1.1  A BRIEF HISTORY OF BRICK –MAKING

Since time immemorial, fired clay bricks have been the preferred building material of mankind. Fired bricks were in use in 4000BC and were extensively used in the river valley civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Harappa. In the Western world, Romans, through their conquests, propagated brick and tile production and introduced brick- making in Spain, France, England, Holland and Germany. For several thousands of years, until the 19th Century, the technology for brick making changed very little. Brick were made by hand, dried under the sun and then fired in clamps or scove kiln using firewood of coal.

The 19th century saw the development of several new technologies in Europe and the RSA including machines for shaping of bricks (estrudr-1854, press-1827), efficient continuous kilns for firing bricks (Hoffmann kiln-1858, tunnel kiln-1877) and artificial dryers (chamber dryer-1895). All these inventions opened the path for modern mass production of bricks. After the Second World War, a variety of factors resulted in radical changes in the European brick industry: these factors were a shortage of coal and consequently the need to shift to oil and gas, the pressure on brickworks to improve working conditions, shortage of labour and environmental regulations to control air pollution. The changes include the shift form annular continuous kilns such as Hoffmann kiln to the tunnel kiln. During the last fifty years, the brick industry in Europe has consolidated and thousands of small brickworks that existed at the beginning of the 20th century have been replaced by a few hundred large scale, capital intensive, highly mechanized brick works. The need to improve the insulation properties of walling materials has created a demand for new building materials, and hence a gradual shift from solid bricks to hollow and perforated blocks.