We would like to answer couple of questions which often get asked and which I feel need a little explanation.
- “Have you sent us the wrong product?”
- “Our Brick slips look darker or all the same colour, and they are damp.”
- “Can I install my brick slips whilst they are still damp? Will the adhesive work?”
Manufactured with care
All of our brick slips are manufactured with machinery that uses water. The use of water is essential for a number of purposes, its main use is for keeping the cutting machinery cool and lubricated and suppressing any dust created from our cutting process. Water is also used on our production line as a rinse to clean off any cutting debris that may be left over from the cutting.
Typically, all of our brick slips are cut with huge cutting disks, cutting equipment uses water to keep the blades cool. Whilst all of this is going on, water is absorbed into the tiles, as all bricks are porous to a greater or lesser extent.
Faster, quicker, larger supplies.
Quite often, and depending upon the brick type, surface finish and demand, the brick slips will be full of water when they are packed.
When at the end of the production line they are packed into crates without having time to dry out. This is a completely normal process and doesn’t cause any issues with the product other than when the brick slips are wet they will always look darker than when they are fully dry.
This water remains in the brick slips throughout their journey to our warehouses, commercial sites and retailers and will probably still be there when they arrive with the customer.
Darker in colour?
Some brick slips are more porous than others and can take longer to fully dry out. When wet or moist the brick slips can be much darker in appearance than their eventual dried out colour. Some of our brick types show little variance in colour and a high resilience to moisture levels and are practically unnoticeable, and others can have a high moisture level and colour wise be noticeably different.
This is why on occasion we get a phone call from a customer to say “the brick slips don’t look like the sample”. The truth is, they won’t look like the sample immediately as the sample is bone dry and probably a shade lighter having been exposed to air for a while.
You will only get to see the true colour of our brick slips when they are fully dry.
One way to get an instant idea of what the finished colour will be is to put a few up against a radiator for a while and see the colour change as they dry out.
Best practices
It is good practice to take the wet brick slips out of their box and lay them out, this will allow them to “breathe” to an extent and start to dry out.
Installing brick slips when they are wet is not an issue. In fact, the dampness can help stop the adhesive drying out too quickly. If the tiles are really porous they can draw the water out of the adhesive before it has had time to cure properly, affecting its overall adhesion.
So to summarise…
YES! Your brick slips will lighten once the moisture has fully gone.
YES! You can install them whilst still damp, its even beneficial to do so!
