Reclaimed Brick
Clay bricks recovered from demolition, cleaned of old mortar, sorted by colour and size and relaid. Colour range, chipped arrises and mortar staining are the character, not a fault.
Carbon and evidence
How This Is Made
An Environmental Product Declaration is issued by a manufacturer against a declared unit. This record has neither, so it states sourced facts about process and provenance instead of a carbon figure.
Brick has been salvaged and relaid for as long as brick buildings have been taken down
Process
Feedstock
Reclaimed
Existing fired clay brick recovered from demolition; no new clay is quarried and nothing is re-fired
Process heat
No heat
Binder
Mechanical
Fabrication
Workshop-made
Sourcing: yard-dependent; ask where the stock actually came from
Who Builds It
General trade
Established in the UK
Cleaning is the cost. Bricks laid in lime come apart cleanly; bricks laid in cement often break in the attempt, which is why yield varies so much between batches
End Of Life
Separable
Lime-mortared brick can be cleaned and reclaimed again; cement-mortared brick usually cannot
Maintenance: Repointed in a mortar weaker than the brick; lime, not cement
Specification Risk
What a specifier has to resolve before this can be built.
- Certification
- No CE/UKCA marking. Frost resistance and compressive strength vary with the original firing and are not declared unless the yard tests them
- Fire
- Non-combustible
- Warranty
- Supplier warranty on quantity and grade only
- Insurance
- Not normally an issue for facing work; structural use needs engineer sign-off
- Supply
- Finite and non-repeatable. Secure the whole quantity plus wastage in one lot — a matching second batch may not exist
Read This Honestly
- •Frost resistance varies with the original firing. For exposed or below-DPC work, have the batch tested rather than assumed.
- •Specify a lime mortar. It is what lets these bricks be reclaimed a third time, and it is weaker than the brick, which is the point.
- •Reclaimed does not mean local. Stock is routinely hauled the length of the country; ask the yard where it came from.
Design & Specification Notes
Clay bricks recovered from demolition, cleaned of old mortar, sorted by colour and size and relaid.
Material Note
Nothing is re-fired, so the material carries no new process energy; what it carries is cleaning labour and haulage. Whether it is the low-impact choice depends almost entirely on how far it travelled.
Typical Uses
- •Facade cladding
- •Weather protection
- •External accents
Key Performance
Weather-resistant finish for facade exposure.
Specification Actions
- •Establish the yard and the haulage distance — with no firing, transport is the dominant remaining impact.
- •Have frost resistance and compressive strength confirmed for the batch if the brick is going anywhere exposed or below DPC.
- •Specify a lime mortar so the brick can be reclaimed again; a cement joint ends the cycle here.
Indicative Health & Indoor Air
Inert fired clay. Cleaning generates silica dust — an occupational control at the yard, not a risk in the finished wall.
Category baseline
No baseline established
No published figure for this category meets the declared unit, lifecycle modules and standard needed to sit alongside product declarations.
Searched and rejected. The Brick Development Association EPD page carries no numerical figures. Secondary sources quote three different per-m² industry averages (26, 27.3 and 32.1 kgCO2e/m²) and two per-tonne ranges (211–242 and 250–350 kgCO2e/tonne) without a consistent scope. The three products here declare per kg, so a per-m² figure is the wrong dimension regardless. Revisit with the BDA Generic Guide, which the association cites as holding the underlying data.
Products in this category
6 products from 4 manufacturers · 291 in this category. Ordered by the evidence each record holds, never by commercial standing.
Specification
- Finish
- Salvaged clay facing brick
- Service life
- 100 years