Tumbled bricks

Looking for an authentic look for your façade? Then you should opt for reused bricks. People are increasingly opting for newly produced bricks with a ‘recycled’ appearance – tumbled bricks. The price is lower, availability better, and quality guaranteed by the manufacturer.

How do new bricks get an aged look? There are two techniques: classic ‘tumbled bricks’ and the more innovative ‘aged bricks’. Both seek to make a façade look old, but there are some important differences. Let’s summarise them.

The best known technique is tumbling, and as the name suggests, the clay pavers are tumbled in a drum. There, the bricks collide with one another, resulting in broken corners and edges. By simultaneously spraying in mortar pulp, the surfaces of the tumbled bricks take on an additional weathered appearance, and they are also slightly cheaper than aged bricks.

View our tumbled bricks

‘Bricks collide with one another in a drum, resulting in broken corners and edges’

With this technique, the tumbling process is incorporated into the production process. We don’t tumble fired bricks, instead we use unfired bricks that are ready to enter the kiln. This has important advantages. Unfired bricks are not yet hard. The corners and edges aren’t knocked off by tumbling, but are bruised and rounded. In addition, the masonry pulp is baked onto the surface of the bricks during the subsequent firing process. Even onto the rounded corners. The result? Aged bricks that look much more natural, with the appearance of reused stone – more so that classic tumbled bricks.

View our aged bricks

‘The corners and edges aren’t knocked off by tumbling, but are bruised and rounded’