Brick Slips
Browse the Licata brick slips range, manufactured to the highest standards and available from our six branches across the UK.
Brick slips deliver the appearance of traditional brickwork on walls that cannot carry a brick skin, whether because of insulation, frame construction or restricted build-up depth. Licata supplies two distinct products. Mineral brick slips are applied as part of the render system build-up, giving a brick appearance at a fraction of the weight and without a separate fixing operation. Clay brick slips are thin sections cut from genuine fired brick, bonded and pointed like conventional brickwork, for projects where planning or conservation requires real clay at the face.
Brick Slips
Clay and mineral brick slip finishes for external wall insulation systems, new build and refurbishment, giving the traditional appearance of brickwork as part of a certified Licata build-up.
Brick slips for external wall insulation and frame construction
Brick slips give a building the appearance of traditional brickwork without the weight, depth or support requirements of a brick skin. Licata supplies two distinct products: mineral brick slips and clay brick slips, each suited to different project conditions.
Why brick slips instead of brickwork
On an insulated facade, a brick skin has to be supported. The insulation cannot carry it, so the load returns to the structure through brackets, angles or a masonry support system, which is an engineered element with a cost and a lead time attached.
Depth is the second constraint. Insulation plus a cavity plus a brick skin is a substantial build-up, and on a tight site, at a boundary, or where a wall meets a pavement, the depth may simply not exist.
On timber frame, steel frame and modular construction, weight is frequently the deciding factor before anything else is considered. Brick slips remove all three problems while keeping a brick face on the building.
Mineral brick slips
Mineral brick slips are applied as part of the render system build-up. There are no individual units to fix and no separate pointing operation: the brick appearance, including the joint pattern, is formed as the finish is applied.
The result is a fraction of the weight of clay and considerably faster to install, which removes a trade from the programme and reduces the time the scaffold stays up. Mineral brick slips are the usual choice on frame and modular construction, and on large-scale housing programmes where installation speed changes the programme meaningfully.
Clay brick slips
Clay brick slips are thin sections cut from real fired brick, bonded to the basecoat individually and pointed with mortar exactly as conventional brickwork is at a smaller scale. The material at the face is genuine clay, with the depth of colour and surface variation that only firing produces.
Clay is specified where the requirement is real brick rather than a brick appearance: conservation work, planning conditions requiring a match to surrounding stock, and prestige elevations that will be examined at close range.
Planning and appearance
Where consent is conditional on matching adjacent brickwork, three things determine whether the finish is accepted. Colour blend matters because real brickwork is never a single flat tone, so slips should be mixed across several packs during installation. Mortar colour is consistently underestimated, since pointing occupies a large proportion of the visible elevation and the same slip reads very differently against light or dark mortar. And corners and reveals are where a brick slip facade is most likely to be caught out, which is why corner units that maintain the bond around returns matter as much as the flat elevation.
On anything larger than a single property, produce a sample panel on site and get it approved before the main works begin. Where a planning condition applies, that panel is also your evidence.
Supply and technical support
Brick slips are supplied as the finish layer of a tested Licata system build-up, with the insulant, fixings and basecoat specified to suit the finish selected. Our technical team can confirm the right combination for your substrate and building height.
Specifying brick slips? Request samples and speak to our technical team about the right system for your project. Get in touch or view our brick slip systems.