Brickie

What is your degree course in? One year is nowhere near enough to be earning decent money on the tools,especially when you need to earn back what you’ve paid for & not earned in those 8 weeks. What about Rail work? Around £500 and 3 days course plus a medical & drug/alcohol test & you could be good to go.

4” grinder with diamond blade? If the bricks you have were from a brick on edge capping,sounds like it was maybe relaid in s&c at some point.

Yeah,any coarseness in the aggregate makes a gun or bag useless. Nice work,btw!

If it stiffens up after a few days & is past workable you can always liven it up with a splash of water. For pointing I now use a grout bag (Screwfix next day or Amazon for the great but dear Marshalltown ones.) With the bags (& indeed the pointing guns) you have to treat it like plastering in terms of mixing & cleaning i.e. a mixing drill in a Gorilla bucket to keep any stray stones etc out of it. Keeping the mixing equipment,buckets & mortar boards free from even the tiniest debris is essential. if all that sounds like a PITA,the payback from using a bag against hand application is huge. Good luck!

Good point. You never know,it might be filled up with hard core. Or another sub genre of rave music:))

Comment or pm me if you want me to pass on your number to the vendor.

All I can suggest is some small test batches,gauging the quantities in something small which can be multiplied when you find the right amount (I use a coffee cup for the s&c & then count how many cups fill a bucket to give a multiplier.) I don’t know the product you mention but I will say that you need to allow your testers to cure completely to see the true colour. I had problems on a job a few years ago where we used black powder to achieve black mortar. When it was on the boards,you wouldn’t have thought the gear could be any more black but I got a call back a few weeks later,as it had toned down to a greyish colour.

In the South,Id say over 90% are self employed. What tends to happen when you’re in the first say 5-10 years of your tradeis,you get a start somewhere (through an advert,hearing through contacts or just walking on site) and,if you’re happy & the brickwork firm are happy with you,they’ll offer you work on another job once the one you’re on is completed or close to being so.

There are brick effect render systems which look ok.

That’s what they do in Canada I believe. Over here,the more costs which are added into a Masonry pacakage option,the more tempting alternative systems will become.

Can I ask ‘why bricklaying?’ If it’s because you like the great outdoors,I’d check just how much you like it by standing outside for 8 hours when it’s +4degreesthis winter! Very hard on the body after time too-I’m on my second set of hips & have a John Hurt tribute act for a stomach after numerous hernia repairs,and I’m not 50 for a couple of years yet. As others have said,the trend now is to design out expensive labour elements of the build,and if this continues it will have a major impact on our trade. With that in mind,& the fact that they aren’t weather dependant,have you considered plumbing or electrics?

Looks an interesting site. If you find any bricky laying for £27/m2 can you give them my number,as a I have some work for them!!

+1

I wonder if,on a politics forum,it ever kicks off big time with a contentious diy thread?

From a purely practical viewpoint-it means you have Dpm laid out across your site whilst your building what’s shown. The level of care needed to prevent it being punctured would be substantial. If keeping that inner skin dry is a motivation,you could conceivably just do a ‘wraparound’ detail,& then lap the Dpm into the brickwork in the traditional way.

You’ll also see,when people have resorted to using washing up liquid instead of the real deal,pitted mortar deteriorating within a few years. And you know the hoddy was patting himself on the back as the compliments rolled in for his ‘lovely creamy mix.’

Before this thread goes the way of the previous one,I’m going to make one prediction & leave it at that. Spurs will be out of Europe before the UK is ;))

Brought a tear to my eye. You’re sounding like a pro already. Just need to top it off with “ no way I can get there this month” & “ would help if you get it bumped out for me.” :))

Assuming a level site,your dpc will be same as finished floor level (give or take a few mm.) Your membrane laps in under the dpc o the internal skin. Internal & external dpc will be the same level. If there’s a dpc tray it goes up from the external dpc height by one block course (225mm) to the inner skin. The reason your slab is normally down from dpc height is to allow for the floor make up.

I stack the bricks on edge so the face side is facing skywards,then apply using a roller from a paint tray to each layer of the brick stack as they’re used. One thing to look out for is when to brush off-I’ve found that to brush it slightly earlier than you would normally helps,though not so early as to drag the joints. It makes a mess of your brushing off brush though,might pay to have a spare. I’m still finding my way with this method tbh-just did a pointing job on brick slips which were as hard as engineerings so used the oil & the results were mainly very good. I found that oiling immediately prior to application was key.

Reveal looks quite deep for a solid wall-good chance it’s cavity. Is this a room where you dry a lot of washing,by any chance? Any other potential sources of moisture I the air internally?

@joe90 I hear what you’re saying,just don’t like it,especially if the blocks are on the heavy side. You want your feet virtually touching the wall as you lift & that’s impossible from a tower due to the frame,which means reaching further to lay,more strain on your body & even the risk of taking the wall over if you don’t judge the shift in weight correctly as you reach with the block.

There is a trestle system with handrails-I don’t have a link as they’ve always been supplied to me when I’ve used them. Personally-I hate doing masonry off a tower. Not enough room for your materials,harder to get up & down from & if you have to cut a block on them-minor earthquake. Yes,the handrail issue is true but in reality-you’ll load out your materials to the rear (open) edge of your platform,with alternate blocks & spot boards so the chances of taking a step in the wrong direction are negligible. However,should you trip backwards I suppose you could still tumble over your materials & down. Please don’t take any risks though,as others have said you can still do significant damage to yourself from even a small height.

Did occur to me after posting that maybe I could just buy a Screwfix Louvre for 90p & take the mesh out!

Yes folks-this thread really is as thrilling as the header suggests. We’ve unfortunately stumbled upon a BCO whose lack of common sense is matched only by his stubbornness & ‘computer says no’ attitude. So,in summary,I now have to remove the cast iron air brick I installed to ventilate for our WBS (I can hear you booing at the back) to install insect mesh (even though he’d have been happy with a plastic air brick which doesn’t have mesh.) So,my question is-does anyone know of a BM or High St shop where I can go & buy a some & get this bloody thing signed off? TIA