Traditionally, clay pavers are still often laid by hand. However, kneeling on bedding sand or on a freshly finished pavement in all weathers can cause a variety of long-term symptoms and ailments. This leads to sickness absence and ultimately to an inability to work – which can result in significant costs in this business sector.

For the protection of the paver-layers, a directive has been developed in the Netherlands, making mechanical paving obligatory for for both concrete and clay pavers in any area of pavement of 1,500m². Employers and employees have agreed on this standard, which is also the basis for inspections by the labour inspectorate.

Austrian brick manufacturer Wienerberger not only supports this desire to relieve the physical labour of traditional paver-layers, it also seeks to contribute to a responsible, health and safety friendly working environment for all. The company therefore looked for opportunities to facilitate mechanical stacking and paving and this ultimately led to the development and installation of the stacking robots at the Wienerberger plants. These robots stack the Terca clay pavers on pallets in such a way that mechanical processing can be carried out without any problem. Regardless of the bond pattern (e.g. 45° herringbone, elbow or 90° herringbone or basket weave) or the design of the paving machine (from mechanical clamping units to vacuum-operated models), clay pavers specifically designed for mechanical paving are being delivered onto
construction sites across Europe. The percentage of these novel packs for mechanical paving is already responsible for between 10 and 15 per cent of the total supply of the company’s Dutch clay pavers, and represents a growing trend.

Indications are that the physical strain a paver-layer is exposed to daily will decrease exponentially when applying a professional mechanical paving methodology.