Brickie

A spot of mortar under each to stop them rocking wouldn’t go amiss.

Takes me back to my Glastonbury days & some very strong...

Depends very much on the sand,as that is the greatest part of the mix. Avoid Rugby cement like the plague,btw. Are you still planning to build yourself? If so,I’d definitely advertise locally for a semi retired brickie to come & give you a hand a couple of days a week. It will definitely be money well spent.

Using sharp as well as soft will indeed give you more options for variation in tone but will be an absolute b####r to lay with. I’d question that ratio too-you’d only have 1 part cement to 8 parts sand (sharp & soft combined.) To me,I’d say you’re overthinking this. Get a couple of sample panels done as mentioned earlier & go from there. If you’re really dead keen on a very specific tone then your masonry could be built using standard mortar & raked out for re-pointing st the end,though this will be considerably dearer.

From that picture I’m not sure there’s any dye in it at all. Maybe get a couple of sample panels built in 1:6 (cement:sand) & 1:1:6 (cement:lime:sand) & see how they look after a few weeks when the mortar has toned down a bit. Using hydrated lime will be far cheaper than messing around with dyes,and may give you the look you’re aiming for.

What kind of tone are you looking for? Is it a particular look you’ve seen that works with the brick you’ve selected?

Strip foundations wouldn’t usually be poured right to the top of an excavation,meaning the very top of the dig can be scraped back to prevent lumps falling in. +1 to the typo theory. Sometimes us brickies get what’s known as a ‘blocking lift’ just below Dpc,normally if the distance from Dpc to ground level is unusually high or if there is a big difference in ground level around the site.

Two local builders where I grew up,Geoff & ‘Mole’-Geoff was the brains & decided if they had two jobs requiring a ladder,they’d go to Mole’s job (a re-roof),Mole would get up there with his tools & lunch & Geoff would then take the ladder to his job :))

If you have no experience whatsoever of bricklaying,I would strongly advise against this. If it was blockwork both skins I’d still say it’d be too much for a novice to take on. Laying bricks accurately can take a while to master. Achieving an output of 300 bricks/day (which your average daywork brickie does) takes a couple of years on Site. Then you need to be able to not just read the drawings but also ‘see’ them I.e. pick out critical items & have a mental plan of tackling them. Sorry to be negative about your prospects but that’s one of the benefits of this forum-you get a healthy dose of realism at times most needed.

Any telehandler’s on a site nearby,where you could offer the driver £100 for a couple of hours on a Saturday?

Re the footings you could possibly get the neighbours to stop at the front junction with a boot detail & starte rebars coming into your property.

Just saying that if a customer decides to be a **** & mess you around,showing them their consent to go ahead at the price agreed makes it more difficult for them & May even stop them in the first place. Also,the perceived prospect of Small Claims Court would deter a lot of people,I’m sure. Never had it myself,but then generally my work is easier to get to with a sledgehammer than Nick’s :))

@Nickfromwales quick e-mail along the lines of “the extra work discussed which consists of “xyz” will be an additional £x +Vat & regular coffee & biscuits. Please confirm your agreement in return e-mail at which point I will be happy to commence the work. “ Afaik this kind of e-mail exchange has legal standing,though others more knowledgable than me may know differently. Anyway,more importantly-come on you Reds on Sunday! lets give AW a trophy (or two) in his final season

What’s the local norm-is it all Flemish bond & that bond is non negotiable? Reason I ask is I’ve long had a small cheat in my head for false (4”) English bond but I’ve not had a job to test it out on as yet. It occurs to me that it would be possible with a cutter to cut a false joint out of the stretchers,giving the impression of two headers once jointed. So,on the header course,once the quoin header & closer are laid you’re just laying stretcher after lovely stretcher,cutting the labour cost hugely not to mention the handling & cutting. So,if there’s a lot of English bond local to you & you like the appearance,maybe you could make a case for this?

Cheaper than a table saw (but not so neat) would be a ‘blockbuster’-you’ll see paving gangs use them & brickwork gangs using 140mm blocks. You can sit it on something so it’s at a comfortable height & line up at least 4 bricks at a time in it,so getting 8 batts every time.

For labour? If the half batts were pre cut for me I’d want 33% more,at least. There are 78 units /sq m in 100mm Flemish bond compared to 60 for stretcher,plus much more care needs to be taken when setting out to achieve as good a bond as a possible in the piers between any openings & also you really need to keep your perps (cross joints) near as dammit plumb all the way up. Stretcher bond is quite forgiving of a little variation here & there but it shows up strongly in Flemish.

If you’ve a two storey building to do you’re going to need so many that it’d be worth hiring a bench saw with the diamond blade & water feed. Your Labourer/bucket carrier/fool will get a lot more done & possibly was born with extra digits so can cope with potential loss of a couple.

Have you seen a generic version of the plaster mixer they were doing a while back? Theyd all gone by the time I got onto it.

Also get them to sample panel an expansion joint. Loads I see in bonds put header & quoin closer up to the expansion & it looks wrong to me. With a couple of exceptions (chimney cornel,next to a stone mullion for example) the only place you should see a quoin closer (quarter brick) is next to a quoin header,so at the corners & window or door reveals.

If you’re going down this route I would advise getting some test panels built in the different bonds by your brickie & having a good look. What Ive found with certain metric bricks is that the relative proportions of a stretcher (full brick) to a header (half brick) can give an unsatisfactory effect in Flemish bond,compared to imperials.

Sounds like he should have been an architect :))

Sounds a bit like how I got my ‘Scrabble Limp.’

Weather struck & cut -rake out & re-point £45-£60/m2. Those are the rates I see quoted on social media,varying by region. As for £10/brick,if supply & fit,prob about right. Yes,not long to rake joints out with grinder but cleaning all the old mortar out,damping down the dust,laying replacement brick,packing the top joint in,pointing & then brushing-as said,you wouldn’t see much change out of half an hour.

3 months? Id say you could be one of the finest scaffolders in the country in half that time :))

If their to be painted then why the need for reclaims? There’s an imitation London Stock down here (brand new & much cheaper) that I’ve had the misfortune to have supplied to me by builders. If it’s imperfections you’re after...Jeez,the back of a brick on edge capping I did looked like a piano keyboard,that much variation in length. So Id guess your merchants up your way would do a cheap imitation of the local bricks too. If it were me,I’d be tempted to get brand new common flettons & give them a spin in the mixer for a minute before use,to rough them up a bit. Not really practical if you’ve got a big volume to lay though.