Would you have to mortar it into place or could you use sand in between the bricks? Would the horses break the bricks walking on them?
I don’t recall seeing anything other than concrete or dirt in a center aisle, but breezeway barns aren’t popular where I live.
Thanks
Could you use rubber bricks?
In city streets, like in parades, we tried not to ride at all in the brick ones.
They were beyond slick for the shod horses.
There’s someone here with a brick aisle in their barn and she had pics on one of her threads. It was LOVELY–herringbone pattern, perhaps?–and IIRC she said it was quite nice and not slick. I wonder if I can find the thread…
Ah, it was here: www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?450832-Finding-a-Working-Boarder-Shouldn-t-be-This-Hard-Should-It&p=7826432
The bricks were pavers and the poster was snowflake. The pictures were on a CL post that’s gone now, but perhaps you could PM her and ask about the aisle.
Thank you. I will pm her. I’ve seen a brick floor somewhere–probably Martha Stewart’s barn or Pinterest–and it was gorgeous. Do you have hard flooring? (I saw pictures of your new house and barn. Lovely.)
drawback with brick is it is very slick wet and it is constantly ‘shedding’ - over time you will see dmg to it from walking and it is very dusty. It wouldn’t be my first choice.
Bluey, I didn’t know there were rubber bricks. Know who makes them? I have seen interlocking rubber flooring and stall mats* but not pavers.
*I have one stall done in these. I think they’re great–got mine at Tractor Supply.
An example of the rubber pavers:
http://www.classic-equine.com/posts/rubber-aisle-pavers/
http://www.equinesystems.com/rubber-flooring/
Here is an article:
http://stablemanagement.com/article/follow-the-rubber-brick-road
There are quite a few makers of them. You’d want to use a kind that has held up well under horses.
Concrete pavers would have more grip, tooth, and durability than traditional bricks, which are a finer texture and slippery.
[QUOTE=Hermein;8171367]
Thank you. I will pm her. I’ve seen a brick floor somewhere–probably Martha Stewart’s barn or Pinterest–and it was gorgeous. Do you have hard flooring? (I saw pictures of your new house and barn. Lovely.)[/QUOTE]
I have mats over lime down the middle of my aisle and I would give a body part to have concrete or something else hard! The dirt gets all torn up when the skid steer brings in hay (despite using the tamper), the cat pees in it and the dust just sort of tops it all off.
Rubber pavers are lovely, but you need to put them in over concrete. Cha-ching.
I have a shedrow with a wide overhang that has sand as flooring. It’s out of the wind (and rain, should we ever have any) and is certainly adequate, plus it doubles as a little area where individual horses can go see what the others are doing. My barn helper rakes it when he does stalls/pens. I don’t think the barn cats use it–but I do see them on the gopher holes. YAY.
I love what Mike Holmes did to this stable.
http://www.hgtv.ca/video/hoofed-roof/video.html?v=352053315804#holmesmakesitright/video/season2
Look around the 37 minute mark where he reveals the barn and the flooring!
I have a brick center aisle in a herringbone pattern and I love it. I used pavers, unlike regular brick they are fired not airdried and it puts a great tooth on them. They are never slick, even when wet, in fact they have much better grip than straight brushed concrete. The are set in mortar–I wouldn’t sand set because then they will hold urine and I would think eventually smell. In five years you can’t tell they are under any stress at all.
The best part is when the aisle is dirty and needs blowing it still looks great 
A few of the TB farms I worked for had brick in their barns. Wasn’t slick and if there was poop or pee on the floor, we just hosed it down. Another farm had those rubber pavers. Those were nice but sometimes they popped up and we would trip over them.
Here’s a pic of one of the barns with bricks.
https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/t31.0-8/1077135_10200266742981680_13594977_o.jpg?efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9
Many barns in Europe had regular, old type bricks in the courtyards.
Someone was in charge of sweeping those all the time, so they looked pretty.
You have to get “stable brick” if you want real bricks in an aisle. Different firing process and mixture of stuff in the brick than what common bricks are made of. Not inexpensive, but certainly works very well under horses hooves, shod or barefoot. This is what they used in the “old days” for the expensive barn’s floors. No chipping, sweating, very grippy with their rough surfaces in any weather, wetness.
The rubber pavers do make excellent flooring in aisles, don’t get slippery under the horses, even here in Michigan. Also pricy, but sure nice stuff! Not sure how they hold up under machinery like tractors and spreaders. Probably depends on how well the under layers are put in, to keep the rubber pavers stabilized with weight on them.
I would NOT suggest any of the cement with pressed designs, either brick or stone looking as aisles. They DO get slippery in humidity, pulling moisture into the cement from the air, appearing sweaty wet. Also bad slipping with melting snow or wet hooves walking on them. Barefoot horses do slip and fall, I know one horse who never got to be used after slipping and falling at a young age on the fancy pressed cement. Even shod horses need to be careful unless shoes have traction devices on them.
Two of the barns with those pressed cement floors got the special barn vacuums to keep them cleaned, quite expensive. They had all the fancy stuff, didn’t want the leaf blowers spreading dust onto chandeliers, fancy brass stuff of stalls. So keeping the floors clean was work to get those loose pieces of straw and hay up, broom was not doing it well enough to suit the head Grooms.
I would go for the rubber pavers if I could afford it, lovely things under horse hooves.
I was in a really nice, old barn once that had cork brick aisles. I was surprised that it was about eighty years old, and still in good shape-quiet too. I’m sure it’s one of those things that if you have to ask the price…
All bricks are fired, other than some things that aren’t really bricks, like adobe. Different temperatures produce different qualities, but not much difference in texture. That depends on the mix recipe.
They look pretty, but they’re terrible to have to clean up. ESPECIALLY on farrier day.
My neighbor has had the rubber brick pavers in her barn aisle for 10 years. She loves them.
my neighbor also has the rubber brick pavers in her barn, she probably loves them and the look amazing, but they are washed off and swept every day. And it takes 2 persons to do it… They sure look nice, but I also think there is a lot of work involved with them. I think either brick or concrete brick are a much better choice. I never had real brick, only the concrete ones which did the job really well. But of course real brick looks nicer
I boarded in a barn that was owned by a brick mason. The barn was brick and the aisle was brick. It was mortared into place.
He had a channel on either side of the aisle that was filled with rock so that the aisle could be hosed, the water would shed to either side and drain to the sub floor.
I never found the brick floor to be slick when wet. It wasn’t too back to clean, it would have been easier with a power washer, but the barn had decent water pressure, so a good nozzle on the house took care of most of it.
I have ridden at a barn that had the rubber pavers. They make the barn a quiet space. I think they are harder to keep swept clean than a brick or concrete aisle.
we have had concrete pavers in our barn for twenty-five years, I should ask our horses why they don’t fall down as they haven’t yet
we used Pavestone interlocking pavers (factory 3rds due to off color, bought them for little to nothing, the haul charge was about equal to the cost) but since our horses only have dichromatic vision they never noticed the off color problem (nor has anyone else).
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