If you are updating your home with a fireplace, retaining wall, or exterior cladding, you may choose to work with brick or Oklahoma building stone. Multiple factors can help determine which material option is best for your project. One key consideration is strength, and how that will impact the overall success of your new features.
Understanding Your Material Options
Before learning whether or not rock and stone OKC is stronger than brick, it helps to understand more about these materials.
What to Know About Stone OKC
Building stone is an entirely natural material. To prepare it for use, stone experts quarry rocks that are found in nature. From there, each stone is cut and honed until it reaches the ideal size and shape. Because the whole stone is formed through natural processes, each selection will feature some variations. For example, selections of bluestone may have stripes of grays, greens, and even purples.
What to Know About Bricks
In contrast, brick is a manufactured material. To create it, clay and shale are mixed, heated in a kiln, and formed into consistent block sizes – most often rectangles. Bricks are available in different sizes and may be colored or dyed to better fit a desired design style.
Which Is a Stronger Material, Brick or Oklahoma Building Stone?
When considering how strong a building material is, design and construction experts will look into more than just the material’s physical strength. It is just as important to consider durability and longevity, and how those factors can affect the material’s actual strength.
The Qualities of Stone
Natural stone is known for its durability and strength, especially quality limestone, sandstone, and bluestone. This material is innately capable of withstanding almost anything nature can throw at it – from harsh weather conditions to frequent use. Additionally, it is highly resistant to chipping, scratching, crumbling, and otherwise breaking.
These high levels of strength and durability make stone a very long-lasting material. In fact, if you look at structures remaining from the ancient world, many are made of stone. As such, your well-constructed features made of natural stone OKC can last for generations.
The Qualities of Brick
Brick is also durable and fairly strong, as it can handle various weather conditions and is fire resistant. Although it is a hardy material, it does not quite reach the same level as natural stone; while rock features can last lifetimes, brick features often require regular maintenance. This material can become susceptible to cracking and crumbling, especially if the mortar holding everything in place loses quality with age.
Create Long-Lasting Home Features with Rock and Stone OKC
When choosing between rock and brick, many design and construction experts choose natural stone because of its strength, durability, and overall longevity. As such, limestone, sandstone, and bluestone are ideal additions to any building.
If you are updating your space or designing an entirely new home, you can find your perfect natural stone with Richburg Stone. To see our selections, please browse our website or visit our Oklahoma City showroom.
