Does your mortar line up vertically??

Hi All,

My hubby and I are currently discussing our bricking job with our builder as there are parts of our house where the brick motar does not line up together, therefore there is no straight verticle line in the bricks from bottom to top!! (See picture below, pay attention to the closest motar line on the right hand side of down pipe, it disappears)

I wanted to know if this is a normal issue?? Does the mortar of your bricks line up vertically??

I look forward to your responses.

Jacqui

Our bricking isn't finished yet, but I've just checked out my photos and those bits are all straight vertically.

If you had shown me that picture without the explanation, I probably wouldn't have noticed because it doesn't look wonky, maybe because of the downpipe.
Anyway, can they do anything about it other than pulling down all the bricks and re-doing it?
I can understand your frustration though, it would really bother me aswell.

could it be that they had to cut your bricks to be able to fit the window in? And then when the window stopped they went back to the normal ones? I know we've got a few shortened bricks due to this, but I am pretty sure they kept on going with the shortened ones right up to the top, rather than go back to normal size once the window finishes. hang on I'll take a look.... ok I'm back. Nope ours are a bit like yours, at the top of the window they go back to normal sizes, but at the bottom of the window it sort of graduates back to the normal size so that it's not obvious.

Does any of that make sense??? In any case it has not bothered me (yet )

Are the bricks on question on the front of the house?

Jacqui,

Are you using BORAL Escura Smooth Face? What colour have you picked?


behw

Clearly, the first brick in from the brick/half brick next to the CJ has been cut to about 4/5 full brick length in each course. This is pretty standard when the wall needs to be made shorter than full brick lengths, probably due to windows/doorways. The problem arises because they have not cut any bricks in the courses from the level of the ?veranda ceiling and above. So the top courses are out of alignment with those below, at least in the area shown in your photo.

Sorry, I don't know if this is an accepted approach...but I would've thought the best way to do it would've been to continue to cut the bricks all the way up. Does the discrepancy continue all the way along the wall? Is it apparent when you stand back an look at the wall as a whole?

In any case, I would ask the builder for an explanation and ask to be shown other instances in other houses if you are told it's a standard and acceptable method. I expect the building code would provide the answer....hopefully someone familiar with it will post.

But I just wanted to say that IMHO it's probably something that no-one else will ever notice. But you should insist on an explanation/outcome that's acceptable to you. I guess it would be re-assuring to see the same thing on other houses in the area.

Cheers
zeke

EDIT Cross-posted with Donuts who has been able to be more helpful from personal experience......so I guess it is standard practice.

You make complete sense donuts. You may be right, they have cut a few bricks to a smaller size which could as a result of the window. But I'm not 100% sure.

The bricks are at the back of our house where we plan on putting our outdoor table and bbq (our entertaining area) so its going to be there for all to see.

I've attached another photo which shows the join of the two walls of our entertaining area. If you look on the right hand side wall, next to the join, you will see the bricks have been cut unevenly. At the bottom of the photo there is no brick and then by the top of the photo there is a thick piece of brick. It doesn't make sense to me (but then again I'm not a buider).

Zeke - I think your right in that they have cut a brick short on the bottom story of the house but not continued this on the top level of the house. I'm not sure if this is common.

My fingers are crossed that someone experienced will see my post and confirm this for me (us).

ours is in the alfresco area too Jac&Paul. But it's only a very tiny window (laundry) that it's next to, and it's amongst lots of other windows and doors so it doesn't stick out. (I don't think it does anyway. Possibly all my guests will be horrified at my crooked bricks )

Your second pic does look out of whack doesn't it What could be the reason for this, other than the wall being built on a slight slant?? will be interesting to find out what your brickie/SS says about this?

That looks terrible . The builder will have to render your house at Their
own cost.

edit

Thanks everyone for taking the time to add your comments.

I will keep you all posted as to the outcome (we will probably find out next week).

Thanks again

IMHO I would say that the consistency of mortar between the bricks horizontally, has been way off. It would be safe to assume that the lower part of the wall was done on a different day to the upper wall (second story) hence the why the 1/4 bricks are more exposed than the lower. Hope everything works out.

I took a good look at the bricks at our place last night when I visited (still going btw) and there is a section at the back of the garage where they've needed to cut/shorten the bricks to get a neat end and all of them have been cut the same length so that they still line up. I took a phot but haven't uploaded it yet - should be on my blog later today.

Hi,
It also looks as if your walls are not quite as straight as they could be, because in your posted second lot of pics - if you follow the corner from bottom to top, the spacer bricks get thicker towards the top, which means the wall is running in towards the top?

Tell me how your window sills are in every window? Do they all have the same fall/angle?

Pinkladyloo

Just keep in mind not all bricks are the same size. They can sometimes vary by + - 10mm.
As long as there are not too many of these in a row it is considered within tolerance.