Clinker / Dutch clinker / Hand-fired clinker

For the same brick pattern, we find several houses that look quite different.
Is it due to the batch, or can the proportion of a particular brick in the pattern also be varied, e.g., that fewer dark bricks are used but more of the light bricks?

We also had to realize when choosing the bricks that bricks look very different on the Internet vs. in catalogs vs. on the finished house. Therefore, we went to the local building materials store, where there were about 30x60cm slabs of the bricks. Then we went to the manufacturer, where there was an exhibition with 80x120cm slabs. In the larger exhibition of the manufacturer (Röben), there are even 1x2m slabs. Ultimately, we also visited 10 houses in two federal states to look at our shortlist of bricks on finished buildings with shading and sunlight on them. Our decision finally fell on the Röben Formback graphite-multicolored.

For us, it was that we made a preliminary selection at the building materials dealer. The boss knew at least one house for each selection that was faced with it. Sometimes he also knew the joint color associated with it and houses with the same facing bricks but different joint colors. All houses were within a 20 km radius. However, I would not look at more than 5 different ones; at some point it just becomes too much.

Hi Kaspatoo,

we also chose a colorful, rustic clinker and I can only strongly advise you not to decide based on pictures on the internet or those small samples at the building materials supplier.
It's best to pick a few favorites and ask the building materials supplier or clinker manufacturer for addresses with reference houses.

It is also very important that you always look at several houses per brick, preferably with different joint colors, because the brick looks completely different depending on the joint color, so that at first glance you would not think it is the same brick. For example, we found our brick with a gray joint totally boring and would not have chosen it that way, but with a light joint we liked it very much...

You shouldn't make the decision too lightly, because keep in mind, you will probably never be able to change the clinker again, so you have to like it in the long term, not just because of a current trend or because the actual favorite might be a bit more expensive.

Hello, thanks for the tips, but it is obvious to me that you have to look at real houses.

What I meant was that photos of houses (so no computer graphics, but probably from the catalog) look different in pattern for the same clinker brick.

In other words, if I see a house with great clinker and order the same clinker, my house can look totally sh** because it is simply a different batch.
If you want to have influence on the quantity of stones, you have to order more pallets than necessary and use fewer individual stones.
In the end, the "stupid" stones remain.

Yes, you can certainly order more pallets, but do you then want to stand next to the mason and tell him with every single brick whether you find it "stupid"? And as I said, when the grouting is done afterwards, it looks completely different visually again, so you can't really see the final picture while the wall is being built.

I think it will be very difficult to determine the overall picture in advance with such "mixed" bricks, since you can't know if you will like the batch delivered and whether the mason arranges the bricks from the mixture the way you would like. The bricks are all mixed on one pallet, the mason should then mix some from several pallets, and then he just builds in the bricks. I don't think he has a lot of time to try out the best combination, otherwise the house would never get finished.

If you want to know exactly how your house will look when finished, you should probably choose a preferably single-colored, smooth brick where all bricks look the same.

We had a "tour" at the building materials supplier.

In the store, we saw a clinker brick that looked quite similar to the originally posted photo (it was one from Nelissen). The real reference houses then looked strange/unsettled again.

In contrast, at the end we were shown a brick that immediately appealed to us at first sight. This one was not even part of the selection in the store beforehand. Ergo: looking in the store is of little help, have reference houses shown by the supplier or get addresses. Or drive around construction areas and search by chance for a nice brick and then ask the supplier which brick it could be.

The two attached photos show the brick now preferred by us. Both houses have exactly the same clinker brick installed. However, one house has no black/dark bricks.

According to the supplier, there are two reasons for this: - in this case, the clinker manufacturer already made a preselection during palletizing and omitted the dark bricks
- according to the supplier, this can definitely be done with certain suppliers
- alternatively or additionally, the dark bricks can be rotated 180°.
- usually, they are strongly fired only on one side, so the backside is nowhere near as dark as the front side (at least with the dark bricks)

So there are basically ways to influence this.

By the way, the brick is from Vandersan "Helgoland Antik". I am just still struggling with the argument that it can absorb over 10% water, although we have a 60cm roof overhang.

As an option for a north wall or weather-exposed wall, the building materials supplier also mentioned a sprayable impregnation.