Waterstruck bricks: For future generations

Belgian brick specialist Vandersanden has developed a range of water-struck bricks for the first time. The special feature: the new product has the same material properties as a clinker brick. We asked Marketing Manager Roland Classen to explain the innovation.

“We radically questioned everything in the new development of our waterstruck bricks – both the clay mixtures and the firing processes. Basically, we started almost from scratch,” explains Roland Classen, Marketing Manager of the long-established Belgian brick producer Vandersanden. On the other hand, the development time for the new product of just under a year does not seem excessively long. Especially in view of the result: the new waterstruck brick from Vandersanden has material properties that otherwise only standardized clinker bricks have. The water absorption of the bricks was limited to a maximum of six percent. For some colors, it is even just under four percent. This makes the new product considerably more robust than conventional waterstruck bricks.

The incentive for the product development was a special feature of the German market, explains Roland Classen: “Unlike the two German plants, Vandersanden mainly produces bricks by hand in its brickworks in Belgium and the Netherlands. This production method has a long tradition in the Benelux countries. Hand-molded bricks are used there for practically all building typologies.” Not so in Germany. In this country, hand-molded bricks are used almost exclusively in single-family house construction. Large projects are dominated by extruded bricks instead, which are practically indestructible thanks to the sintering process. While the aesthetics of the filigree lines on the surfaces of the bricks may also lend a façade a unique effect, architects and clients in commercial construction relied primarily on the proven material properties of extruded clinker bricks. Now, however, nothing stands in the way of the unrestricted use of waterstruck bricks for extravagant façade design.

However, it is precisely these properties of the hand-formed and water-struck brick that have now found many friends again. In particular, the water-struck brick, as we know it from Scandinavia, is booming. It has a characteristic irregular surface, which is created by using water as a release agent. The filigree lines created by the water produce a subtle play of light and shadow on the wall surface. The – intentional – air pockets also leave their mark on the surface of the brick, making each brick unique.

“We have received a lot of customer requests for waterstruck grading,” reports Roland Classen: “That was the reason for us to include such a product in our range. But it needed to have properties that would also make it attractive for large projects. We wanted to create an alternative to extruded clinker.” The fact that Vandersanden has tailored its new development specifically to the needs of the German market is also evident from the fact that the new solid brick can initially only be ordered in German standard format and BDF.

Vandersanden decided to get down to business and launch an entire range on the market. It comprises five basic colors and a total of 26 variants. Two more basic colors will be available from autumn. Vandersanden also put a lot of effort into the development process for the different colors and assortments: “We organized test panels with over 70 different product samples. At the end of an extensive evaluation process, we arrived at the color palette that is now available,” explains Roland Classen. Incidentally, the number of variants differs depending on the base color. For example, there are seven yellow ranges but only three based on the base color black. “You can play with some colors more than others,” says Roland Classen.

To show the leap in development that Vandersanden has made with this new product, the color variants have been named after great researchers and discoverers. Thomas Edison, Gregor Mendel, Heinrich Hertz and Ferdinand Magellan, among others, are the inspiration for the different grades. How exactly the new high-strength waterstruck bricks are manufactured is, of course, a trade secret. “We have made significant changes to both the recipe itself and the firing process,” reveals Roland Classen.

Research plays an important role in Vandersanden’s corporate strategy anyway. The company has been working with various universities for many years. The Belgian University of Leuven, for example, is a long-standing cooperation partner. The exchange with educational institutions is not a one-way street: “We are also interested in bringing specialist knowledge to the universities,” reports Roland Classen.

Sustainability now plays a key role in the company’s development activities. Several approaches are being pursued, as Classen reports: “In Germany, for example, we are trying to establish brick slips and smaller formats as alternatives to the standard formats,” says Roland Classen. Bricks with a width of 75 millimetres, for example, are still a niche product. However, the material savings are significant and, ultimately, bricks are only used constructively in exceptional cases and not as facing bricks.

But Vandersanden is also making enormous efforts in terms of production technology to reduce its_{CO2 footprint}. Vandersanden also offers hand-molded and water-struck ECO brick slips, which are produced as direct brick slips instead of being sawn from solid facing bricks. A process specially developed by Vandersanden: resource-saving and with 70 percent less_{CO2 emissions}.

To generate electricity, Vandersanden installed a wind turbine with a capacity of 10,000 megawatt hours next to the plant in May 2022. In terms of energy capacity, this is around twice the consumption of the brickworks in Lanklaar, Belgium. But Vandersanden is pursuing even more ambitious goals. The developers are currently working on a new product that could be a game changer in the ceramic façade sector. Vandersanden will reveal more details later this year.

“Together to Zero” is the promise that Vandersanden makes to its customers. Together with them, the company wants to reduce its own_{CO2 emissions} to zero in the coming years. “We are no longer investing in conventional manufacturing processes, but only in sustainable technologies,” summarizes Roland Classen. “The family business can only afford to do this because Vandersanden has geared its corporate strategy to extremely long periods of time,” says Classen. “At Vandersanden, investments are not made in years, but in generations.”

More about waterstruck bricks at vandersanden.com

All photos: Vandersanden