Question about bricks

soba

Don't know if this is in the right place, please move if not.
We are shortly going to be having a builder in to re-lay our drive, build a new retaining wall between us and next door and a few other bits of building work. Our neighbours down the road have recently had similar work done and it looks really nice except the bricks they've used have now turned white! I presume it's some sort of mineral coming out of the bricks? However it doesn't look good and I don't want mine to look like that. Are there bricks that are susceptible to this or do they all do it? Their bricks are a yellowish colour and I want red. Being in Staffordshire I imagine good bricks aren't that hard to come by - then again cost is an issue. All suggestions gratefully received, soba.

Wig

Make sure they are frostproof bricks, I drive past a garden wall each week and it looks terrible and will need replacing soon because it was built with bricks suceptible to frost. It's only about 2 years old.

DUnno the answer to your question, the salts are supposed to be temporary and will eventually wash away so they say, not sure if it's strictly true or not.

adr0ck

its called Efflorescence following link should help

http://www.archifacts.co.uk/html/brickwork_staining1a.htm

woodbutcher_2

Don't worry about it,weathering will sort it out eventually.

Boohbah

"Efflorescence" which can be a characteristic of all good quality products with a high cement content. The phenomenon may be exhibited by an apparent loss of intensity of colour and the appearance of a milky white bloom on the face of the product. The effect generally disappears with time and is in no way detrimental to the performance of the product.