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I took the window sill off the bay to make it airtight and don't know what to make of the state of the outer brickwork inside the cavity. Does this need attention or is it okay to ignore and carry on? Here's the outside. The horizontal cracking is at the wall tie level (tried painting them to waterproof the cracks with paint that didn't match). And now for inside

Hi all i know zero about house building and bricklaying so thought I would see if I could get some advice please we are just about to complete on a new build home by Bellway and this is the side of the house. I have attached a photo of the side of the house and the brickwork. is that normal? Is it likely to match up over time? Am I being too fussy to expect it to match up?

Hello all and apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, happy to be pointed in the right forum direction. So the price of the brick I want has just jumped up 10% and considering it was already ridiculously high, this is a bitter pill to swallow. Our Interior Designers are based in Lithuania and their prices for the exact same product are a fair bit cheaper. With all the Brexit rules coming into force, is it still possible to bring in a lorry full from there?

I’m looking for coping stones for my soon to be reconstructed wall. I would like something more traditional than double weathered, such as a chunky chamfered design. Like lots of other products, nothing is available at the local building suppliers, so I am looking further afield. Whilst there are several manufacturers selling via the internet, I would welcome comments or recommendations about the nature and quality of the products sold by such entities. Thanks.

Hey, I am really interested in hearing your views on what brick type this might be?

Hello everyone, I have recently moved into a 1960's mid-terraced property. I had a full survey done at time of purchase and nothing came back of any concern. I went into the loft for the first time and spotted that some brickwork is loose and missing on the party wall on one side of the property - as identified in the attached pictures. I was wondering if anyone can tell me if this is something to be concerned about and could pontentially become an issue over time? Everything else in the loft looks to be in good order, such as the timber supports and i cannot identify any cracking along chimney breasts or other walls. Any help would be greatly appreciated, unfortunatley I do not have a great deal of knowlege in this area. many thanks,

I have quite a few old bricks, found them under the old garage slab, looks like they scraped all the top soil off to the clay then dumped a lorry load of bricks to make up the ground then covered it in whin dust which sort of filled the top layer gaps. Interestingly if any of us suggested this method today we would all baulk at the idea, yet this garage did pretty well for 60 odd years on a 2-3 inch slab with edges built up on cobbles 3/4 layers deep. The bricks are quite nice, big 9" red bricks in pretty good condition, so I have been scratching my head after I had to lift a couple of 100 to run a soil pipe through the old garage site wondering what to do with them, so I looked about, I have always liked the reclaimed brick walls and paths and things so decided to give the new garage a new side entrance as test bed for bigger things. (The dark area to the left of the 4th from the right bottom brick isn't a gap, it is heavily fired clay.) I am quite pleased with the results, I used a wet grout technique, this will not be a step so the rough sides will be unseen - the ground level around is coming back up. So the plan is now a much larger area that leads to this entrance to create a theme.

Hello all, Hope everyone is well. Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere on here, I searched but couldn’t find anything - but I have limited knowledge of technical building terms. A year ago we brought a Victorian property that had been empty for around 20 years. We had traders come and do the main jobs but are currently doing the smaller jobs and making the place in to a home. I want to build a small workshop - roughly 14 ft x 9 ft. The area I want to put it has three existing walls - two ‘garden’ walls and the other being the exterior wall to our kitchen. In the one corner there is also an old privy, I am unsure if it would be best to knock down or try and integrate it into the plan, it is a solid build. The garden walls are two bricks in width and around 6.5 foot high, in good shape other than needing to be re-pointed. It would be great to get some advice on areas before trying to move forward with attempting this, so thanks in advance for any help. Would it be possible to tie in to these walls and use them for part of the structure, and would I just use a wall starter kit? (The brick is accrington brick) The garden walls would need more height, I take it I could just add more brick to that to increase the height? Would I have to dig down and see what the foundation is like on the garden walls? I would be digging down to put a foundation for the new front wall, would I lay a new foundation around all sides? As they are walls built at the same time as the house (1901) I would presumably have to put in a DPC, and then build block internal walls? I know I will need to check with my local council but presumably I could build it as high as the privy? I’ve included a photos so people can see what the area and walls look like. One last question (for the moment) - a foolish project for someone with minimal amount of building experience? Cheers for the help and advice. Dave

The outer leaf for most of the house's cavity walls are going to be flemish bond. We'll cut bricks in half to make 'header' part of the bond as you'd expect. What I was wondering is whether we should widen the cavity slightly to make the laying easier. Half a standard brick is 215 / 2 = 107.5mm whereas the standard brick width is 102.5mm. The blade of the grinder will take a bit off, but it's enough work to cut bricks in half let alone cut a slither off. The cavity is to be 100mm mineral wall. Should we tweak the cavity width to say 105mm to make life easier or could that create it's own issues? I discussed it with a pair of brickies, one said no as he likes a 'tight cavity' whereas the other said yes and the compromise was to go with 102.5mm, but I wanted to see what others thought.

I'm starting off this topic as it has been mentioned on this forum various time :Combined material orders. I have organsied something similar for roofing materials and since have become engaged with the roofing company as well as some door/ window manufacturer, but would not want to start being a distributor for every single item I am planning to order. I just very often get quite good offers for whole truckloads of timber or tiles and just can't make use of it as I am missing the storage. Maybe some members on here are interested in saving substantial % of their orders by ordering material early and storing it (for others) and therefore combining purchase power. I am aware of the logistics problems that arise with it as well of the warranty and payment issues. It s not for the savety/security driven builders but more for the risk-takers on here. This is not me offering to organise all of this neither saying that I got the best connections/offers but I think that a lot of members on here stumbled (by accident or not) across a great offer(e.g. Half a container of tiles, Oak flooring by the truckload or anything remotely similar) that was just too much to take by themselves. I do also think that one-off or fire sales are not suitable as you would need to react and buy quickly, making it difficult to coordinate with potential other interested parties. It could be organised via some shared platform like Airtable. Depending on amount of interest I might just start a Buildhub Airtable, but mainly want to see what opinions are like and have others input or initiative.

Well, I have tried to make sure i get my bricks on time ....The bricklayer is expecting to start as soon as the frame is up .....so in about 6 weeks (give or take) ...I was told originally that lead time on these bricks Wienberger Jasmine blend was 3-4 weeks and so rather than crowd a small site up ..i left them until now. Only to be told today that they have gone into shortage as they are "imported" and given a possible ? delivery date of mid November (groan) ....the only people holding stock in the UK have gone all "Dick Turpin" and want more that £2 a brick now . to me they are just like a pale reclaim (see image below of a house built with them) ...to my wife they are the bees knees however ... Has anyone seen anything like them ?

Hi All I thought I had all my trades "lined up" for the next 3 months ...but for some reason the Bricklayer (really nice guy too) has gone AWOL ..No returning calls and no answered emails ....so its been like 2 weeks of trying so ..... does anyone know a good brickie ...(pref with experience working on timber frame) in the Bucks, MK area thanks In advance Ed

My bricks have horrible efflorescence, The builder has cleaned it off a few times but it keeps coming back - and of course he isn't going to be here anymore after this week. Will it get better on it's own or am I stuck with this horrible looking wall.

Well as we move into costing (while i wait for final Building regs to be done) I have discovered a strange enigma "Brick Slips" Our house design has copious brick slip cladding, but a REAL brick chimney planned. But ALL the bricklayers we have spoken to don't do them, never heard of them, suggest tilers, and all the tilers we have spoken to (some recommended) have never done them either ...but are prepared to "have a bash, for cash" ?! Now the company that sells these is http://www.brickslips.net/ I have contacted them for a list of their recommended installers in the SE ...tumble weed time! I guess they only want to sell and not get involved with recommending Does anyone have any experience of these, just to give you an example ...Brick slips or Brick Tiles as some call them: here is a video of them going on (although I am not sure this will be the applicable way on our Timber SIPS Potton build

It seems someone's come up with a robot that can lay over 3000 bricks a day, pity it can't point up afterwards:

It is wonderful that people do this. An entire site about bricks and brickworks from my area. https://eastmidlandsnamedbricks.blogspot.co.uk/ And a wonderful "walking" steam engine from a different site, made by the Butterley company. It ran at 3mph up a 1/50 gradient. Designed by someone familiar with a horse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Horse_locomotive Commendable nerdery. Found due to following a reference to the billionaire with a global conglomerate who lives in Repton. Not, unfortunately, @PeterW Ferdinand