Building up the case for brickwork

The off-site lobby has had a field day lately, portraying brick as expensive and brickwork as a dying art. It's wrong on both counts as a report by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has demolished the misleading claims about its cost. And it says that brickwork beats just about any other cladding material on price.

Also, there are no shortages of trained bricklayers in this country. According to ConstructionSkills, there were nearly 120,000 of them at the last count. And the transformation of London's St Pancras railway station into an international rail terminal shows that precision and skill in bricklaying are alive and kicking.

Favourite choice

Brick has long been a favourite among architects, contractors and the public. Its warm and humanising character brings buildings to life. An external brick wall adds scale, colour and texture. Then there's the choice. About 1,200 different varieties of brick are produced in the UK alone, from handmade bricks made by traditional techniques to mass-produced extruded and stock bricks.

Brick blends easily and naturally with its surroundings. It needs no decoration or routine maintenance. Brick can be adapted as a building changes use and be recycled or crushed to an aggregate.

Yet this unique set of attributes is twinned with exceptionally low cost - most bricks are priced like a commodity. Compared with glass, steel and timber-based cladding systems, brickwork enjoys the lowest installed cost and whole-life cost.

The study, commissioned by the Brick Development Association, explains this in detail. It took a range of data, from major price books to bills of quantities for live projects. The UK projects ranged in value from £356,000 to £10.5m.

The RICS' Building Cost Information Service compared the installed cost per square metre for brickwork and facing brick came in at £59m2, which is less than most cladding material. Cheaper materials included single-fibre cement sheeting and painted render. Such options have a lower life expectancy or higher life-cycle costs than brick.

Performance comparison

Compare this proven performance with, say, the price of timber, which rose more than 25% for imported softwood last year and is predicted to rise further, or glazed cladding, which has been hit by soaring costs for glass, aluminium and stainless steel. With the building materials industry heavily reliant on imports - and the price inflation that goes with it - the availability of brick, short lead times for brickwork and competitive pricing, brick offers contractors a major competitive advantage.

Brick also scores on cost in use. With reasonable maintenance, a brick wall will last indefinitely. Repointing might be necessary after 70 years, but no regular maintenance is required. And brickwork weathers gracefully and mellows with age. Finally, brick wins high marks for its environmental cost - an increasingly influential part of building design. BREEAM's Green Guide scores all brick construction A+ or A, the best ratings.

Critics have also tried to damage brick's reputation on site - that it is dangerous, dirty and time-consuming. None of these accusations hold up to close scrutiny. Brick is one of the most successful building materials ever devised. It is been used to shape the built environment since the beginning of civilisation. Yet members of the BDA are constantly developing the product.

The skill and techniques on site are still there. Yet brickmakers are making site work easier and quicker by producing pre-assembled feature brickwork details and panels. Other innovations include the development of tile bricks, large format clay blocks, thin-joint brickwork, and brick-clad timber-frame buildings.

Separating the facts about brick from the fiction is straightforward. The key fact is this: brick is a strong competitor. On price, it's hard to beat on versatility and pure aesthetics few rivals come even close.