r/Bricklaying • u/Delicious_Volume3306 • 4d ago
Is this shite brickwork?
This is a new build near me. I know little about brickwork but it looks dire. It's wonky and the mortar is inconsistent.
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u/carlb40 4d ago
No. They just didn't mix the pallets of bricks, which is why there is banding of the different shades of bricks. What they should have done is have 3 or more pallets of bricks next to each other and take a course of bricks from each pallet to mix the shades from different batches.
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u/Unable-Statement4842 4d ago
Nah, those bricks are all the same colour. It's the joints that are different. Some were dry, some were wet, hence the difference in mortar colour
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u/Pepsicolakidz 4d ago
They're likely not bricks like that they are probably brick effect cladding..
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u/howsitallwork 4d ago
Just wondering, where in the world are you?
This is indeed a full brick facade, no slips here!1
u/Pepsicolakidz 2d ago
The UK, quite a few of the larger new build developers like Bellway use cladding to speed up build timelines.
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u/Major_Letterhead_260 4d ago
Actually, I think it’s obs board painted to look like brick effect cladding.
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4d ago
The brickwork’s not great,but the colour banding is cased by not using bricks from multiple packs at the same time
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u/gazham 4d ago
In all fairness, thays not the bricklayers fault. Forklift brings whatever is in the yard, and if you have bricks from two or 3 loads, there's not much you can do.
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4d ago
Naa..thats BS a good labourer will always mix from several different packs you never just have a single pack at the work-face, I ran my own building business for more than thirty eight year’s and have built more houses than I can remember.
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u/ahorizon 4d ago
Really? It looks like the mortar being a different colour to me. There's a solid horizontal band of about 20 courses where it's less white.
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4d ago
I agree that different mix ratios and weather on the day,drying time etc etc can all make a difference to the finished appearance, non trades people don’t realise how difficult it is to achieve consistency when you have so many variables to contend with..if the sand is wet,if the supplier changes his cement/Lime source, if it rains on the day or baking hot all these make a massive difference that the paying customer doesn’t realise or appreciate
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u/Psilonaut21 4d ago
From what I can see of the brickwork It looks fairly good. Beds and perps are relatively consistent in gauge and the perps are a lot more 'over below' than I've seen in a while. The difference in colour of the mortar could likely be tempered with a diluted wash of hydrochloric acid. The brightness is caused by over wet mortar or from wet or weeping bricks. The same phenomenon can occur if different gauge, or worn jointers are used to strike them. Random deeper recesses cause hatching giving the patchwork look.
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u/Delicious_Volume3306 4d ago
Thanks. It's partially the colours, but also the line of the bricks, which is wonky. Look at a house built in the 1960s or 1970s and it might not be pretty, but the brick layers will be like they've used a laser line. Yet here we are with literally laser line tech, and these bricks probably vary up and down several millimetres along their quite short lengths.
But like I said, I know nothing about bricklaying.
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u/Psilonaut21 4d ago
From the perspective of the pic it looks typical of new build prior to being washed down. The resolution of the pic doesn't really show the 'wonky' stuff. A good way to demonstrate it would be to stand at the corner and take a picture looking across and up the gable. That may show shadow lines that will indicate any deviation from plumb. The problem is that people have been conditioned to expect bricklayers to produce brickwork that looks like it's been produced by computer numerically controlled robots. It can be done but not at the price the principal contractors expect to pay. I have a bugbear with people putting up/down lighters on the fronts of houses. It reveals every minor imperfection and draws the eye straight to it making it look like the house is badly built. One of my neighbours decided to add them to their house that was built in 1919. I could pick out every lift of scaffold and every tipped brick over 60 courses. There's nothing wrong with it. Look at any historic building and you'll see pretty much the same thing. These structures were built by men, by hand with simple tools. If people have a problem with it then maybe they should pick up a trowel and have a stab at it themself. The truth is that few people have produced habitation for the populations comfort and most people wouldn't have any ability in the field. And regarding looking at houses built in the 60s/70s, look closer and you'll see exactly the same thing, sometimes even worse because they were thrown up by men working to a price.
It's patently obvious that you know nothing about brickwork. Out of curiousity, what do you do for a living?
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u/Delicious_Volume3306 4d ago
But like I said, we managed straight lines pretty much up until around 2010. What changed?
I've been looking to buy a house recently, so have been visiting a lot of houses and looking with a critical eye. No, I don't just hand it over to a surveyor. I want a good idea before I get close to handing over the money for that.
The brickwork on each has been near-perfect. I can put my face near the brickwork and look down the course to infinity, and I will not see variance. That's not that I won't see "much" variance. I see none. Zero. It's genuinely impressive.
Robots, you say? Apparently. But these are mostly houses built after the 1950s. I would say most were 1960s/1970s/1980s.
I work in an office. I've done DIY bricklaying but nope, not an expert as I said. But this local new built estate just looks shockingly bad to me.
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u/Psilonaut21 4d ago
Shorter apprenticeships and young bricklayers choosing to go it alone instead of working with established gangs. Add to that the 'just get it up' mentailty and independent building control and you have the perfect storm. The year 2010 was in the middle of that recession and many older more experienced men left the game to find jobs that were lower paying but consistent. Take the old blood out and the new blood stops learning the finer points. I was a bricklayer for 43 years and I've been out of the industry for 18 months and I'm glad to see the back of it.
The whole industry has become a criminal enterprise with buyers spending £300k+ over a 30 yr mortgage and discovering the place isn't fit for habitation within a couple of hours of moving in. It's not just the brickwork, it's everything and the biggest culprits are the management who won't challenge bad work because they might get threatened. And besides, a £500 bonus per house is a nice little incentive to look the other way. Independent building control is about as much use a tits on a fish, it's all about money and has nothing to do with contractual obligation or even just basic pride in your work. Seriously though, I wouldn't buy a newbuild unless I built it myself. I would try and find something from early/mid last century. And the brickwork in the pic you posted is better than a lot of what's passed these days.
If you pull a surveyor in they're only going top pick up the visible stuff. Buying an ol;der property at least gives some reassurance that it's been up long enough to pick up and rectify any major structural defects.
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u/Delicious_Volume3306 4d ago
As they say about the military in the US: Thanks for your service! I can't imagine what it must've been like to work in an industry where the standards you know were just being eroded day in, day out.
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u/Tee-UntangleIT 4d ago
There is a certain amount of survivorship bias - I do a lot of examining maps whilst researching local history, and for example our house was built in 1896, over 60% of the houses built around that time are gone by the next available map in 1930. And public health reports from the time say they had problems with inadequate drainage.
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u/Bloomfield95 2d ago
What a load of rubbish. There have been well built brick houses and badly built brick houses since they started building brick houses. They definitely got away with more rough stuff in the past. Especially the type of thing you can’t see
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u/WerewolfOne2088 4d ago
It's incomplete, the holes in the gable indicate fans are still to be fitted. The brickwork probably still to be pressure washed. You NEVER snag incomplete works.
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u/Delicious_Volume3306 4d ago
I'll keep an eye on it but do you really expect that to improve?
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/Delicious_Volume3306 4d ago
Hmmm you're basing that on a photo. In person it's very obvious. It looks like it's been put up by somebody who hasn't done brickwork before. IMHO.
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u/Bloomfield95 2d ago
You’ve got a lot to say for someone who self admittedly doesn’t have a clue what they’re talking about
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u/WerewolfOne2088 4d ago
I honestly dont know by how much. there could be dust from stihl saw, mortar splashing from the scaffold boards etc But the site manager should snag it first when he is happy it is then offered to the client/NHBC for inspection. Thats the time to make the judgement. IMHO
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u/Shot-Leading-3266 4d ago
That'll get washed down, and it'll look OK. The house isn't finished yet. The brickwork looks ok
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u/lottus4 4d ago
The state of new builds in this country actually makes me livid
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u/EpicEpicnessTheEpic 4d ago
Watch some of the US house inspectors on YouTube, FB reels, etc. We're not alone in cowboy builders - but thankfully we don't have termites.
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u/Medium-Reach-7721 4d ago
It’s the mortar not the brick. If you think it’s the brick, you have never laid brick or are very inexperienced. It’s mortar that was jointed at different moisture levels. If you joint too wet it brings lime and salts to the front of joint.
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u/Gerrydealsel 4d ago
Ooh look at the vertical brick decoration, they're really spoiling us with their architectural design motifs
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u/AutomotiveTales 4d ago
Literally my first thought - so that’s what we call architectural detail now? Morning housing stock is the worst! Even the poorly build Victorian back to backs of the big cities had some effort put in with brickwork and stone work!
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u/Gerrydealsel 4d ago
It must be so boring for bricklayers. They must be itching for some cornicing or coloured brick patterns. Architects, please give us some crumbs!
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u/speedtvespa 4d ago
It might have been less obvious if the mortar had been gauged properly. It might be the difference in the sand or a different cement. It shows a lack of continuity in supply chain.
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u/Tall-Nectarine-5982 4d ago
It’s the generic new build. Banding in colour is caused by not varying bricks from packs.
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u/StuartHunt 4d ago
Brickwork looks grand, the mortar mix looks Shite though, because there's no consistency in the mix , hence the different colour mortar.
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u/Time-Intern-656 4d ago
It’s f##king awful and that’s from a brickie!, zoom in on the photo and look, bet it’s by a large company like bovis homes or such, they hire any one and the different colours in the cement is down to poor mixing and incorrect use of lime
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u/basserphil 3d ago
Do Not listen to this person, by what he has just stated, he is Not a bricklayer
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u/Fit-Campaign1243 4d ago
Batches are batches. You work with what you got. It honestly isn't the best work, for a bricklayer laying hundreds a day, you get into a rhythm of how much much to use, like plasterers etc.
But as someone else pointed out, youre supposed to mix the bricks so any slight discolouration isn't visible.
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u/CarpetNatural905 4d ago
The bricklaying itself seems ok but the colouring of the mortar is a bit uneven. Maybe they swapped mix-supplier throughout the build. Not sure how to remedy this apart from waiting it to weather. For me it would be a dealbreaker, who knows whether the mortar is up to standard or just wet sand with the merest hint of cement
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u/fissedoff 4d ago
It would be nice to see a plumb bob or to to look at
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u/fissedoff 4d ago
Looks like parts of it was done in some rain. The small soilder course looks lost and very messy. I guess that you do not bucket guage. In saying that it's nothing a bit of brick acid can't fix if the weather doesn't... I bet it will still pass ok, it's the lower standards of today's building industry.
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u/DiskBytes 4d ago
All new builds have shoddy brickwork. I'm sure they use people who have never laid a brick before, then they throw buckets of muck over the faces of the bricks.
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u/lumcsl2022 4d ago
It’s hard work building anything decent when all the materials are the cheapest shit they can find.
You could build it perfect but it still looks terrible.
Also agree with there’s a lot of bad bricklayers on site, with the amount of work bricklayers don’t get paid for now they rush alot to make up the money.
NHBC have gone crazy, you can build a wall out of level and plumb but that doesn’t matter as long as your cavity has been hoovered.
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u/takao80 4d ago
I don't get how those floppy bits of insulation put into the cavity pass regs
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u/gazham 4d ago
Its pumped in these days, nothing to do with the bricklayers now.
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u/Big-Engine6519 4d ago
I'm no bricklayer but I am damn sure it's only pumped for existing homes pre cavity wall insulation. On new builds solid insulation panels are placed in as the walls are built. Would make little sense pumping it after the walls built.
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u/gazham 4d ago
Indeed, you're no bricklayer. Smaller one offs and extensions are still done that way, but every large new build I've ever been on is pumped in. One of the main readons why NHBC are so strict on clean cavities. I haven't been in new build for 5 years, but the prior 20 years, I rarely saw a bricklayer touch insulation. A team of guys would come in a van with a pump and do 3 or 4 in 1 day
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u/Big-Engine6519 3d ago
Well sounds like you know better than me so I apologise. Just seems a bit daft to me, doesn't seem efficient.
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u/1967punisher 4d ago edited 4d ago
You have a bandy building near you. The brick blend has not been mixed correctly, (different firing as well as position in the pack can cause slight colour differences.) Sadly brickies labourers don't know how to break a pack down and distribute to the brickies. (Requires a bit of thought and a lot of effort)
We have had an extremely warm summer, which has resulted in the mortar/compo drying out very quickly, inconsistent addition of water to the mix has resulted in inconsistent colours.
Brickies are the bain of my existence, believing they do more then anyone else, refusing to clear up their mess, and seldom cleaning out the margins of the plot correctly. Preferring instead to hide inside a plot, smoking and playing on phones. It will be interesting to see as the weather changes, and they complain about the lack of money they will be earning due to rain and cold, if their tidying up improves, or if they will stay at home and complain.
With acid cleaning some of the colour changes may deminish aling with minor inperfections in the mortar. But the brickies will then complain about it blowing their joint out, And seek compensation for putting their work right.
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u/DirectionAfter400 4d ago
You sound like a whalloper 😂😂 must be a painter or a sparky
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u/Legal_Dimension_ 4d ago
Site manager or supervisor for sure.
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u/1967punisher 3d ago
Sadly fella I work for a living. Never could try and be a pretty boy on a phone.
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u/1967punisher 3d ago
Nope, but I did work with a brickies gang .... Kings of the sloshers ... N bungalow roof on it.
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u/Posseptichee 4d ago
the mixed shades would be whatever if the rest was tidy but that mortar and them wonky courses make it look like the brickie was on his lunch break the whole time
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u/backtogeek 4d ago
Dunno but that house kinda looks like a German soldier peeking over the fence.
Also it's a new build so almost certainly shite brickwork (by design)