bricks

Michelmersh has announced its successful bid to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) UK Government, Industrial Fuel Switching competition to conduct a feasibility study to replace natural gas with hydrogen in the brick making process. The programme is part of the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP) which aims to provide funding for low-carbon technologies to decreasing the costs of decarbonisation.

The project represents a global flagship physical study to replace natural gas with hydrogen in brick manufacturing. Phase 1 of the project will demonstrate the viability of fuel switching and will see hydrogen used in the clay brick production process at Michelmersh’s Freshfield Lane site. The project aims to inspire radical change across the sector and present opportunities and evidence-based research to support manufacturers on their journey to heavily decarbonise the production processes.

Despite the challenges, the construction sector faces the Crest team have been designing and producing some new brick types which have recently been added to the range. Crest has one of the best collections of bricks available in the UK and is delighted to offer Merchants, distributors and housebuilders 3 new clay facing bricks.

The Oast House Restoration is beautifully crafted, designed by the Crest team this is a quite stunning multi-coloured tumbled brick, perfect for rural, traditional and prestige type properties. These bricks are a mix of reds, browns with white highlights scattered throughout and black highlights featured on selected bricks to add an ‘aged’ appearance. Its rustic brick colours would work well with a selection of our roof tiles including the Wolds Classic Clay Roof Pantile, ‘Classic’ is a mix of different colours & finishes.

Our factories maintain good stock levels and delivery lead times, merchants and distributors are turning to Crest to help them through these challenging times.  

The construction material shortage remains challenging for building and construction businesses as demand outstrips supply. With little improvement in the availability of many key building materials, such as timber, bricks and roof tiles, and with suppliers’ delivery times increased sharply as the supply chain works hard to keep up.

Crest’s manufacturing partners have been actively increasing the supply to merchants, distributors and housebuilders to help remove the tremendous pressure they all face. We have adequate production capacity and the ability to manufacture more bricks and roof tiles to further help the supply shortage.