SUSTAINABILITY

BUILD GREEN.

Sustainable design and building practices are at the forefront of the American Homebuilding Industry. Clay brick products are an excellent choice for sustainable home design, and Boral^® Bricks is an industry leader in the areas of sustainable manufacturing and alternative fuels development.

What does “sustainability” mean? Below is a list of fundamental sustainable design objectives that are applicable when you’re selecting cladding materials for your home.

• Reduce the negative effects of the building process on the environment.
  
• Reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources.
  
• Minimize waste.
  
• Create healthy, productive environments.
  
• Contribute to the health and comfort of building occupants.
  
• Improve building performance overall.

BUILD WITH BORAL^®.

Reduce the negative effects of the building process on the environment.

Boral^® Bricks, like other clay brick manufacturers, starts its process with the most abundant raw materials in the world – clay and shale. They are mined in a way that is gentle to the earth, and when the clay pit is exhausted, it will usually be filled with water, stocked with fish, and surrounded with trees and shrubs to provide an attractive recreation area.

The clay and shale are then shipped to a nearby manufacturing facility where state-of-the-art, highly energy efficient automated machinery breaks them down into fine particles, adds water, and molds the clay into a “column” that can then be cut into bricks. Boral^® manufacturing facilities recycle all “waste” clay and water used in manufacture, and employ air scrubbers to ensure that emissions from the plant are clean and particulate free.

When brick products are ready to ship to the jobsite, they are strapped with plastic bands to minimize packaging waste at the jobsite. The brick cubes are designed with two strategically placed gaps to allow a forklift to lift the strapped cube into place on the truck without necessitating pallets – further minimizing waste at the jobsite.

Reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources.

Boral^® leads the brick industry in the development and utilization of alternative, renewable fuels to fire the kilns in each manufacturing plant.

The two newest Boral^® plants in Union City, OK and Terre Haute, IN were both located and designed specifically to take advantage of a unique fuel source – the greenhouse gas, methane. These plants are sited adjacent to mature landfills, where rotting garbage generates methane that will need to be burned off by the sanitation company, or will leech into the environment. Boral^® works closely with these companies to pool and pipe the methane gas safely to the Boral^® manufacturing facility where it is burned cleanly in the kilns.

This is a true “win-win” solution – the methane does not pollute the environment, and Boral^® is provided with a renewable energy source it can count on.

In existing plant locations, Boral^® is working to utilize renewable fuels as well. Several of the facilities in the Southeast utilize wood waste materials – saw dust – as a directly injected fuel in the kilns. In some plants sawdust is also mixed in with the clay brick body material. As the brick is heated in the kiln, the sawdust burns out, which yields a lighter brick that utilizes less fuel to ship.

A very promising avenue for renewable fuel development is through gasification technology, where waste material can be burned in a gasifier that delivers the clean fuel into the kiln.

Minimize waste.

As mentioned above, the manufacturing process uses natural materials in a virtually waste-free process. Brick are then shipped in cubes that are supported by straps – and no pallets --required for minimal jobsite waste.

Create healthy, productive environments.

Boral^® Brick products do not emit VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds), and do not contain formaldehyde.

Boral^® Brick products do not contain CFC’s (chloroflurocarbons), HCFC’s (chlorodifluoromethanes) or any other ozone-depleting substances.

Contribute to the health and comfort of the building occupants.

Brick is a wonderful cladding material, providing tangible benefits to those fortunate enough to live or work in a brick building.

First, the material itself is over 2 ½” thick, so it provides a solid barrier against wind, water, or any other type of weather. Tests have proven brick to be the best cladding deterrent to fire damage and wind driven debris.

The installation of brick creates a 1” air space between the brick and interior house wrap. This air space provides insulation against temperature transfer and the transfer of sound. It also prevents moisture from travelling from the outside to the inside of the home.

And brick is inert – it cannot be compromised by mold, rot, or bacteria, and is inedible to termites as well.

Contribute to building performance overall.

In addition to the features mentioned above, a standard brick wall provides a quality called “thermal mass”. Brick walls are slow to heat or cool, which means that brick walls will help regulate the temperature within your home throughout the day.

The life cycle of brick exceeds virtually every other siding material available. The great wall of China was made of brick. The Roman coliseum – including arches – was built with brick. Homes, schools, government buildings, churches, and a variety of construction projects rely on brick to provide durability and low maintenance over decades or even centuries.

But if a brick building is knocked down – what happens to the brick?

First, it can be re-used in a new building. Several homeowners have utilized “used brick” to give their homes a unique aged look while still enjoying the inherent qualities of brick construction.

Brick can be “re-purposed”, for example it can be crushed for use as garden mulch or walkways, or pulverized for use as roadbed substrates. It can even be ground fine enough to go back into a manufacturing facility to be reborn, or spread on a baseball field.

If you’re looking for a durable product with a proven long life cycle, choose clay brick. If you’re looking for a product made of natural, abundant raw materials, choose clay brick. If you want durability, energy performance, low maintenance, and protection from weather, wind, termites, mold and rot, choose clay brick.

If you want to buy your genuine clay brick from an industry leader in the use of alternative fuels, with local plants reaching the majority of southeastern, southwestern, and Midwestern states, choose Boral^® Bricks.

Build WITH BRICK.

Boral^® Bricks' most recently published white paper, "Building with Brick: Sustainable and Energy Efficient", details the performance benefits of one of man's oldest building materials. Click here to download a PDF of this white paper.