Brickwork & Window Seals

Hi guys,

My house in a few weeks time will be ready for handover but I have a few problems/issues that my builder and I don't agree on so am hoping for some clarification.

In some areas of my house there are darker coloured bricks (I call them 'reject bricks') which really stand out from the red coloured bricks I chose. See the below pic.



Also, the window seal below every single window on my house is sitting on a short brick. This means the seal tucks behind the layer of bricks beneath it, meaning every 3-4 months I will have to be replacing the window seals all around my house, the reason for this? The brickies laid half the length of brick under the window thus allowing the window seal to bend and tuck behind/go behind the back of the bricks. See the picture below.



Can somebody please clarify what options I have for:

a) Do I have a case that when the brick layers were laying the bricks they didn't use duty of care to throw out the darker coloured bricks but instead just laid them?

Is my builder liable to go around my whole house to replace the reject bricks with the red coloured bricks that is meant to be consistent throughout my whole house? I didn't choose a mixed colour brick, I chose a red coloured brick, I am meant to be seeing a consistent red colour not a shade of black or any other colour. I feel I'm not getting what I'm paying for and feel the builder knows their brickies stuffed up but won't foot the bill to have the bricks replaced as it will cost them money ($$$).

b) Does my builder need to remove the entire layer of bricks under all my windows and relay full length bricks to prevent the window seal from bending backward into the gap due to having half length bricks laid beneath the window seal? What should be the distance from the window to the brick below as a standard? Does this make sense?

I await for some guidance.

Many thanks in advance!

Edin.

Hi Edin,
Your bricks look very similar to ours in your second photo. Are they Ironbark?
We too have gaps on our sills between the brick and weather seal and brought up our concerns with our SS, to which he has basically said that,
any rain that makes it's way behind the bricks will drain out from the weepholes. On a few of our windows,
the seal is pushed in behind the bricks, and he has said they just lift it out, but our bricks are too short as well,
and i will be strongly suggesting that the sills be replaced in the problem areas. It's not worth the risk.
This is what one of ours look like...



As for your bricks, we too have the dark bricks through our brickwork, but i assumed that was just the effect.
It seems to be more the brick ends are the darker (almost green) shade on ours, not the actual brick face as such.
I quite like the variation, it gives the bricks character

Hi The Little Misses,

Thanks for your prompt reply, much appreciated!

Yes I do have Boral Ironbark bricks and the problem window seals are being replaced but I still think it's not acceptable to have shorter length bricks underneath the windows. Short-term fix is replacing the window seals but longer-term, keep on replacing them every 3-4 months?!

I feel this is an unnecessary expense to me and unacceptable brick laying and I also feel the window seal and brick length the seal is sitting on should be long enough to prevent the window seal from bending/tucking behind the brick and I think it's a mistake to have cut the bricks so short. Why should you be forced to have to check your window seals all the time to unbend them back into their usual position! Eventually bending and unbending will lead to an extra expense to you the owner. It's just not right.

In a nutshell, I am questioning the standard if it's deemed to be acceptable as a building standard to have bricks under windows laid this way using shorter bricks. I don't think it can possibly be right. Just between me and you, I reckon you and me are copping the wrong end of the stick.

Regards,
Edin.

I couldn't agree more. Have you brought the matter up with your SS?

I'm going to keep pushing until ours are replaced, i think ours is more due to the bricks being chipped under the weather seal,
we didn't have any bricks left once they had finished the brickwork, so i have the feeling they used the broken bricks for the sills,
as that was all there seemed to be left. To relay ours, they would need to order more bricks, and that would be the reason they don't want to
replace them too.

Do you like your bricks? I loved mine, until they cleaned them
Are you able to say who you are building with?

Hi Edin,
I think diffferent brickies and different builders have different styles of bricking when it comes to bricked sills. Ours used longer bricks (as you seem to have expected) and sills are much more tilted and there is no thin layer of brick under them. I do prefer that method because obviously such sill sheds water easily away.
However, we do have a sill that is completely horizontal and with gaps b/w bricks/frame (and short/chipped bricks) and I don't like it. They put a timber moulding around it, but the water can still slide in under the moulding. I think it can be sealed with a silicon or something that is safe to use for bricks/timber. But why do you think that you need to replace rubber seals attached at the bottom of windows every several months (if taht's what you meant)? I think only hail could be so strong to penetrate and push the rubber behind the bricks ..
Oh, and I don't like the explanation that water would go out via the weep holes. It would, but I'd rather it not migrating into the cavity in the first place. Weep holes are "for emergencies only"

I agree with Lex in the fact that the sills vary between builders.

I built with Henley and I have the short bricks and half bricks under my window sills, identical to yours. It's just the way they do them, and all the displays are the same (well they were when I last checked!).

I had a few mortar 'holes' in the corners of a few frames, but I pointed them out to the SS and they were filled before PCI. Also some of the weather strips were 'behind' the brick sill in a few places, but they were adjusted to sit on the bricks too. I haven't had any problems with them.

I have brought it up with my SS, I had a pre-handover inspection 3 weeks ago listing all the defects I found inside and outside of the home. The SS argument about the dark coloured bricks was "oh that's just the style of brick it is when they were pressed in the ovens, they are naturally a darker coloured brick, some are darker because of the mix of colour", my response to that was "the darker coloured bricks are rejects and the onus should have been on Boral to discard those bricks before packaging them to be sold, if it passed quality inspection with Boral then the next step for quality control should have fallen on the brickies to discard the dark coloured bricks", his response was again the same, that they are what they are and they laid the bricks as they were stacked, so I got nowhere.

With relation to the brickwork under my windows, I actually had a whole stack of bricks scattered along the back of my home AFTER the bricks had been completely laid (including under the windows) so these bricks were purposefully laid this way under the windows. The SS states it's done as standard, however behind my house a new home is being built and the bricklayer came across and stated to me in these exact words "this is rubbish bricklaying, do not accept this and demand to have them remove and replace ALL bricks under ALL windows with proper correct length bricks. If they don't replace them you'll have water going behind the window seals which will erode the wall insulation and water will fall on the slab causing it to be destabilise which may then cause the timber frame standing on it to also destablise", this coming from a neighbouring property that is just being built!

I do love the bricks, they are a nice colour and have a nice warm red colour to them, but just the darker coloured bricks in patches around my home especially under the kitchen window have soured me. I plan on having a pergola built around the kitchen and sitting down staring at that checked colour shape (as per the picture) is going to be really ugly.

My builder is a smaller builder named "Greybox Homes", whom I have been pretty happy with, in terms of quality and customer service but just a few areas are problem areas (to me).

Yes, this is entirely my point, it has better drainage so no water can run behind the seal, leading to the problems I mentioned in my post above.


They haven't offered anything to me, I mentioned silicon but as the window seals are rubber, the silicon won't hold them in place. Apparently there is nothing secure enough to lock window seals in place, in this case on bricks.


Well my house commenced construction 4 months ago and after 4 months the window seals got tucked back. This is a defect. The SS advised of same and advised he would replace the window seals that were damaged. Once I move in, say 4 months time from then it will be different because I am the one going to be foot the bill to replace the window seal, this time the builder is footing the bill. It just reeks of a defective product.

Why should they vary?
What is the purpose of having building regulations and laws if some builders do it one way and others do it another way?
Where is the consistency here?

All it comes down to (for me), is one builder is doing a proper job, not cutting short cuts and the other cutting short cuts and causing grief for the person who will be left to for as long as they own the home have to replace something that should last for years! I live in a home that's over 40 years old and never have the window seals needed to be replaced. Yet the SS states that's the standard. It's my word over his!

I feel they don't want to spend the money fixing something that (in my eyes) is clearly a brick laying problem, all companies want to make a profit and spend as little as possible in the process but this is just unacceptable to me.

If I decide to hire a building inspector and he turns around and agrees that it's the building standard I got nowhere to turn to in my argument.

Hmmmm ... so you are talking about the little rubber seals that sit firmly attached to bottom of windows? I actually didn't know they can be replaced (being firmly attached to the window). Some of ours were bricked in (so firmly that they had to demolish some bricks later on to be able to pull the rubber seal out!!!).
What does the standard say about them?

Oh, and about the darker bricks. You can complain to the SS again - he can ask a Boral rep to inspect them. I know for some bricks Boral considers that they are defective ( even though that's the way they keep producing them ) and they can advise of staining or replacement. And this is for bricks that look totally OK, so much so that I always considered the colour change a nice touch

Yes I am talking about those rubber seals.

In my case you can actually push them in, they're so loose. Nothing like what you mention and I think that may be due to a larger gap between the window/window seal and the brickwork beneath it.

As far the standard is concerned, I don't know.

Yeah I'll have to try and convince him to bring a Boral rep onsite to see the brick colour, perhaps a stain might do the trick, good thinking Lex.

Hmmmm ... I'll have to double check our rubber seals, we definitely didn't get the best from the bricking world
I think, if your brickie at least took care to spread those darker bricks around more equally, it would have been OK. Boral rep should be able to advise if your bricks are "stainable" or if there is some other avenue.
Good luck and let us know how it went!

The guide to standards and tolerances:

http://www.buildingcommission.com.au/re ... IDE_07.pdf

Has the following figure:

This indicates to me that there does need to be a good gap (at least 5mm) between the sill bricks and the window. However also in this image is a flashing that would prevent any leakage through the seal from travelling down the inside of the brickwork. I also note in the diagram that the window overhangs the sill, whereas yours does not. I would ask your builder whether their arrangement meets this criteria and whether they have installed the flashing and window to AS2047 the Australian Standard for Windows in Buildings. (Unfortunately I don't have my standards library available to me today so I can't comment as to the appropriate clauses for this, however it is up to your builder to prove that they are meeting the requirements)

You want full length bricks on your window seals!?

WHY?

3 reasons why you want cut bricks for window seals.

1. They look cosmetically 1000 times better than a full length brick
2. It stops people from walking into them (especially down narrow sides of a house)
3. They look cosmetically 4000 times better than a full length brick

I am a bricklayer and I can tell you something. the reason the seals differ from from each other are not just because of the builder there are lots of things that will make it different. firstly the design of the house, the height the windows are placed, the type of windows used, and how bad the carpenters or window fixer actually place the window in the correct spot. we as bricklayer have to constantly fix/adjust the windows to make it work brickwork. but we can only move it so much from within its frame, maybe 20 mm left or right and 20 mm up and down or so give or take depending. and we only move it up for down so our brickwork works over the lintel. Windows should all be installed levelled of the top plate of the house not measured from the concrete cause our brickwork is always level. anyway the half looking bricks under the seal are called splits. we lay them in because the gab is too big for us to lay our seal in. that is there because we had no choice not because we wanted to put it there, and as explained above that explains why that's there if it is there. now for the length of the actual seal brick that is angled. The length is just a cosmetic thing, I prefer smaller seals that stick out less personaly. sometimes you wont see weep holes under the window seal because it might already be so close to the ground its pointless cuase there is weep holes on the first course of brickwork underneath. as for the bricks themselves. well that's another story. if you want bricks that are all exactly the same you need to buy more expensive bricks.
DONT FCKEN EXPECT BRICKLAYERS TO SPEND HIS WHOLE DAY FILTERING OUT THE SHADED BRICKS.
That's not my job I only get paid to put the bricks in the wall. I don't get paid filtering fees. and I'm not saying I don't do it infact I got no choice because the bricks are so badly out of size that just to keep on bond we need to mix up the bigger and smaller bricks to stay on bond. before you build go to the brick company and check the pallets and quality of bricks before u even get them delivered to the site. if they vary so much specially in colour/shade then that means some are more cooked then the others, the lighter bricks I bet if you measure them are bigger then the darker bricks because the darker bricks are over cooked..