The plant of the Wienerberger AG concern in the Estonian village of Azeri is well known to the Russian consumer. More than 200 factories worldwide produce bricks and tiles under the Wienerberger brand. But for Russia, the Estonian brick of the Austrian company remains one of the most popular. The plant annually produces about 50 million bricks, which makes it possible to provide high-quality and affordable materials not only to the Baltic states, but also to European countries and, of course, Russia.
The Azeri brick factory dates back to 1922. The modern workshops were built in 2006. Today the company produces not only facing and solid bricks, but also clinker paving stones.
Representatives of Slavdom, the largest supplier of Wienerberger AG products to Russia, have visited the concern's factories more than once. This time the heads of the company visited Azeri, where they were able to get acquainted with the production process of Terca facing ceramic bricks, evaluate a wide range of products, including new items, and even visit a quarry where raw materials are mined.
Terca bricks have been produced at the concern's factories for almost 200 years. During this time, the production technology has been brought almost to perfection. At the stage of raw material preparation, the clay is delivered to the workshop, where it is crushed and dried with the addition of the necessary dyes. After that, the finished mixture is sent to storage in the so-called charge storage for several days or even weeks.
The next stage is the molding of ceramic bricks. There are two main methods here: hand molding and plastic molding. In the first case, the clay is fed through the press dispensers onto belts in special molds sprinkled with sand. In this case, the color and texture of the brick is determined by the original shade of the clay mass and sand. The plastic molding method differs from manual molding in that the clay is fed into a vacuum press, from where a brick "bar" is squeezed out, which is then cut into individual bricks. In automatic mode, "timber" can get a certain relief, texture or color, including gradient.
Thus, the plant offers a fairly wide range of brick textures: classic smooth or rough, grooved or chipped, stylized antique or antique chipped. As for the color, here the possibilities are practically unlimited.
Buildings using bricks produced at Wienerberger factories are always distinguished by the quality of facades - durable, not changing their aesthetic characteristics over the years. The Rotermann quarter was built up in the center of Tallinn by architects Ott Kadarik, Villem Tomiste and Mihkel Tüür a few years ago. One of the buildings is faced with coffee-colored Nero brick. This brick was made to order and became the basis for creating a memorable image of the entire quarter.
Tallinn has many examples of the original use of Terca bricks. On the facades of modern residential buildings and public centers, St. John's bright terracotta bricks are actively used, forming a relief, volumetric masonry, ocher brick with specks and marks, dark gray Nero with a smooth matte surface and much more.
Terca ceramic bricks are many times superior in durability to other facing materials. High strength and frost resistance, color stability and the absence of stains on the surface - all this explains why architects and developers prefer this particular facing material.
