A brick made a hundred years ago, fired in a kiln that likely no longer exists, using clay from a pit that's likely been developed over, is a genuinely different object from a brick fired last month — denser in most cases, fired at temperatures modern energy costs would make uneconomical, and carrying a texture and color variation that new brick manufacturing deliberately standardizes away.
Reclaiming that brick starts at demolition, where a crew trained specifically in brick salvage — rather than standard demolition — dismantles masonry by hand, wall by wall, to avoid cracking units that a mechanical excavator would destroy in seconds. The labor cost of hand demolition is the single biggest reason reclaimed brick costs more than new brick, not scarcity of supply.
A new brick has one story. A reclaimed one already has a hundred years of somebody else's building in it.
Salvaged brick then goes through cleaning to remove old mortar, typically by mechanical de-mortaring rather than acid washing, which can damage the fired surface, followed by grading to sort units by size, condition, and color consistency before they're bundled for resale.
Structural use of reclaimed brick requires more caution than reuse for veneer or paving. A brick's compressive strength can vary significantly by era and manufacturer, so a reclaimed batch intended for a new load-bearing wall generally needs sample testing, whereas the same brick used as a non-structural veneer or a garden path can go in with far less scrutiny.
The environmental case is straightforward: reusing an existing brick avoids both the embodied carbon of firing a new one and the landfill burden of disposing of the old one, a doubled benefit that's driving demand for reclaimed brick well beyond its aesthetic appeal.
Sourcing and Verifying Reclaimed Brick Quality
Not all reclaimed brick is structurally equivalent to new brick — softer, older brick types (particularly common in pre-1900s construction) can be more porous and less freeze-thaw resistant than modern fired brick, making sourcing verification and appropriate application (interior feature walls versus exterior load-bearing use) an important distinction reclaimed-brick projects need to get right.
The Cleaning Process That Determines the Final Look
Mortar removal method significantly affects reclaimed brick's final appearance — mechanically cleaned brick retains sharper edges and more uniform color, while hand-cleaned or naturally weathered brick shows more character and irregularity, a distinction worth discussing explicitly with a supplier since it affects both cost and the finished aesthetic considerably.
