Welcome to Ask Andy, the go to place for those questions that you might need the answers too. This month top questions are featured below, Enjoy.
1.Do the brick slips come on a backing cloth or on sheets?
All of our brick slips are cut from actual bricks and are 100% authentic.
Whilst backing cloths and pre clad sheets are used within the pre formed and moulded slips this is not something we offer for our products.
The idea of applying the tiles and gluing them to plastic/cloth or wired sheets during manufacture is not really that beneficial to the end user.
The manufacture of small tiles, natural stone and mosaics does benefit from cloths and backing sheets as often these pre formed sheets bear a pattern or have a number of small sections with large grout areas. This process for this industry is a benefit to the installer and can save on time.
Due to the weight and large size of brick slips, applying them to a mesh cladding system is actually counter productive, can be cumbersome and offers nothing in benefit to the installer.
The freedom to apply the brick tiles individually gives a better result and allows for give within joint widths. This is something that installers and brick layers often do to allow courses to run to various widths.
2. Are the brick slips suitable for foot paths or walkways?
A question we get asked quite often is can the brick slips be used for footpaths and walkways?
As nice as they would look unfortunately brick slips are not brick pavers and are unsuitable for walkways and foot paths.
A standard paver is approximately 50mm depth for foot traffic or 60mm depth for light vehicles.
As our slips are only 20mm in depth we would not recommend using these for this application.
3. Are brick slips suitable for open fires?
Using Brickslips within fireplace designs are a simple way to add a great feature to your room.
Whilst brick slips are great for use around log burners and decorative fires we would not recommend using the slips on open fires where the heat is in direct contact with the brick tiles. We always recommend a 6 inch distance from any heat source and the use of fire cement when pointing.
For more info on brick slip fireplaces see this recent article.
4. Why are your boxes only half a square meter in size?
Here at brickslips.co.uk we take health and safety seriously.
Whilst we would love to offer our fantastic products in one square meter boxes unfortunately due to the weight of the brick tiles we have to offer the slips in half square meter boxes only.
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We have an existing short path and step to our front porch in solid concrete. Could we use brick slips laid on top of this to make the path more attractive? Thanks
Hi Amanda,
Unfortunately not, our brickslips are made from real genuine clay and due to the slim 20mm compound clay nature of them they would crack and break with heavy weight regardless of being laid on a solid cement base. You can however use a full size brick in this application as the full brick has a better and more solid structure throughout and will spread weight better under load. I hope that helps.
This website was… how do you say it? Relevant!!
Finally I’ve found something that helped me.
Thank you!
Hi Andy, i need to cover a steel H profile beam (above a widened doorway) with brick slips (instead of weatherboard /render- planners requested for listed building). Is there a way of stretching/pinning stiff metal galvanised mesh over the beam, then finishing off with (eg, London stock) brick slips? Thanks.
Hi Nadia
Thank you for your question, we would advise that as long as the substrate is structurally sound and can hold the weight of 30kb pm2 then it should be fine. It may be that have to use a different type of adhesive for the mesh. If you would like some further advice then please call our office and we can advise you in more detail.
Kind Regards
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Brickslips team
How much mortar will i need for a 7m square brickslip wall.
Hi. How long would it take a skilled labourer to apply 16sqm of slips to 1 wall and a chimney breast?
Hi, would you be able to show pictures of each mortar colour? Obviously you’ve got loads of picture examples but I’m not sure which mortar they use and struggling to choose.
Hi Andy
Please can you advise the rcommended pointing joint size
Hi, Andy!
How much weight can be hung on a brick slip wall? And how much deep would be drilling into the wall with polystyrene insulation and brick slips on the front?
Hi Andy,
We’ve just completed our fireplace which looks lovely! We’ve over ordered, is there anyway of sending the bricks back for a refund for them?
Hi Andy. Could you use glazed brick slips for a hearth for a wood burner? If this isn’t possible due to the weight of the burner, could they be used in conjunction with something sturdier – for example the burner sits on porcelain floor tiles or a piece of slate, with these around the edges?