Okay, so I was messing around in the workshop today and got curious about how porous different bricks are. You know, like how much water can they actually soak up? Figured I’d do a little experiment and share the results, ’cause why not?
Getting Started
First, I grabbed a few different types of bricks. I found some regular red clay bricks, a couple of those denser concrete ones, and even an old firebrick from a broken-down kiln I had lying around. I made sure they were all pretty dry to start with – left them in the sun for a couple of days.
The Soak Test
Next, I weighed each brick dry, using my old kitchen scale. Nothing fancy, but it does the job. I jotted down the weights in my notebook. Then, I got some big buckets of water and submerged each brick completely. I wanted to make sure they were fully underwater, so I used some smaller stones to hold the bricks in buckets.
- Clay Brick Starting Weight: 5.2 lbs
- Concrete Brick Starting Weight: 7.8 lbs
- Firebrick Starting Weight: 9.1 lbs
I left them soaking for a good 24 hours. I figured that should be enough time for them to absorb as much water as they could handle.
The Results
After a full day, I pulled the bricks out one by one. I patted them down with a towel to get rid of the excess surface water, and then weighed them again.
- Clay Brick Soaked Weight: 6.1 lbs
- Concrete Brick Soaked Weight: 8.3 lbs
- Firebrick Soaked Weight: 9.4 lbs
Here is weight difference:
- Clay Brick Weight Difference: 0.9 lbs
- Concrete Brick Weight Difference: 0.5 lbs
- Firebrick Weight Difference: 0.3 lbs
It was pretty obvious just by looking at them that the clay brick had absorbed the most water, and the weight difference confirmed. The concrete brick took on some water, but not as much. And the firebrick? Barely any change at all!
It’s kind of cool to see how different materials behave, even something as basic as a brick. It makes you think about why certain bricks are used for certain jobs, you know? Anyway, that was my little brick porosity experiment. Hope you found it as interesting as I did!
