thicknesses. In total, the texture generator allows more than 1.1 million combinations to be created and compared. Thanks to cuttingedge technology, the texture generator displays the most detailed and realistic digital reproduction of a facade texture to date. The generated texture can be easily downloaded, including image folders and technical specifications.

W hat are some common challenges to watch out for when incorporating bricks into home architecture?

O ver time, bricks can potentially discolour and lose their lustre because of the impact of wet weather, air pollution or efflorescence. The result can have a detrimental effect on a building’s visual aesthetic, compromising the architect’s design vision and potentially reducing the value of the property for the owner.

Vandersanden is the first company to develop a viable, large-scale coating solution to provide superior protection against efflorescence as well as a secondary protection against the effects of pollution. This innovative and environmentally-sustainable process has now been rolled out for Vandersanden’s hand-formed brick range.

B uild with brick

Whether it’s a new build or renovation, brick offers the perfect finish to your unique dream project. From conception to completion, there is plenty of advice available on choosing the right bricks for your self-build, to ensure a home you love for years to come www.vandersanden.com

How to set the mood and save energy with automated lighting systems

In the rapidly-evolving world of technology, lighting control systems have revolutionised the way we interact with our living spaces. From residential homes to commercial buildings, these intelligent systems offer enhanced control and flexibility, which offer numerous benefits beyond conventional manual control. Automated lighting systems provide users with the ability to set the mood and save energy simultaneously. By utilising smart technology and intelligent programming, you can create the perfect ambience for any occasion while reducing your carbon footprint, says Matthew Allen-Olivar, Senior Lighting Designer at John Cullen Lighting.

Sm art lighting empowers users to create personalised lighting scenes that enhance the mood and ambience of a space. Whether you are looking to achieve a vibrant and energetic scene when hosting an event at home, a calm and relaxing atmosphere for winding down in the evening, or a bright and focused environment in the workplace, smart lighting systems allow effortless control. They are accommodated to the user’s requirements. With a simple touch of a button, a cleverly-placed sensor, or even a voice command, the space can be transformed to suit the user’s particular needs.

One powerful feature of smart lighting systems is automation. This allows users to schedule lighting changes throughout the day, ensuring lights are automatically turned on, off or even set at a certain level based on predetermined settings. Traditional lighting options often lead to wastefulness and inconvenience, such as forgetting to turn off lights in unoccupied rooms or having to physically turn lights on and off, for example, in the garden at night time. Smart lighting eliminates these issues by providing features such as occupancy sensors, light sensors and timers. A simple use of these sensors with an automation system can detect movement and automatically turn off lights when no activity is detected, thus preventing unnecessary energy consumption. Additionally, in the use of a garden, not only can it trigger the lights to turn on at dusk automatically, but it can helpfully ensure lights are turned off (or only lights for security remain turned on) past a certain time, thus ensuring that you can peacefully drop off into sleep knowing that you won’t be burning the energy bill throughout the night.

A nother powerful example of how automation and the use of sensors can play a pivotal role in energy saving is daylight harvesting. Daylight harvesting utilises natural light by dimming or turning off artificial lights when plentiful daylight is available. In other words, the system will ensure a certain level of lumens are being delivered into a space throughout the day and will adjust the artificial light accordingly to ensure the lights aren’t turned on unnecessarily when sufficient daylight is detected, thereby reducing energy consumption significantly. This is particularly applicable and advantageous to the large office towers that are being erected across the globe, which have large facades dominated by glass. As you can imagine, these will have a fluctuating supply of natural daylight flooding through depending on the time of day or distance of the desk or office from the glass windows. In this day and age, there are a myriad of intelligent sensors and tools that can be used in unison with lighting systems to create the perfect marriage between convenience and control.

Automation not only saves energy but also offers the benefit of simplifying daily routines, making it more convenient and effortless to go about your day without having to worry about making lighting adjustments. An example of this would be to implement a ‘wake-up’ scene that could simulate natural daylight by gradually increasing the brightness and colour temperature. This would be set by a timer or even linked to an alarm to help ease you into your morning routine. But this does not have to be limited to a specific event. For example, in a home, the automation can be tailored to the user’s daily usage of the space, ensuring that you have the desired lighting levels and colour temperatures best suited for how you intend to use each room throughout the day. In a commercial setting, the automation could be based on what lighting would best enhance each of the rooms, aid in productivity or provide the best comfort to your staff throughout the day. This can be linked to other smart home systems or building automation systems, adding an extra layer of convenience. www.johncullenlighting.com

Another benefit of having an automated lighting system is security. Leaving some lighting on in the home, even when it isn’t habited, is a tried and tested method of discouraging burglars, traditionally utilising a table lamp in a hall. With a central control system, it is possible to programme ‘timed events’. The system learns your usual lighting habits and repeats these on demand in those internal areas visible from the road in your absence.

S mart lighting systems offer an array of benefits, from the ability to customise the mood within a space to energy efficiency, ease of use and security. By leveraging automation, users can effortlessly enjoy dynamic lighting control while saving energy simultaneously. The integration of smart lighting with other devices and the ability to create personalised lighting scenes provide a versatile living experience. As technology continues to evolve, it is likely that lighting control systems will become even more intuitive, efficient and seamlessly integrated, transforming our lighting experiences and improving the way we interact with our environments.

Adding character below: Transforming understairs cupboards into stylish storage solutions

Clever storage, perfectly designed to fit and transform your understairs space, will create a calm and organised home. Stairs, usually in a high-traffic area of your home, are the place where coats, shoes, dog leads, bags and much more are abandoned.

Ut ilising every corner and inch of space in your home is the key to great storage. One of the most overlooked areas is the space beneath your stairs. Transforming this otherwise wasted space into a functional and stylish addition to your home is a very clever use of storage.

T o help you get organised, Hammonds Fitted Furniture shares its top creative understairs storage ideas.

I nnovative designs

O ne of the most effective ways to optimise understairs cupboards is by choosing a customised design that suits your home. Whether that is extra shelves or deeper drawers; form a design that works with your needs. Create dedicated compartments for your household items, such as shoes, coats, bags or kitchen and cleaning supplies. Adding durable drawers to your understairs cupboards can maximise every inch of precious storage space, while pull-out drawers are a gamechanger when it comes to accessibility. Consider utilising the full height and depth of your understairs cupboard to make the most efficient use of space. For example, with a choice of Hammonds’ 600 or 800mm extra-deep drawers coupled with full-length cupboards, you can make the most of your space to curate a design that’s both useful and stylish.