My foreman kept insisting on throwing hydrated lime in our mortar even though the bag said otherwise. Tried it on a small garden wall last month and the stuff didn't crack a bit, proved me dead wrong. Anybody else get schooled by a tip that seemed outdated at first?
I was laying brick for a retaining wall in Portland and mixed my mortar a bit too soupy. The first few courses slid around on me, and I had to pull them all out after they set crooked. Took me about 4 hours to redo everything with a dryer mix. Has anyone else had trouble finding the right consistency for wet weather jobs?
I've got this old Marshalltown trowel my dad handed down, beat to hell with the handle taped up. This guy last month on a job in Austin kept joking about me using antique gear. Let him borrow it for five minutes to lay a course and he shut up real quick when the mortar just slid off perfect every time. He asked where I found it and got quiet when I said it was 40 years old. Anyone else got a tool that nobody wants to touch until they actually use it?
I used to do all my pointing work with just my trowel, pushing mortar into joints and cutting it flush. About 3 years ago I was on a job in Spokane where the old brick was real soft and the trowel kept chipping the edges. A guy on the crew handed me a proper pointing jointer and showed me how to pack the joint firm without damaging the brick. Has anyone else had a simple tool swap like that fix a problem they'd been fighting for years?
I was working a retaining wall near the Arkansas River when my chisel chipped and sent a piece flying into my safety glasses, and now I only buy carbide tipped chisels instead of the cheaper steel ones - has anyone else had a tool fail like that on you?
He watched me dump all my water in at once then add powder on top and said I was making it weak as hell because the water pushes the cement up instead of mixing it in, has anyone else been doing it the dumb way this whole time?
I was on a job in Cincinnati last week replacing some brick on a house from the 1920s and a retired mason walked by and said my mix was way too hard for that old soft brick. He showed me how they used to batch lime mortar by feel and it blew my mind how much I never learned about this stuff. Anybody else ever get schooled by an old timer on something you thought you knew?
Met this guy Jim on a job site in Portland last summer. He watched me checking level every single brick and finally snapped 'you're not building a piano, just lay em flat and keep going.' I was pretty annoyed at first but he showed me how he runs string lines and trusts his eye more. He had been laying brick for 38 years and his walls came out straighter than mine. Has anyone else had a old school bricklayer give you advice that went against everything you learned?
It was a garden wall in my backyard here in Spokane that shifted after a freeze-thaw cycle, and I ended up tearing down the top three courses to re-lay them with a better footing - has anyone else had issues with frost heave messing up their work?
I tried out a few bags of the pre-mixed stuff from the home center on a job in Raleigh last month. It was supposed to save me time but I ended up fighting with it the whole way. The consistency was off, it dried way too fast in the wheelbarrow and I had to toss almost a third of a bag. My regular mix from the local yard cost me $8.50 a bag and I know exactly how it handles. The pre-mixed was almost double that at $15 a bag and I got worse results. Has anyone else had this problem or did I just get a bad batch?
Picked up a used mortar mixer off Facebook Marketplace for $300, thought I was saving big. Got it home and the drum had a hairline crack I didn't spot. Tried to patch it with epoxy, lasted one job before it leaked all over my driveway. Lost the $300 plus another $50 in wasted mortar mix from the leak. Anyone else get burned buying used gear without checking it over first?
I was on a job in Raleigh last month cutting pavers for a patio. Guy next to me was using a wet saw, spraying mud everywhere. I was using a grinder with a dry blade. He had to stop every 10 minutes to hose down the area. I finished my cuts faster but he said his blades last longer that way. What's the real cost here? Time vs blade life vs cleanup. Anyone else wrestle with this?
Been going back and forth on this for a while now. I always used a jointer for my red brick jobs, but last week on a 2000 brick wall in Denver I tried a trowel the whole way. It was faster to set up but my joints looked uneven in places. Which tool do you guys lean on for production work and why?
Old timer at the supply yard swore up and down that soaking dry bricks before laying was a waste of time. Said modern mortar sticks fine without it. So I stopped doing it on a garden wall job last July. Three months later the mortar joints are shrinking and cracking like crazy in the sun. Been laying for 6 years and never had that problem when I soaked them first. Anyone else found this out the hard way?
Spent 4 hours last Tuesday shimming every damn course on that uneven pour because nobody wanted to tear it out, how do you guys handle contractors who rush the prep work?
I did a small test area with Portland first last spring on a terrace house in Brighton, and it just cracked after 3 months. Switched to NHL 3.5 lime and worked it wetter like the old guys told me, no cracks at all so far. Any of you guys had better luck with one over the other on period brickwork?
Was reading through the Masonry Advisory Council guidelines last night (yeah, I know, real party animal here) and stumbled on a stat that blew my mind. Something like 40% of brick veneer failures they investigated traced back to ties not having enough embedment in the mortar. Not the wrong type of tie, not rust - just not shoved in far enough. I've been checking my guys' work this week and caught two spots where they barely had a half inch in the bed joint. These are guys with 10+ years experience too. Anyone else run into this on inspections or have a trick to get your crew to pay attention to embedment depth?
This guy Mike who's been laying since the 70s kept telling me to dunk my bricks in a bucket before setting them. I figured it was just boomer nonsense and ignored him for like my first 6 jobs. Then last month I did a retaining wall for a customer in Portland and half the bricks were sucking the moisture out of the mortar so fast it crumbled in spots. Had to tear out a whole section and redo it. Now I'm soaking every batch and Mike won't let me hear the end of it. Anyone else learn this lesson the hard way or was it just me?
I started laying brick back in '82 down in Mobile, Alabama, and we learned to butter with a wrist flick that wastes almost nothing. Last month I watched a kid slather a full trowel head of mud on every single brick, dropping half of it on the ground before he even set it. Has anyone else noticed the younger generation using way more mortar than needed, or am I just yelling at clouds?
Always used a chisel and mallet for splitface blocks on retaining walls, but a guy on a site near Austin swore the brick hammer was faster. Gave it a shot on a 50 foot wall and it cut my time by almost half. Anyone else switch tools and find something that worked better than they expected?
The cheap aluminum one from the hardware store stripped its threads on day 12 while I was mixing type S. Has anyone found a paddle that actually lasts more than a month without costing a fortune?
Everyone talks about speed but nobody mentions that 50,000 bricks in means you have probably also wasted 5,000 bricks on bad cuts and sloppy buttering, so take that milestone with a grain of salt I guess - has anyone else hit a big number and felt like they had to re-learn the basics?
I tried adding a handful of ice cubes to the mix at 8 AM on a 95 degree job in Phoenix last week and it stayed workable for two full hours longer than usual. Has anyone else tried this or am I just lucky it didn't mess up the bond?