Types of Brick

There are thousands of types of bricks that are named for their use, size, forming method, origin, quality, texture, and/or materials.

Categorized by manufacture method:

• Extruded – made by being forced through an opening in a steel die, with a very consistent size and shape.
  • Wire-cut – cut to size after extrusion with a tensioned wire which may leave drag marks
• Moulded – shaped in moulds rather than being extruded
  • Machine-moulded – clay is forced into moulds using pressure
  • Handmade – clay is forced into moulds by a person
• Dry-pressed – similar to soft mud method, but starts with a much thicker clay mix and is compressed with great force.

Categorized by use:

• Common or building – A brick not intended to be visible, used for internal structure
• Face – A brick used on exterior surfaces to present a clean appearance
• Hollow – not solid, the holes are less than 25% of the brick volume
  • Perforated – holes greater than 25% of the brick volume
• Keyed – indentations in at least one face and end to be used with rendering and plastering
• Paving – brick intended to be in ground contact as a walkway or roadway
• Thin – brick with normal height and length but thin width to be used as a veneer

Specialized use bricks:

• Chemically resistant – bricks made with resistance to chemical reactions
  • Acid brick – acid resistant bricks
• Engineering – a type of hard, dense, brick used where strength, low water porosity or acid (flue gas) resistance are needed. Further classified as type A and type B based on their compressive strength
  • Accrington – a type of engineering brick from England
• Fire or refractory – highly heat-resistant bricks
  • Clinker – a vitrified brick
  • Ceramic glazed – fire bricks with a decorative glazing

Bricks named for place of origin:

• Chicago common brick - a soft brick made near Chicago, Illinois with a range of colors, like buff yellow, salmon pink, or deep red
• Cream City brick – a light yellow brick made in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Dutch brick – a hard light coloured brick originally from the Netherlands
• Fareham red brick – a type of construction brick
• London stock brick – type of handmade brick which was used for the majority of building work in London and South East England until the growth in the use of machine-made bricks
• Nanak Shahi bricks – a type of decorative brick in India
• Roman brick – a long, flat brick typically used by the Romans
• Staffordshire blue brick – a type of construction brick from England