Brick slips give you the look of a solid brick wall at a fraction of the thickness. Here is how they compare with laying real bricks, and when each makes sense.
If you want a brick finish on an extension, a rendered house you are tired of, or a wall you are insulating, you have two routes: build in traditional brick, or clad in brick slips. Both end up looking like brick — the difference is in weight, thickness, cost and where they can be used.
What brick slips are
A brick slip is a thin slice of real fired clay, typically 15–25mm deep, cut from a full brick or moulded from the same clay body. It is bonded to a backing board or a mechanical track, then pointed by hand with mortar just like brickwork. Corner slips wrap external angles so the finished wall has no visible edges.
Where slips win
Brick slips come into their own over external wall insulation. You cannot hang a full masonry skin off an insulated wall without foundations and wall ties, but a slip system adds only a few kilograms per square metre, so you keep the insulation and still get brick. They are also the practical choice on upper storeys, dormers, soffits and anywhere the extra 100mm of a real brick skin would foul a boundary, a window reveal or a roof edge.
Where traditional brick still makes sense
For a ground-floor extension being built from new, laying real bricks off the foundation is often simpler and no more expensive than boarding and slipping the same area. Full brick also carries load, so it can do structural work a slip cannot.
Cost
As a rough guide, a bonded brick slip system installed over insulation lands in a similar range to a good insulated render system once you allow for the boards, adhesive, the slips themselves and the pointing labour, which is slow, skilled work. Slipping a wall that does not need insulating is usually dearer per square metre than bricklaying the same wall, because you are paying for the carrier system as well as the brick.
Matching an existing house
This is where slips are genuinely useful on older properties. We take samples of your house brick to the supplier and select the closest blend, so an extension or an infill panel reads as part of the original building rather than an obvious addition.
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