DIY bricks at home. What is brick made from?

It's nice to have a house outside the city! But what if there is a plot of land, but there is no money for building materials? So, you need to build from what you have!

Materials for making bricks and blocks

Today everyone is accustomed to buying ready-made building materials. And our ancestors did everything with their own hands. And their houses were strong, warm, cozy.

Today's craftsmen also began to make bricks with their own hands for the construction of country houses. A variety of materials are used for this.

You can make the following building materials at home:

• concrete cinder blocks;
• adobe bricks;
• terrablocks.

With diligence, labor and patience, all the work can be done without any purchased mechanisms. And the financial investment on the material can be kept to a minimum.

Brick and block molds

Of course you can buy them. But since you decide to do everything yourself, then you should build the molds for filling yourself. Moreover, ready-made bricks will be useful not only for building a house, but also for building a poultry house, garage and other utility rooms.

If possible, you can make metal molds. But the easiest option is to put them together from plywood or wooden planks.

They make either single molds, double molds, or multi-piece molds. First, the walls of the box are knocked together. It is best to make the bottom of the mold retractable. But the covers are not attached in any way, but are simply placed on top. It is recommended to fill them with cone-shaped cones to create voids in bricks and blocks.

Although some craftsmen make do without lids at all when making bricks. Their bricks and blocks are cast, solid, without voids. In this case, more material is consumed, and the thermal conductivity of the walls is higher. That is, housing is less warm, since it is easier to share temperature with the environment.

If the mold is made for casting two or more blocks or bricks, then partitions are inserted inside. They can be made either stationary or removable. The latter option is considered more successful, since the bricks can be removed without any problems after removing the partitions.

Molds for making blocks and bricks differ only in their sizes. Moreover, everyone chooses for himself how large his building materials will be.

Concrete cinder blocks

This option is the most expensive of the three mentioned above. But, nevertheless, by making the blocks yourself, rather than purchasing them, the master significantly saves money.

For a concrete cinder block you need to take:

• 1 part cement;
• 6 parts sand;
• 10 parts filler.

The filler is expanded clay or crushed stone. But a thrifty owner can replace purchased ingredients with ordinary garbage, which is easy to collect in his yard, from his neighbors, or (forgive me, people with an aristocratic upbringing!) in a landfill.

It is important to use as a filler something that does not rot and does not shrink.

These are:

• broken glass;
• stones;
• pieces of brick;
• plastic;
• small metal parts.

When combining ingredients, it is necessary to measure the parts based not on the weight of the materials, but on their volume.

The volume of filler is calculated using a method based on Archimedes' law.

To do this, you will need a container of known volume and water. First, they put the material into it. Then fill everything with water, filling the container completely. After this, all that remains is to simply calculate how much water fits, subtract this number from the known volume of the container. What will remain is exactly the figure that will be equal to the volume of the material being measured.

Adobe bricks

To produce building materials of this kind, the following ingredients are required in equal volumes:

• clay;
• sand;
• wet manure or;
• filler.

The following are used as fillers:

• crushed insulation fibers;
• reed fines;
• shavings;
• sawdust;
• chopped straw.

You can add lime fluff or cement to the mass to increase strength.

If you have difficulty finding peat or manure, experts advise making your own stabilizer for bricks. To do this, vegetable tops, leaves, and weeds are dumped into a special pit and filled with clay solution. After three months, the rotted mass can be used as an ingredient for making adobe mortar.

Terrablocks

It is even easier to use ordinary earth as a material for bricks and blocks.

For earthen bricks, you should not take the top layer of soil, in which plant roots are found in large quantities, but those located deeper. Silted soils are not suitable for work.

Ingredients for Terrablocks:

• 1 part clay;
• 9 parts of earth;
• 5% fluff;
• 2% cement;
• filler (slag, garbage, crushed stone, expanded clay, crushed insulation).

You can mix the ingredients for the composition with your feet by placing it in a hole, a large container like a bathtub. There is an option to perform this work using special devices - soil mixers, which resemble miniature concrete mixers.

Drying bricks

Concrete bricks and cinder blocks dry in one to two days in good warm weather. But adobe and earthen building materials have to be kept under a canopy for a week or even about half a month. A canopy is necessary to protect bricks and blocks from precipitation and sunlight.

Moreover, adobe and terra bricks are first dried in a horizontal position for 2-3 days, and then turned over on their side. After a few days, they are transferred to the opposite side, then with the bottom part up.

If brick production occurs in winter, for drying it is necessary to equip a room with walls, a ceiling and heating.

It is very important to remember when building a house from adobe or earthen bricks: finishing cannot be carried out earlier than a year after the construction of the walls!

This rule follows from the fact that buildings made from this building material have a tendency to shrink strongly.

Video about how to make earthen bricks using a simple homemade machine

Brick is an artificial stone made in different ways from clay, sand, lime, cement with the addition of various pigments. Depending on the source material, as well as on the production technology, there are several types of bricks.


The most popular are clinker, decorative, ceramic, silicate, refractory, and facing bricks.

Types of bricks

Ceramic brick is the same classic red stone made from baked clay. This durable and versatile type of brick is widely used in construction, and modern technologies make it possible to get away from the red color and get stone of any other shade. Ceramic bricks can be hollow or hollow, which affects both the characteristics of the stone and its cost.

Sand-lime brick is an artificial stone originally white in color, made by autoclave synthesis from lime and sand. During the production process, the stone can be pigmented. Sand-lime brick differs from ceramic brick in its improved soundproofing characteristics.

At the same time, such bricks are not very resistant to moisture, so the scope of their use in construction is limited.


Refractory bricks are made from fired clay, called fireclay, with the addition of coke or graphite to give the stone greater strength. Such bricks can be carbon, quartz, alumina and lime-magnesium. Chimneys are made from refractory bricks, fireplaces and stoves are built.

Facing bricks are made from cement, with the addition of limestone and pigments. This material is strong, durable, looks great and protects facades well from moisture and temperature changes.

When making facing bricks, pressing technology is used, and this stone is used for finishing facades, restoring destroyed structures, decorating sidewalks, building fences, and so on. Facing bricks do not accumulate dirt and retain their original appearance for decades.

How to choose a brick?

First of all, they focus on the purpose of the stone. Depending on where it is to be used, emphasis is placed on specific characteristics. Manufacturers use special markings to indicate the strength of bricks. The load is indicated per 1 square meter - M100, M200 and so on. The higher the number, the higher the stone’s resistance to deformation.


When choosing a brick, you must also take into account its porosity, frost resistance, density, and thermal conductivity. Density is the ratio of the volume and mass of a brick. Frost resistance is the number of freezing and thawing cycles during which the stone will retain its original strength.

To mark frost resistance, use the letter F and numbers. In residential construction, as a rule, bricks marked F35 are used.

The most popular technologies

If the brick is made by firing clay, then before this process the clay is laid out in a concrete pit and filled with water. After three or four days, the clay is taken out and mechanical processing begins - at the enterprise, stones are removed from the clay composition, thoroughly mixing the mass.

After this, the clay goes into a belt press, where the bricks are cut according to a standard pattern. In a special chamber, the bricks dry under the influence of steam, and then they are sent to a tunnel kiln for firing. If the use of firing is not intended, then the brick is made by pressing.

The mineral components are welded under high pressure using binders and water. The finished substance is kept for up to five days, and after that it is mixed with cement in a concrete mixer. Bricks are then formed and allowed to rest for three to seven days.


There are many ways to improve the quality characteristics of bricks - add fireclay to the mixture, use vacuum pressing, tunnel dryers with recirculation.

It is believed that the highest quality bricks are obtained when fired in kilns running on liquid fuel or gas. Mineral additives and pigments help obtain the desired color. In order to improve the visual characteristics of the brick, its surface is subject to decorative treatment.

Brick is an artificially created stone intended for the construction of buildings and laying pavements. The parallelepiped shape and standard dimensions simplify the laying of walls. You can tell by appearance what the brick is made of. Dyes are used extremely rarely to improve color.

Natural materials are used for the production of artificial stone, and waste from metallurgical production is also used. The composition determines the brand of brick:

• silicate;
• ceramic;
• refractory;
• expanded clay;
• facing;
• cinder blocks;
• adobe.

The standard shape is a parallelepiped with an aspect ratio of 1:2:4. The exception is wedge stone, intended for the construction of arches, semicircular vaults, domes, and wells.

Red brick

Ceramic brick has a composition based on red clay; popularly received a name corresponding to the color. Only sand-lime brick is more popular. Solid stone is used for the construction of load-bearing walls, supports, and columns. The hollow block retains heat well, and the masonry has a decorative appearance. Used for external walls and partitions. Clay building material is used to construct buildings up to two floors, garages and courtyard buildings. The house looks beautiful, the facade retains heat and dampens noise, as if it were made of wood.

The main composition of red brick is clay. To obtain the necessary qualities, sand, aluminum oxide, sawdust, shale and coal water can be added to the composition. These components improve the plasticity of the clay and its ability to form without cracking and dry with minimal shrinkage.

For industrial brick production, clay is mined in quarries. Its characteristics and compliance with the standard are checked in laboratories at factories. The quality of the building material is negatively affected by contamination with lime, plant debris and stone. The higher the plasticity - fat content of the material, the better it is.

Brick making technology

Red brick is produced in several stages:

• geological exploration and analysis of clay deposits;
• quarry development and extraction of raw materials;
• laboratory research and calculation of additives;
• grinding;
• mixing with water and molding;
• drying;
• annealing;
• checking for compliance with linear dimensions and technical specifications.

After preliminary geological exploration, quarries are developed. The clay is transported to a factory, where it is dried and crushed with special mills to a homogeneous powder. At the same time, the necessary additives are introduced. At the end of this cycle, water is poured in, kneading is done and molding is done.

To obtain high density, the resulting composition is pressed in special devices. After this, drying occurs under natural conditions for several days. The resulting semi-finished product can be used for laying partitions of external walls if the house will be additionally lined along the facade.

Unfired red brick is not suitable for building a basement

Unfired red brick is hygroscopic, absorbs moisture and quickly deteriorates. A house built from it is damp inside and becomes cold over time. It can be used with good isolation from soil water and precipitation. It is not suitable for building a basement. But it absorbs noise well and has low thermal conductivity.

Firing sinteres the clay, increasing its hardness, strength, and resistance to moisture. The pressed surface becomes glossy. A house made of such artificial stone looks beautiful. Burnt red brick is used for laying walls with light loads.

Finishing artificial stone

The facing material is a separate group. It is made from red-sintered and white-sintered clay with the addition of dyes and standard components. The requirements for plasticity are increased, since molding is carried out in presses under high pressure. After high-temperature annealing of more than 1300 degrees, a durable material with high hardness, a beautiful glossy surface and water-repellent is obtained.

The shape of the finishing brick can be different so that the house looks monolithic, without unnecessary joints. Flat stone is laid on walls, corner stone is created for finishing window and door openings, rounded stone is used for decorative masonry. Its color ranges from yellow to dark red. The high wear resistance of the facade made of finishing stone protects the house, gives it a beautiful appearance and extends its service life.

DIY red brick

At home, you can only get solid “raw” bricks. The clay annealing temperature starts at 1100 degrees. Such a furnace is built from refractory material. Gas consumption for heating is very high. The cost of equipment will be more than the cost of the house.

Unfired red brick is suitable for the construction of one-story sheds, garages and other light structures. To prevent destruction, it is necessary to plaster with cement mortar or paint.

Clay moistened with water is kneaded to a homogeneous mass and rolled into a ball. The sample is dried for 4 days. Then it is examined. There should be no cracks or signs of uneven shrinkage. Under dynamic load - hitting the ground, the ball should remain intact. Otherwise, the composition is adjusted with additives.

To give the clay the desired size, a wooden mold is made. One side of the box is removable, used for manual compression of the solution. Finished bricks should be dried until completely ready in the shade. A house from such bricks can be built with subsequent exterior finishing that has a waterproof composition.

Sand-lime brick

Consumers often call sand-lime brick white, based on its main color. It is made from quicklime and washed sand. A house made from such material is durable, resistant to temperature changes and moisture, and can be built on several floors. The large specific gravity of artificial stone requires a solid foundation for the house - a strip foundation. Sand-lime brick gets its name from the chemical name of its main component – ​​sand.

For construction in the northern regions, complex masonry is often combined with an outer layer of sand-lime brick and an inner layer of red brick. The space between them is used to interweave rows by laying bricks across the axis and with the end facing outwards. Such walls can be erected in strict accordance with the size of the artificial stone. Otherwise, the house will soon become covered with cracks and collapse due to internal stresses in the masonry.

Manufacturing technology

Main components of sand-lime brick:

• quartz sand;
• quicklime;
• water.

The sand is checked for purity. It should be free of debris, plant residues, clay and earth impurities. For industrial production, washed sand from the shore and bottom of the river is used.

Lime is added in an amount of 6-8%, depending on its characteristics. Black limestone is crushed and annealed in thermal furnaces at temperatures of more than 1000 degrees until the crystalline bonds are completely destroyed, creating a new composition. After this, a white powder is formed, which releases a large amount of heat when dissolved in water.

To slak the lime and form a plastic mass, water is added to the silicate composition in exact accordance with the calculated volume. The formed block is processed under high pressure or in a centrifugal drum for up to 12 hours. Sintering of the components occurs during subsequent treatment with steam under high pressure. Sand-lime brick acquires hardness, strength and has the correct shape.

It is impossible to make sand-lime brick at home on your own. Manufacturing technology requires complex industrial equipment. The composition is prepared after laboratory tests and its proportions are calculated.

Choosing material when building a house

When planning to build a house or other building, analyze the requirements for it. Sand-lime brick is best used for load-bearing walls and supports. Its sand-based composition has high strength.

The outer walls will maintain the coziness and comfort of the house, made of annealed red brick. If you want a cottage with two or more floors, use sand-lime brick and make beautiful, fashionable siding.

Fill the foundation with concrete and lay out the base of cinder blocks. The strength and moisture resistance of this material is suitable for contact with the ground.

Not all ancient people were lucky enough to have a cozy cave to live in. In the complete absence of mountains in the area, wood was used in the construction of huts, but on completely deserted plains it was only possible to build huts from straw, reinforcing the walls with clay coating. In those days it was not yet known how bricks were made. But someone clever noticed the property of clay dried in the sun to become hard, not to get wet from rain and to serve as reliable protection from cold and wind. This is how the first rectangular clay tiles in history appeared, the manufacturing technology of which is much different from how brick products are produced now.

Brick is widely used in the construction of various buildings due to its strength and high insulating properties.

Raw materials for brick production

Of all the materials used in construction, only wood and stone are older than brick. The shape of clay stones has undergone various changes. It is known that even triangular and round tiles were used in ancient times, and only in the 16th century in England did they acquire a more familiar appearance. Unified standards for the production of bricks were developed in Russia only in 1927. Since then, its dimensions depend only on compliance with state standards, and production technology has changed significantly.

There are several types of brick, of which the main and most popular are silicate and ceramic. The difference between them is the type of raw materials used for manufacturing. The composition of silicate products does not include such a classic component as clay. It is made from a mixture of sand and lime with the addition of binding components, which are pressed and subsequently fired. The color of a ceramic product depends on the composition of the clay. If the raw material is rich in iron compounds, then during the firing process the brick receives a red tint, the intensity of which depends on the amount of iron inclusions.

When dry, clay is a very fine dust, which becomes plastic when moistened. Each type of raw material manifests itself differently. In order to make bricks, the medium plasticity of the material is best suited. Clay raw materials are considered one of the most stable waterproofing materials and are distinguished by a number of valuable qualities - viscosity, porosity and sinterability. The best clay is considered to be one that requires a minimum amount of special additives to obtain high-quality products.

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How red ceramic bricks are made

Bricks are made from clay, which can be found even on your own site.

The process of making ceramic bricks can be divided into 4 main stages:

• clay mining;
• preparation of raw materials;
• molding and drying of the product;
• burning.

Clay extraction is carried out using heavy equipment - usually an excavator and a bulldozer. After removing the top layers of soil, the raw materials are loaded onto dump trucks and transported to the place of further processing. In the first stage, quarry clay undergoes initial coarse grinding. At the same time, foreign large inclusions are removed from it. Then it is dried, crushed into a fine powder and sifted.

After moistening and pressing, the clay is sent to production, where it will become a real brick.

To improve sintering during heat treatment, 2 types of materials are added to the raw material: burnable - sawdust, peat and crushed coal - and non-plastic (coarse sand, slag and fireclay).

Tools for making bricks: 1 – pestle (pusher), 2 – flooring, 3 – sand with a scoop, 4 – clay with a shovel, 5 – a craft, 6 – a staple or scraper.

The prepared mass is fed to the molding press, after which the brick enters the drying chamber. It has a gradual rise in temperature and there is no movement of air masses; such conditions ensure uniform evaporation of moisture and allow the product to have a smooth and even surface.

The last stage of production is the most critical. A special conveyor delivers the product to the kiln for firing. This equipment has 3 working areas:

• preparatory for heating;
• burning;
• cooling.

As a result of this processing, clay becomes a durable, fire-resistant and frost-resistant building material.

Knowing what brick is made of, what it comes in, how it differs, and what its type is intended for, will allow you to consciously and correctly select the main material for any construction at the stage of pre-design decisions.

At the household level, there are two varieties - red (ceramic brick) and white (sand-lime brick), which, despite the similarity of shape and purpose, differ significantly in source materials, manufacturing technology and use. It seems more reasonable to divide into the following varieties, differing in the method of production:

1. Fired brick, or ceramic, produced by sintering the powdered components of a brick blank into a stone-strength material.
2. Unfired (pressed) brick, obtained by turning special mixtures into a stone-like material due to the hydration of a binder (usually based on Portland cement), without the use of firing. This also includes sand-lime brick, obtained by autoclaving a mixture of lime and sand.

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The main substance that makes up ceramic bricks is ordinary clay - a mineral mass that acquires plasticity when water is added, retains its shape after drying and hardens to a stone state when fired. Clay is ubiquitous, but even in one deposit its characteristics can vary depending on the depth of the layers. The basis of clay raw materials, as a rule, is 4 minerals: kaolinite, illite, montmorillonite and quartz. Properties of clay taken into account when making bricks:

1. Plasticity is the ability to change shape under the influence of force without breaking and maintain it after the action ceases. There are high-, medium-, moderate- and low-plasticity, as well as non-plastic clays.
2. Bonding ability - maintaining plasticity when adding non-plastic inclusions. It is measured by the ability to bind the amount of sand expressed as a percentage (from 20 to 80) to its own weight.
3. Air and fire shrinkage - changes in the size of samples during drying and firing, respectively.
4. Caking is the property of hardening to a stone-like state when heated. Clays with a sintering temperature of up to 1100°C are considered low-temperature, in the range from 1100 to 1300°C - medium-temperature; over 1300°C - high temperature.


5. Fire resistance - the ability not to melt when heated. Pure highly plastic kaolinite clays used for the production of porcelain have high fire resistance (not lower than 1580°C). Refractory clays are those used for making sewer pipes and facing bricks with a small amount of impurities and fire resistance from 1350 to 1580°C. Low-melting clays are considered to be heterogeneous in composition with a fire resistance below 1350°C, used for the production of bricks, blocks and tiles. The degree of suitability of clay for the manufacture of specific products depends on its mineral, chemical and granulometric composition.

Regulating additives

To give the finished product the required properties, the following types of additives are added to the clay:

• thinning - inorganic substances that facilitate the formation of the mass and reduce shrinkage: sand, ash, slag;
• burnable - organic inclusions that reduce density and increase porosity: sawdust, powdered coal and peat;
• special - regulating the firing temperature of iron-containing ores and sandstone, facilitating the molding of ulphite-alcohol stillage, metal oxides coloring the finished brick in the desired color.

Raw material processing stages

Before becoming a finished product, the clay included in red brick must undergo the following stages:

• extraction and preparation;
• molding and drying;
• burning.

Typically, clay extracted from a quarry is transported to the processing site, where primary grinding and rough cleaning of foreign inclusions take place. Then drying, final grinding, sifting and the necessary moisture for subsequent pressing are carried out to 9-12%. The molding press gives the powder the required shape, after which the raw material is fed into the drying chamber, where due to a gradual increase in temperature, water evaporates evenly and does not disturb the texture of the brick surface.

Firing, consisting of heating, firing itself and cooling, takes place in a special furnace, where the prepared raw materials are fed by a conveyor.

Thus, the clay is transformed into a building material with the necessary properties - bricks.

In addition to clay, the main raw material for the manufacture of ceramic bricks and wall blocks can be industrial waste generated during the enrichment of coal, as well as during the combustion of thermal power plant fuel, ash, consisting mainly of aluminosilicate glass, clayey matter and quartz. The difficulty of using such raw materials lies in the instability of its properties.

What are unfired bricks made from?

Today, a variety of materials are widely used in economic activities - bricks and blocks produced using the following non-firing technologies:

• autoclave hardening of lime-sand mixture;
• hyperpressing a mixture of crushed limestone rocks with water and cement.

Regardless of the type of raw material, they are united by the lack of high-temperature processing of brick blanks.

Sand-lime brick

A common example of a material obtained by autoclave hardening of a lime-sand mixture is white sand-lime brick. The primary composition of sand-lime brick includes approximately 9 parts of quartz sand and 1 part of lime. Wetting the mixture with water initiates the reaction of quenching the lime component, resulting in the formation of a plastic mass from which brick blanks are formed, subjected to autoclaving - steam treatment at a temperature of 170-200 ° C and a pressure of 8-12 atm. Sometimes dyes and substances are added to the mixture to make the brick more resistant to weathering.

Mixture components

Sand is a natural or artificial (industrial waste) loose mass of homogeneous small, from 0.1 to 5 mm, grains from various minerals. The quality of the sand included in the brick determines the quality of the finished product and the features of the production technology. The geometric shape and surface texture of sand grains are important for the ease of giving the raw mixture the desired shape and the intensity of interaction with lime when heated in an autoclave. Sharp-angled mountain sands, unlike smooth river sands, adhere better to lime. Quarry sand must first be cleared of foreign inclusions.

The next component is lime, obtained by crushing to a size of 40-100 mm and subsequent firing at a temperature of 1100-1200 ° C of rocks containing at least 90% calcium carbonate - chalk, limestone, calcareous tuff and marble. Under the influence of temperature, limestone breaks down into carbon dioxide and lime. At all stages of sand-lime brick production, water from artesian wells is used.

Also in brick production, lime-slag and lime-ash mixtures are used with full or partial replacement of sand with silica-containing industrial waste - thermal power plant ashes and slags. Made from waste and ordinary sand-lime brick are identical in quality.

Brick produced by hyper-compression

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The starting material for unfired bricks are mixtures consisting of Portland cement or lime as a binder, various mineral fillers (sand, crushed shell rock), water and inorganic dyes. In non-firing technologies, water, hydrating the components of hydraulic binders, is necessary to artificially create a stone-like structure, which is why the disadvantage of such bricks is their low heat resistance. When critical values ​​are reached, usually above 300°C, the release reaction of chemically bound water is triggered, which is why the brick quickly loses its strength.

Features of the technology

At the stages of preparing raw materials and forming blanks, non-firing technology resembles the production of concrete blocks, however, the source material of such bricks includes a filler compacted by pressing - crushed shell rock, stone processing waste, etc. Since water is consumed only for hydration of cement, a significantly smaller amount is required. The final shape is given by hyper-pressing - strong, up to several tons per 1 square meter. cm, by compressing the mixture in a special form, after which the products are stored or sent for steaming in order to speed up the process of acquiring the required strength.

The simplicity of the technology, due to the absence of expensive high-temperature stages, made it possible to make it widespread, often to the detriment of the quality of the finished product.

These are the main materials and technologies used for the manufacture of a variety of bricks, blocks and facing materials used in residential and industrial construction.

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