FAQ

Whether you’re a private customer, contractor, or project developer, you can purchase your bricks through a Vandersanden account holder. They will then order the bricks from us. The account holder will receive an order conformation from us stating when the bricks or pavers will be available. 

In the first instance, a builders merchant has an advisory role as it will be well informed of what is currently available on the market.

If the company has a physical showroom, they will also be able help you with your choice of materials. They will have the time to discuss your plans with you and to propose appropriate materials. As a private customer, you might also be able to obtain reference addresses or samples of your favourite bricks.

Once a builders merchant has placed your order, it can ‘call up’ the order when it wants to collect it. This needs to be done four weeks in advance. On occasion, a builders merchant will place an order today and want to come and collect the bricks tomorrow. If the bricks are available immediately, this won’t be a problem.

Delivery times vary from brick to brick. You can always contact our office team to find out whether we have enough of your chosen brick in stock. If we do, we should be able to load them for delivery on the same day. If we don't have your brick in stock, our office team will be able to tell you when your bricks will be produced and available from stock.

Our customers have the following options:

• Collect the order yourself
• Have the bricks delivered to the construction site or depot

If you are a construction company coming to collect the order, you should go the plant stated on the order confirmation and quote the order number when you arrive.

If we are delivering the order, it is important that we know what quantity we will be delivering and whether or not there is a crane or forklift truck on site so that the pallets of bricks can be unloaded. If there isn’t, we’ll send a crane lorry that can unload the pallets of bricks itself. Please note that a crane lorry can only unload the pallets to around 5 or 6 metres away from the lorry.

If you are a contractor, we would be happy to advise on the options offered by our bricks, facade systems and pavers. From storage of bricks to advice on bonding bricks and the rules of implementation for brickwork patterns.

You can find information and advice for contractors here

Our installation instructions for bricks and pavers can be found in the documents for download in the Knowledge & Advice Finder, or can be requested through our Technical Support service.

If you think that you have ordered too few bricks, you can order more.

It’s very important that you tell us that it's a ‘top-up’ order when ordering these bricks so that we can check whether we still have bricks from the same batch in stock. If the batch that we originally delivered is no longer available, we will deliver another batch, in which case it’s important that you incorporate the new batch together with the original batch. Even if the bricks are from the same batch, it is important that you mix the new bricks with the original bricks.

Make sure to check in advance whether or not you have ordered enough.

You can read this knowledge article on colour differences and staining in the facade, which should answer your question.

Yes, all Vandersanden’s facing bricks are tested for freeze thaw durability in accordance with BS EN 771-1:2011+A1:2015 and achieve the highest performance in testing “F2”. As such they are suitable for severe exposure locations.

All Vandersanden’s bricks also achieve the highest performance in testing for active soluble salts content “S2” in accordance with BS EN 771-1:2011+A1:2015. As such they are suitable for prolonged saturation applications.

A brick classed as “F2 S2” is suitable for use below damp proof course (DPC) level going into the ground.

Frost resistance of bricks is covered in detail in our CPD#1 Brick basics seminar. For further information and registration for our CPD seminars, visit our page about professional development.

Register for CPD seminar    Explore our facing bricks

Facing bricks are made with clay extracted from the ground which is mixed with water and other additives. The clay mixture is then formed into individual units and then fired to high temperatures in a kiln.

There are 3 types of brick production process: stock(handform), waterstruck and wirecut (extruded).

Please take a look at this 3 minute video showing how facing bricks are made.

In contrast with facing bricks, engineering bricks do not have any requirement for colour or texture. They are traditionally used in civil engineering work.

There are two types of Engineering brick:

• Class A: minimum compressive strength 125N/mm2, maximum water absorption 4.5%, F2 freeze thaw durability, S2 active soluble salts content.
• Class B: minimum compressive strength 75N/mm2, maximum water absorption 7%, F2 freeze thaw durability, S2 active soluble salts content.

Facing bricks are the business card for your architecture. The texture, the colour, the finish... You get to decide the character and feel of every project. That’s why at Vandersanden, we have a vast selection so that you can build in any style you choose. Vandersanden has the right facade brick for every desire. The texture generator allows you to experiment with facade designs.

Discover our facing bricks Create your facade design

Movement joints should be no more than 12m apart. The distance from a corner return should be half that dimension in either direction i.e. 6m.

There are many factors to consider in locating movement joints in our brick facades. Please contact us for project specific advice on locating movement joints.

We provide a water-resistant and scratch-resistant coating on the visible sides of the bricks for sustainably attractive facades without plaster.

Pirrouet® is made from steel slag or residual products from the steel industry: minerals such as calcium and magnesium oxide. These are poured liberally into liquid steel to remove contaminants (metallic fraction) from the steel in order to obtain pure steel. The metallic fraction is then separated from the mineral fraction and used again in the steel factory. The mineral fraction is the residual product that we use to produce our Pirrouet® carbonation bricks.

During the production of Pirrouet®, CO2 forms a chemical bond with materials containing calcium hydroxide. The result is carbonation. This bond creates limestone-like bricks. The binding of CO2 is therefore permanent and not temporary.

We want to extend the sustainable character of this revolutionary product across the board, so we only colour the top layer (approx. 1 cm). We fully colour the corner bricks – which make up approximately 25% of our production – which means they can be used above windows, for Brazilian bonds, etc.

Our Pirrouet® bricks come with a 10-year warranty.

Depending on the size you choose, you will need the following quantities per m2:

LF50-S (240x72x50): 64 /m2 DF-S (215x72x65): 58/m2 XXL44-S (440x72x44): 42/m2 The above quantities are guideline values and assume the bricks are laid with a joint of 12 mm. If the bricks are glued, you will usually need more bricks per m2.

Processing instructions are available on request.

Pirrouet® bricks meet strict European standards that apply to ceramic bricks. Please contact us for more information.

Pirrouet® bricks have a very high dimensional stability and are therefore perfect for circular processing. A dry stacking system is currently under development. The mortar industry is also working on a special lime mortar, which will make it possible to recover the Pirrouet® bricks. Please contact us for more information.

As this is a completely new product and technology, we are currently working on achieving the KIWA innovation certificate. This certificate will also serve as the basis for an EPD certificate proving sustainability in figures.

The amount of CO2 that we store permanently does not seem huge, but the production of these bricks has very little impact because we dry the bricks rather than fire them. We therefore achieve a permanently CO2-negative product. We will produce 20 million bricks annually. This means we are going to capture and permanently store approximately 2,500 tonnes of CO2, which has a big impact overall. Please also note that wooden facade products release the CO2 again at the end of their service life. This is not the case with our Pirrouet® bricks.

We are currently investigating whether CO2-negative bricks can also be produced as pavers. These require different properties from facing bricks in terms of breaking load, frost/thaw resistance, salt resistance and trip/slip resistance. In addition to developing potentially new, innovative pavers such as CO2-negative paving stones, we are fully committed to producing more sustainable pavers, through dematerialisation and the future use of green hydrogen gas.Brick paving is made from local river clay, a renewable resource which increases natural biodiversity and flood safety when extracted. The lifetime of pavers is an average of 135 years and the reuse rate is almost 90%(!). Because of all this, pavers fit perfectly within the circular economy. Pavers also have a unique aesthetic; they are colourfast and create an unbeatable atmosphere in outdoor spaces. Pavers have been the most circular product for public paving for centuries!

You can read this knowledge article on brick slips and bricks, which should answer your question.

Our brick slips are approx. 20mm thick but with the same high-quality properties as brick, being dimensionally stable, robust, low maintenance, non-flammable, and with excellent resistance to frost. Our range of brick slips offers the same choice of face sizes and colours as our range of bricks.

• They are space-saving. If a brick appearance is required but there isn’t sufficient space on plan for whole bricks.
• They are lighter weight than whole bricks. If a brick appearance is required but traditional brick construction is too heavy.
• They are ideal used in combination with insulation: brick slips can be bonded straight on to insulation panels, refer to Vandersanden’s E-Board® external wall insulated brick slip system for further information.

Brick slips are either cut down from whole bricks or manufactured as slips. All Vandersanden bricks can be cut down into slips, this process is carried out in factory controlled conditions.

We also have a range of Eco-friendly brick slips, so called because instead of being cut from full bricks are the slips are formed in special moulds using far less clay material and fired as slips.

Brick slips may either be adhesive or mechanically fixed directly to a substrate material or used as part of a brick slip system such as Vandersanden’s E-Board®.

Yes, brick slips are commonly used externally.

Brick slips may be cut on site using a water cooled diamond tipped saw, taking health and safety measures into account.

With E-Board, all brickwork patterns are possible with the exception of Claustra, also known as the Brazilian bond.

An E-Board insulation panel has two sides. One of the two sides is fitted with guide ridges to simplify bonding of the bricks when installing a horizontal brickwork pattern with joint. There are no guide ridges on the other side, which is also referred to as E-Board Zero. As there are no guide ridges, it can be used for traditional horizontal bonds (random, stretcher) as well as all other conceivable patterns (horizontal/vertical stacking bond, oblique bond), both with and without a joint.

The possibilities and design freedom are endless. Vertical brickwork can be combined with different brick sizes, with ceiling coverings and protrusions, or with embedment of ornamentation, hard stone, key stone and trusses. You can also combine different brickwork patterns, such as a vertical stacking bond with a horizontal random bond. Alternatively, you could opt for a herringbone motif!

One of the many benefits of E-Board is that you can install a brickwork pattern against a facade surface at any angle between 0° and 90°, from ceiling finish to vertical walls. Slopes where the finish with E-Board exceeds 90° (towards 180°) and where E-Board is being used as a roof covering are not covered by our technical agreement, which means that they are excluded from the warranty.

E-Board Zero does not have any specific benefits or drawbacks compared with the jointed version – both have been designed for a different aesthetic appearance and each has its own benefits as a result. E-Board Zero was developed to mimic the jointless appearance of bonding with glue.

Some benefits of E-Board Zero:

• The E-Board Zero insulation panels can be installed more quickly, as alignment of the brick slips does not need to be taken into account during installation. The brick slips are aligned once they have been effectively installed. In the case of E-Board with joints, there may be more alignment work, but this will be made significantly easier due to the convenience of the guide ridges on the boards.
• Combing the boards with adhesive mortar is easier with E-Board Zero, as there are no guide ridges. But, when installing the brick slips, you will need to pay closer attention to the alignment due to the absence of the ridges.
• There is no jointing after installation. You will need to bond more brick slips and pay close attention when doing so to prevent adhesive from emerging between the bricks.
• Another, and perhaps the most important, benefit is the aesthetic freedom that comes with the use of E-Board Zero. You can easily create special brickwork patterns or combine different patterns without any additional measures to ensure the stability of the facade.

Request your E-Board brochure here

If E-Board is being installed on a timber frame construction, wooden structure, or steel frame, those surfaces will need to be finished first with a hard panel. As OSB 3 is not sufficiently resistant to water, it cannot be used as a base for attaching E-Board. As an alternative, we always recommend a fibre cement board or cement-bound fibre board as a base.

Cement-bound fibre boards for installation of E-Board must satisfy the following conditions:

• To attach cement-bound fibre board, the following centre-to-centre distances must be adhered to for the wooden struts: - Cement-bound fibre board thickness 12 mm: maximum 400 mm - Cement-bound fibre board thickness 16 mm: maximum 600 mm Deviating thicknesses are permissible if the dimensional stability and stiffness of the board material is equivalent to the aforementioned thicknesses.
• A joint thickness of at least 2 - 3 mm must be adhered to between the fibre cement boards.
• The seams of the joint should be masked with butyl tape or bitumen tape.
• The seams of the E-board insulation panels must have a 10 cm overlap with respect to the seams of the underlying fibre cement boards at a minimum.

EPS or expanded polystyrene is resistant to the UV components in sunlight. In the event of extended storage outdoors, there may be some surface damage, but it will only be superficial. This can be brushed off, after which the brick slips can be glued to the insulation panels as  normal.

The insulation panels can be exposed to the sun for some time after installation. This will not have any impact on the insulating value of the panels nor on the adhesion of the mortar to the insulation panels.

If you think that the insulation panels will be exposed to the sun for an extended period of time, you can cover them with white film. Reveals or joints inE-Board with a flat roof that remain open for a period of time should also be covered with a white film. We do not recommend this to counter the influence of UV, but to prevent the reflection of the sun's rays from raising the temperature and melting the exposed insulation.

If you generate a texture in our texture generator tool on the website, you will receive a link to download the texture (in .jpeg). You can then upload that texture into your design program. The e-mail you receive will also contain links to technical information (CE sheet, specifications text) on the chosen product.

We will soon be integrating our texture generator with the most common software packages for architects. This will be done via a plug-in. No more searching, downloading or uploading! The first thing on the agenda is an integration with the CAD program Vectorworks. We are doing everything possible to launch this as soon as possible.

The intuitive simplicity of the tool with countless possible textures, combined with high-quality lifelike images. Vandersanden's texture generator uses a specific technology to extract information from photos: photogrammetry. It uses 2D textures with a 3D depth, which makes the textures extremely detailed. The lighting is added digitally. This gives you an extremely uniform and realistic image, which is not dependent on external variables.

We 'scan' a huge number of products by hue. This combined with the digital mirroring of each side produces a very natural image. Recurring patterns are virtually impossible. Furthermore, the texture generator allows you to play with mortar joints and joint thicknesses. In the case of facing bricks, even leaving perpend joints unbuttered with mortar is an option.

You will receive the following documents:

• The texture (jpg)
• A zip file with all the other types of textures (alpha, occlusion, normal and diffuse), pdf sheets, a meta file (json) and a documentation file
• A link to reopen your configuration

You can play with mortar joints, joint thicknesses and finishes. But also mix 2, 3 or even 4 colours with each other. This way you are always sure that the mix is feasible in practice.

No. You indicate the mix ratio of your dream texture to the building merchant. He/she will then place the order. The mixing is done afterwards on site by the builder.

We strive to provide the best possible realistic image. However, it is a digital image, which can differ from reality. Facing bricks, blick slips and clay pavers are also ceramic products. This means that slight colour differences can occur between different bricks.

We want to show you a realistic mix. This means that not all combinations are possible. When mixing, we take into account the technical specifications, dimensions and surface structures of our products. This ensures that you get a mix that is both aesthetically pleasing and of good quality.

You can download your favourite texture. You will also receive a link to review your texture configuration.

If you generate a texture in our texture generator tool on the website, you will receive a link to download the texture (in .jpeg). You can then upload that texture into your design program. The e-mail you receive will also contain links to technical information (CE sheet, specifications text) on the chosen product.

We will soon be integrating our texture generator with the most common software packages for architects. This will be done via a plug-in. No more searching, downloading or uploading! The first thing on the agenda is an integration with the CAD program Vectorworks. We are doing everything possible to launch this as soon as possible.

The intuitive simplicity of the tool with countless possible textures, combined with high-quality lifelike images. Vandersanden's texture generator uses a specific technology to extract information from photos: photogrammetry. It uses 2D textures with a 3D depth, which makes the textures extremely detailed. The lighting is added digitally. This gives you an extremely uniform and realistic image, which is not dependent on external variables.

We 'scan' a huge number of products by hue. This combined with the digital mirroring of each side produces a very natural image. Recurring patterns are virtually impossible. Furthermore, the texture generator allows you to play with mortar joints and joint thicknesses. 

You will receive the following documents:

• The texture (jpg)
• A zip file with all the other types of textures (alpha, occlusion, normal and diffuse), pdf sheets, a meta file (json) and a documentation file
• A link to reopen your configuration

You can play with mortar joints, joint thicknesses and finishes. But also mix 2, 3 or even 4 colours with each other. This way you are always sure that the mix is feasible in practice.

We strive to provide the best possible realistic image. However, it is a digital image, which can differ from reality. Facing bricks, blick slips and clay pavers are also ceramic products. This means that slight colour differences can occur between different bricks.

We want to show you a realistic mix. This means that not all combinations are possible. When mixing, we take into account the technical specifications, dimensions and surface structures of our products. This ensures that you get a mix that is both aesthetically pleasing and of good quality.

You can download your favourite texture. You will also receive a link to review your texture configuration.