Tees Valley Company Transforms Construction, Brick by Brick!

Brick Bud is a patented, novel product that was conceived, developed and brought to market by entrepreneurial company Harris Brick Safety Systems, and has since seen ongoing, increasing adoption by the construction sector. Additionally, the company has been recognised in a number of industry awards for its game changing Brick Bud System, achieving Innovation Award Winner: Stevenson Shied in the Safety Groups UK 2024 Awards, and Finalist level in both the National Building & Construction Awards 2024 and the Construction News Awards 2024.

Harris Brick Safety Systems was founded by Managing Director Carl Harris following the expertise and knowledge he gained during his 3-decade long career in the construction sector. Carl’s decision to start the company was based on his goal of realising the Brick Bud System he had conceived, developing it into a market-ready product. Unfortunately, Carl’s concept also arose from an accident he had on a construction site which left him with lasting physical effects and the prospect of early retirement. However, along with his:

Extensive experience in site management
Understanding of the need to improve safety standards for construction workers while also reducing the potential for lost time that can occur, on building contracts involving brick work
Strong belief that sustainability should be at the forefront of construction in the future to support the achievement of net zero targets; and
Knowledge that in order to produce bricks, heating just one square metre of bricks in a kiln results in approximately 25.6kg of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere

it served as the catalyst for the Brick Bud System, turning a personal negative into a positive for the construction industry.

Objectives

Carl’s aims for Brick Bud were that it would:

Prevent brick walls that are partially finished from being blown over on construction sites, a particular issue in UK house building (see Figure 1)
Improve safety conditions for personnel working on constructions site that involve brickwork and mitigate related accidents
Contribute to reduced CO2 emissions as a result of lessening the amount of bricks wasted, and the cement that binds them
Alleviate the need for replacement materials, and associated costs such as transportation and labour to re-build the blown down walls

Approach

Like any new product development activity, advancing the Brick Bud System from an idea through to a finished product required a source of financing. Around the same time, in July 2022, the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, ran the Fast Start: Innovation funding competition, inviting UK registered small and micro businesses to apply for a share of up to £30 million, to be used for affordable, adoptable and investable innovations in net zero and healthcare. To win funding, businesses entering the competition had to demonstrate a great idea focused on new technologies, feasibility, capability to deliver the envisaged project, a clear route to commercialisation through business growth and more. The project itself had to lead to new products, processes or services significantly ahead of others currently available, or propose an innovative use of existing products, processes or services.

To apply for Fast Start: Innovation funding, companies were required to join forces with an ‘Application team’. This resulted in Harris Brick Safety Systems making contact with the TWI Innovation Network; part of international research and technology organisation (RTO) TWI Ltd, which at the time was supporting SMEs in the Tees Valley area with grant funding applications, through the *Tees Valley Innovation Accelerator (TIA) programme it was jointly delivering, with partner Teesside University. The TIA delivery team helped Harris Brick Safety Systems to optimise their application, which focused on developing the Brick Bud System, to Fast Start: Innovation. Subsequently, the company was successful in attracting funding, enabling it to accelerate its Brick Bud plans and activities.

After participating in the TIA programme, Harris Brick Safety Systems was then able to draw on further, fully funded support from TWI technical experts, via the **Materials Integrity Technology Transfer (MITT) programme, to move the original Brick Build System from concept to prototype stage. This included production of design, then engineering for manufacture, drawings, development of the working prototype, calculating exact costing for manufacture, and undertaking finite element analysis (FEA) to demonstrate that the application was fit-for-purpose. Harris Safety Brick Safety Systems was also supported by Icon Plastics, providers of integrated manufacturing solutions, in the pre-production phase. Once the prototype was optimised, it was then used to demonstrate the new system to prospective buyers.

Figure 1. Example of a blown over brick wall on a construction site.

Challenges and Solutions

On construction sites, bricklayers have to support unfinished walls during the build process, while the cement sets, and this is usually done by propping them up with scaffold boards or lengths of timber. These methods, however, are unreliable for adequately bracing incomplete walls against high winds, and millions of bricks and thousands of hours of work are lost annually due to walls being blown over. Costs can also increase in line with the attendant requirement for waste removal, skip hire and additional management time, and in worst case scenarios, there may be insurance claims and associated, higher insurance premiums. However, even more critical is that the collapse of walls can lead to accidents, putting the lives of construction workers at risk.

The Brick Bud System provides a solution to these problems with a uniquely designed and patented method of bracing unfinished walls that stops them from blowing over. Comprising an adjustable frame, based on a new technology, it supports brickwork structures during the construction process, and is easy to install, light weight and robust (see Figure 2 below). The frame transfers any lateral loading to the ground, safely and securely, and prevents any movement. This gives construction workers peace of mind that they can leave the site and the wall will still be standing in the morning, whatever the weather conditions. Most importantly, the Brick Build System makes a significant contribution to ensuring the safety of construction site personnel.

The Brick Bud System is a 51mm x 51mm box section with 6 locking nuts, each of which is M8 x 75mm, with 3 locking ball pins 8mm x 93mm. The main vertical part stands at 2m in length and has a diagonal length of 1.7m, and is 1,125mm from the outside vertical to the end of the foot, and 1,280mm when fully extended.

The original Brick Bud System was made out of hollow sections of polypropylene, tested at wind speeds of up to 44.7mph and proven to be fit-for-purpose. This success then led Harris Brick Safety Systems to exploit the technology further by producing additional variants. Research and development (R&D) activity resulted in a second system made from glass reinforced plastic (GRP), offering a stronger alternative to the earlier polypropylene one, and a third system composed of aluminium, making it ten times stronger than the original. During the R&D phase for the second system, the company worked with TWI experts to incorporate the GRP, formed from recyclable polymers, into the product.

Benefits and Conclusion

The Brick Bud System that Harris Brick Safety Systems launched with was the version made from reusable, engineered GRP. It is light, strong and user friendly, with assembly and disassembly by a single person taking just a few seconds, and sized to be used safely alongside scaffolding (see Figure 3). The Brick Bud System’s composition, combined with its potential to reduce brick wastage, makes it an environmentally friendly product that also supports the achievement of net zero targets. Its deployment on building sites can contribute significantly to helping reduce and prevent accidents, near misses and potential fatalities. As well as improving safety conditions for construction workers, it can also lead to improved productivity and related cost savings.

In addition, by undertaking his own research and calculations, informed by his experience in the trade, visits to construction sites across the country, and relevant, published statistics, Carl Harris also identified that:

The average cost of constructing a brick wall is 3,000
The UK is losing around 23% of brick walls on building sites per annum, equating to 43,556 walls, based on the statistic of 189,000 traditional houses built in 2023
Approximately 35 million bricks are wasted a year due to walls collapsing on construction sites; enough to build up to 3,000 houses
Replacing the 35 million bricks, and the cement to bind them, with new ones, would emit approximately 23,000 tonnes of CO2 into the air
Further emissions would be caused by site clean-up and new delivery activities

These factors demonstrate even more clearly the environmental, health and safety, operational and cost benefits that contractors and operators can expect from using the Brick Bud System.

Finally, we talked to Harris Brick Safety Systems Managing Director, and innovator who invented the Brick Bud System, Carl Harris, about his journey to bring the product to market, his work with TWI and his future plans for the company and the system.

Carl told us “Investing in the right tools and technologies today not only protects our workforce but also strengthens the foundations of the UK construction industry, making for a safer and more environmentally sustainable future for everyone.”

“And speaking of the future, we have now established a second company, called Harris Safety Training, which has already received Approved Training Organisation (ATO) status from the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB)” said Carl. “We currently offer a half-day course, which we deliver on-site to company operatives and in colleges to construction industry trainees. This covers in-depth the importance of preventing brick walls from blowing over before they have been completed and the implications of failing to do this, together with an immersion into the Brick Bud System and hands-on training in how to use it.”

Visit the Harris Brick Safety Systems website to find out more about the ground breaking Brick Bud system and the company behind it.

Photos are used courtesy of Harris Brick Safety Systems.

*TIA was funded by the European Regional Development Fund in the Northern Powerhouse Region and was launched in June 2020.

**MITT was a component of the Tees Valley Centre for Materials Integrity Programme, which was part-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020) and Tees Valley Combined Authority.

Figure 2. Brick Bud System being put into position.

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