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Comment by amalcon | Hacker News Reader

The first thing that came to mind when I read that is, "There's a brick industry association?"

Seriously, are bricks really a big enough product to be called an industry? I'd think they'd just be part of a larger "building materials industry". Are they volatile enough to need an industry association?

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>Seriously, are bricks really a big enough product to be called an industry?

Are you kidding? If nothing else, the "historic districts" of many cities in America would support a brick industry.

"The plant is to be running before year's end. At first, the company will make only 'facing brick,' used on the outside of buildings, a $2 billion annual U.S. market. It plans to branch out into paving stones, roofing tile and other brick markets."

$2 billion is chump change as an industry goes. This is about equivalent to what you'd get if there were a "Rap Music Industry". A "Microsoft Industry" would be about six and a half times larger in terms of earnings.

Roofing tile was something I hadn't considered, though. That could be huge.

The "Rap Music Industry" has millions of customers, numerous magazines, radio stations and a TV channel dedicated solely to it. That makes it very large in my book.

If you make brick cheap enough the market volume will grow. Currently aluminum siding is used, primarily for cost reasons.

He's talking about "facing bricks" being $2 billion unless it's a poor choice of phrasing.

These are non-load-bearing purely-decorative bricks. What does your intuition tell you is a good ballpark for the ratio of "load-bearing" bricks to "decorative" bricks?

Zero to one? Brick isn't a terribly good structural material. It's basically inferior to concrete. People like bricks because they look nice.

Face brick also insulates the building.

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