Week 11-12: Slugs playing Tetris - Bricking downstairs (7 - 17 July)

Week 11-12: Slugs playing Tetris - Bricking downstairs  (7 - 17 July)

 Planned for a Monday 6/7 start for the bricklayers but instead we got a pile of sand and more metal supports. By Tues 7th July the bricklayers started work, and the electrician was in to fit the meter box which should be recessed into the brick work.

 

I'm trying as usual to fuel them with chocolate muffins and coffee! However, bricklayers seem a different kettle of fish. These guys are mountains of muscle and communicate only by grunting. Coffee was replaced with requests for redbull (no worries), checking in on timeline was just "grunt, big house, grunt", and the poor fellas had hands so cold they started a little bonfire (complete with brick surrounds) on the block!

 

We were told to expect 1-2 (week 11-12) weeks to brick downstairs, then they disappear for 1-2 days while the scaffolding goes up, then back or a couple of weeks for bricks upstairs (Week 13-14). I think it is fair to say that bricklaying is EXTREMELY slow! After 3 guys on the job for a day, usually the only work completed is a wall say 3m long and 12 brick courses high (up to window height!). Is it just us? Is bricklaying always this slow???? Slow moving like slugs, and leaving a goopy trail of slippery mud slurry wherever they have been. Won't miss this phase of the build!

 

 

 

 

This is a days worth of work... the next wall set back in the left of this shot was another day's work! You can see my brickies in orange supping on coffee and sweets inside. Bless.

 

Like rainbows, they disappear at the first sign of clouds. Possible rain day claim on 13/7/15 as there was a bit of rain in the morning, and once it stopped and the sun was beaming down it would have caused far too much risk of...frizzled hair? damp boots? anyway, they felt it best to stay home.

 

The bottom rows of downstairs for the whole house are almost complete and we are at 6 business days of work, so maybe 10 days of labour would see the downstairs done, but I am not holding my breath. I expect minimum of 10 days, but likely more like 14 days. No doubt the top storey will be much much slower as one square-shaped-muscle-mass-man needs to pass bricks up to another square-shaped-muscle-mass-man on the scaffolding.

 

Here you can see the funny level the bricking stops at each day. I assume they can only build to a certain height then move on while it sets so it forms a strong foundation for the upper half of the brickwork downstairs. The pace is making me regret having replaced all the cladding panels with brick in the original plans... but trying to keep patient and long term perspective that quality brick-man-ship will last a lifetime.

Looking at the house from this low side makes me realise just how huge it is (and to be fair, how many bricks are involved!). The window level in the foreground is just floor level! Here we are looking at the playroom in the foreground and back past the family room, guest room and to the sunroom in the far right.

 Starting work on the façade bricking.

 Here you can see they have used common red bricks for the pillars/piers in the front that will be rendered and painted Pebble Bay colour. See also the slug slurry left all over the porch... and pooling all over the ground like a superhero has melted some sort of slimy villain!

 Close up of the front porch piers. Nice and chunky in size.

 Here you can see how the rendered coloumn will be separate to the adjoining face brick wall. We deliberated at length with the architect, Mahretta, about whether this wall panel adjoining the pier/column should be rendered or face brick (I hope we made the right choice!)

 

More (slow?) progress to report again soon.