Brick Slips

[Ed_MK]

Well as we move into costing (while i wait for final Building regs to be done)

I have discovered a strange enigma

 

"Brick Slips"

 

Our house design has copious brick slip cladding, but a REAL brick chimney planned.

But ALL the bricklayers we have spoken to don't do them, never heard of them, suggest tilers,

and all the tilers we have spoken to (some recommended) have never done them either ...but are prepared to "have a bash, for cash" ?!

 

Now the company that sells these is http://www.brickslips.net/

 

I have contacted them for a list of their recommended installers in the SE ...tumble weed time!

I guess they only want to sell and not get involved with recommending 

 

Does anyone have any experience of these, just to give you an example ...Brick slips or Brick Tiles as some call them:
here is a video of them going on  (although I am not sure this will be the applicable way on our Timber SIPS Potton build

 

 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2018 by Ed_MK

[jack]

Our experience with these was absolute hell. 

 

The first guys we had do them were brickies who were recommended by the brick slips suppliers (can't remember who it was off the top of my head, but not the company you link above). An absolute shower of gobshites. With no exaggeration, a 10 year old child could have done 10 times as good a job as the halfwits we had onsite. They ended up being the only supplier we kicked offsite. I think they were glad to go.

 

We got a tiler to do it in the end, and he did a job that could best be described as workmanlike (he's the same guy that stuffed up our bathrooms, in case you followed that saga).

 

We had a brickie do the pointing and that seemed to take approximately forever.

 

The bricks supplied by the system manufacturer were dire. The cheap ones that we wanted to paint were different thicknesses. Some were bowed.

 

We have a section of engineering brick slips. These were supplied as tiles (ie, not cut bricks) and show odd manufacturing marks in oblique light. The corner slips supplied were completely different in colour and texture to the main face slips, but the guy installing them didn't (somehow) notice, so they were all up and the adhesive set before the problem was noted. They look ridiculous, frankly, and I plan to replace them once everything else is done. The adhesive used is really good, but that means that it's a real pain getting them off!

 

The third lot of adhesive the supplier sent to us was completely different to the first two. It was far runnier, and basically unusable in the application. There's still tens of tubes of it sitting in my garage, now out of date, because despite supplying replacement adhesive they didn't pick the wrong adhesive up. Unsurprisingly, we refused to pay for the wrong stuff, despite them attempting to get money from us for over a year after they wrongly supplied it. 

 

Basically, if I were to do this again I'd:

- use a different system (we used the one with moulded plastic guides on a cement-board backing)

- insist on cut bricks, not brick look-alike tiles, unless I was able to inspect samples and ensure they would look like bricks when installed.

- carefully check every delivery to ensure that the slips are of high quality - same size, colour, thickness and texture

- get a decent tiler to do it, or at least someone who has a decent eye for this sort of thing. I'm convinced it's actually a really easy job to do well, but as usual with British trades, we just couldn't get anyone to slow down and do a decent job, even on a day rate.

- offer a day rate - we found that people had little idea about how to price the work.

[swisscheese]

Interesting stuff from @jack

 

I am also looking to "brick slip",  but on the floor, so used as a type of floor tile.

I would agree it's difficult trying to get a tiler to quote for these sensibly on a price per m2, I think they hear the word "brick slip" and think it sounds like it's not for them.

 

In terms of pricing I have found the price of the Cut brick is somewhat higher than going for a specific "brick slip tile". I might just double check that after @jack 's comments on application and quality.

 

 

 

[Onoff]

I wonder what a water jet company would charge to cut a load of bricks if you supplied them in a wooden "rack (s)"?

 

[jack]

41 minutes ago, Onoff said:

I wonder what a water jet company would charge to cut a load of bricks if you supplied them in a wooden "rack (s)"?

 

From memory, my wife found someone who had some sort of brick milling machine that was set up to do hundreds or thousands of these a day. I got the impression he was just sitting at the edge of an industrial estate with this thing stuck in a corner, reading the paper while the machine got on with it. Could be wrong!

[Gone West]

@Ed_MK We have a brick slip plinth on our build which is the same as in your video clip. The Wetherby system was really easy to install. I fitted the backing board and the wire mesh etc and a local 'builder' fitted the brick slips and pointed it. If I'd had the time I would have done the slips and pointing myself.

 

Edited February 6, 2018 by PeterStarck

[Vijay]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

I wonder what a water jet company would charge to cut a load of bricks if you supplied them in a wooden "rack (s)"?

 

 

I have a lot of brick slips to fit and contacted 2 water jet cutting places, worked out 3-4 times the price of brick slips through a builders merchant - so a no go.

[Moira Niedzwiecka]

Wow Peter,

Your house looks very smart.

What timber cladding have you used?

Have you treated it with anything?

What dry verge trim have you used on the roof?

Sorry to ask so many questions.

Moira

[Ed_MK]

yes, a lovely house Peter ...probably too contemporary for my wife

but i like it a lot (sshhh)

 

Sorry to hear of your woes Peter, but it given me a lot to think about ...

Its probably too late for me to change my mind now with PP agreed and building regs going through 

 

[lizzie]

Lovely looking house Peter...cedar clad from the colour variations?

 

Smart brick plinth too.

 

For various reasons we left the brick slip idea behind on ours and used powder coated aluminium to match the windows. Heard lots of horrors about people having issues with install of brick slips and with all our other problems I didnt want another in the mix!

 

We have tiled skirtings in the house and our tiler wanted a day rate not a metre rate for those as more fiddly than laying big tiles, maybe same applies on brick slips. Skirtings cost a fortune to install, think he really took advantage of day rate, so beware on that........he was good tiler but very bad news on everything else, overcharging, not turning up etc, had to sack him and get someone else in to finish and do bathrooms.  What is wrong with British Workmen these days, good people are few and far between in my experience.

Edited February 6, 2018 by lizzie
spell

[Gone West]

1 hour ago, Moira Niedzwiecka said:

Wow Peter,

Your house looks very smart.

What timber cladding have you used?

Have you treated it with anything?

What dry verge trim have you used on the roof?

Sorry to ask so many questions.

Moira

Yes it's Western Red Cedar cladding and the picture was taken just after it was finished. It doesn't look anything like that any longer as the rain has washed out a lot of the colour and it's various shades of brown and grey. We didn't treat it because we didn't want the continuing maintenance. I used an aluminium angle for the verge trim which I cut to size and had powder coated. I don't mind the questions at all, it's easier answering questions than hanging and painting doors!

[Onoff]

@PeterStarck's house looks that precise it's like the CAD rendering has been superimposed on a plot photograph! 

 

I used some of that A1 membrane repairing a bit on my roof...it's the ONLY similarity!

[Fredd]

for what reason are you making life difficult and expensive for yourself by going down this route?

 

 

[Onoff]

@swisscheese, for your floor tiles try the "20 yr old / first house /not got a pot to pi$$ in method". Worked for me and still looks good after 30 years thanks to a liberal application of Thompson's at the time:

 

 

 

You will need the side of an old faux woodgrain wardrobe to make the mould and a can of WD40! A friendly neighbour helps too!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2018 by Onoff

[swisscheese]

@Onoff - no longer 20 I'm afraid, but after all this I won't have a pot to pi$$ in....

 

 

[MikeGrahamT21]

I used flexible brick slips (available via ewistore.co.uk), made by elastolith. These are DIY, and very easy to do yourself, just a little time consuming, but they look great when done.

 

We even managed to get a good match. Building on left hand side is existing house, centre is the brick slipped one, and right hand side is a utility with real brick.

 

You could also consider brick effect render, which is pretty impressive these days. There is a growing number of contractors doing this, but expect to pay in the region of £50-£90 per m2, its not cheap. We had a rough quote from this firm: https://www.decopierre.co.uk/ They can do pretty much anything!