How to Make Bricks | This Old House

Mark McCullough travels to Bridgewater, MA to see how local bricks are made

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The bricks that Mark McCullough is using for the Arlington Arts & Crafts house chimney are the same bricks that grace much of historic Boston. He meets Lincoln Andrews in Bridgewater, MA and gets a tour of the factory where these bricks have been made for over 100 years. They watch raw indigenous clay get milled, mixed, pressed into molds, dried and finally heated in a round kiln to almost 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. After several days, the bricks are sorted and strapped and ready to send to the jobsite.

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How to Make Bricks | This Old House

[cerberus]

I still got pictures of my grandpa making bricks back when people made it themselves. It's fun to see how it's done these days.

My own house now holds these large chambered brick blocks for its walls.

[lemuelseale]

Watching this during my morning dump is quite appropriate

[brianholt]

great video. wish our school systems would teach these concepts. it may inspire people to want to pursue other careers or at least dive deeper into the subject.

[will]

That’s so cool that they use the heat during the cooldown period of the kiln firing to dry new bricks. That must save a lot of energy.

[edwardwood]

I love the Boston accent, it sounds like he is being rubbed the wrong way by some chucklehead at a local bar no matter the context.

[KJEThompson]

I've seen the "kiln" and have learned the process that they use at Colonial Williamsburg! They make one kiln and one batch a summer for Williamburg Foundation restoration projects and buildings. Same process from the 1700s!

[jrcotton]

That is awesome, watching how bricks are made so they be used to make houses and schools and buildings....

[Iveraghboy]

great vid mate enjoyed watching the production of the Bricks.

[lewisp]

I remember making 34000 bricks per hour. This company is using 18 century technology and i am surprised they are going strong.

[littlejoe]

Muy interesante. I was actually thinking about building a brick oven to use outside my home. However, evidently there is a stone/ brick shortage where I live according to Lowe’s.

[hem]

85, 000 bricks?? Meh... They clearly haven’t seen me on the basketball court.

[wesleybusbin]

I worked in a brick plant. An stacking them when they where still wet was a good fun job

[ShakespeareCafe]

just googled cost per brick $1.45/ea...definitely an energy-intensive construction material

[kubtastic]

At least the video editor knew how to title the video

[theloneviking]

The host was saying that these bricks are used throughout New England for sidewalks, etc., as well as façades of building. It’s my understanding that these Boston City Hall pavers as they are called are only used for paving, am I correct? or do people actually use these pavers for facades of buildings? I thought that these pavers, I’ve used thousands of them, are slightly smaller than a building brick. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

[tambarlas]

That was cool. They don't add anything to the clay?
PS: TOH videos are still not showing up in my Subscription feed.

[Denver]

Red brick lovers .... YouTube when the buildings cried part It's 4 part documentary .. part 2 is where I started then I watched part 3 then part 1 ..then 4... Start with part 2...

[bob]

thanks for the video. What is best for chimney rebuilds, solid brick or cored brick?

[willsheehan]

How did they make the brick for the lid of the kiln without use of the kiln 🤯

[FoxtrotYouniform]

Brick is apparently the plural of brick