Appreciate your comments on the quality of this brickwork (p

tweety123 · Aug 19, 2019 7:32 pm

Hi fellow home owners and builders, will appreciate your feedback on the brickwork on my house. I'm building a be-spoken house in Sydney. My builder won a couple building awards in the past hence charges high price.

The exterior walls of my house is double brick with cavity walls and will be rendered. Interior walls are single brick and will have gyprock sticking to it directly.

I recently checked out the brickwork and thought the workmanship is very poor. A few walls are not straight where bricks are not aligned. Mortars in bed joints and head joints are inconsistent and many exceed tolerance level (bed joint: 7-13mm; head joint: 5-15mm) in the Building Code. Lots of voids and holes in mortar in the internal walls. These problems appear to 2/3 of the brickwork. When I raised them to my builder, he advised that some of the voids and holes will be patched up but not all. And he doesn't plan to do anything else to other problems as he insisted that the work is above average quality for rendered brick walls. He was offended by my negative feedback on the quality of his work.

Based on the payment schedule for the brickwork, I think I'm paying around $2/brick on the labour costs. This is excluding the brick costs and my builder's margin (well above 15%). Even building in Sydney is expensive, my understanding is at this price, the quality of the brickwork should be above average. Attached are some pictures that I took onsite. Will appreciate your honest opinion on the quality of the work vs the price I'm paying. Based on my observation, a few project homes in my area have better brickwork than mine even though the price is less than half per sqm than what I'm paying.

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SaveH2O · Aug 19, 2019 8:04 pm

I cannot comment because words fail me.

Do you have a private building consultant?

tweety123 · Aug 19, 2019 8:15 pm

Hi thank you for your reply. I have engaged a building inspection company and will get them to go onsite to inspect the brickwork soon. My builder advised that the standard of brickwork for rendered bricks are lower than face/exposed bricks. I know it's true but I still expected better quality than this. Am I being unreasonable to expect a bit better quality for the prices that I'm charged?

arcadelt · Aug 19, 2019 8:27 pm

tweety123

Hi fellow home owners and builders, will appreciate your feedback on the brickwork on my house.

I'm less inclined to be overly negative, because in the end every wall in your house will be covered with render or plasterboard, and you just won't see what is underneath; however, I do admit that it doesn’t look good now, although I doubt there are any structural concerns. That said, for comparison purposes, here are pictures of our brick walls before they were rendered.

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tweety123 · Aug 19, 2019 8:37 pm

arcadelt

tweety123

Hi fellow home owners and builders, will appreciate your feedback on the brickwork on my house.

I'm less inclined to be overly negative, because in the end every wall in your house will be covered with render or plasterboard, and you just won't see what is underneath; however, I do admit that it doesn’t look good now, although I doubt there are any structural concerns. That said, for comparison purposes, here are pictures of our brick walls before they were rendered.

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Hi arcadelt, appreciate your feedback and the pictures. From your pictures, It appears that your brickwork is much better quality. Do you mind sharing how much labour cost did you paid per brick if your house is also in Sydney?
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Aug 19, 2019 8:27 pm

JB1 · Aug 19, 2019 9:12 pm

I'm more concerned about the price than the quality.

It's going to be rendered away, so no big deal
$2 a brick!

That's double what a crappy bricklayer will charge in Melb. And I'd still expect it will be better than that.

arcadelt · Aug 19, 2019 9:33 pm

tweety123

Do you mind sharing how much labour cost did you paid per brick if your house is also in Sydney?

I'm not in Sydney, but in regional NSW.

tweety123 · Aug 19, 2019 9:42 pm

Hi JB1,

Thank you for the response. I engaged with this expensive builder with the expectation that he will deliver superior quality based on a few his previous customer feedback and a couple building awards he won in the past. Prior to the brickwork, the quality has been reasonable except 1-2 very minor issues, but Brickwork is a big part of the contract price so I'm reluctantly to accept poor workmanship. Even the issue may not be structural, I'm concerned that I'm paying a premium price for very average work, not a good sign at such early stage of the project.

tweety123 · Aug 19, 2019 9:44 pm

arcadelt

tweety123

Do you mind sharing how much labour cost did you paid per brick if your house is also in Sydney?

I'm not in Sydney, but in regional NSW.

Thank you! I know Sydney is very expensive so will hopefully hear some feedback later on Sydney brick laying prices.

SaveH2O · Aug 19, 2019 11:05 pm

tweety123

Hi thank you for your reply. I have engaged a building inspection company and will get them to go onsite to inspect the brickwork soon. My builder advised that the standard of brickwork for rendered bricks are lower than face/exposed bricks. I know it's true but I still expected better quality than this. Am I being unreasonable to expect a bit better quality for the prices that I'm charged?

I would be surprised if the bricklayer received the same rate as he would have had it been an exposed wall. Sure, it will be rendered but the builder has charged a premium price, delivered sausages and guess who benefited?

For the builder to have been offended by your "negative feedback" on the quality of his work for the price charged, I can only ask..."What quality"? Ask him (and your private building consultant) where in the NCC it is stated that masonery that will be rendered is exempt from the Standards to the degree that your wall is. The photos show very poor workmanship that is below acceptable limits.

The problem with people accepting poor workmanship on the premise of 'out of sight, out of mind' is that builders and 'tradies' then push the limits to unacceptable levels that become endemic which is one reason for the broken state of the Australian building industry today.

I hope that you include a pre plaster inspection.

tweety123 · Aug 19, 2019 11:29 pm

SaveH2O

tweety123

Hi thank you for your reply. I have engaged a building inspection company and will get them to go onsite to inspect the brickwork soon. My builder advised that the standard of brickwork for rendered bricks are lower than face/exposed bricks. I know it's true but I still expected better quality than this. Am I being unreasonable to expect a bit better quality for the prices that I'm charged?

I would be surprised if the bricklayer received the same rate as he would have had it been an exposed wall. Sure, it will be rendered but the builder has charged a premium price, delivered sausages and guess who benefited?

For the builder to have been offended by your "negative feedback" on the quality of his work for the price charged, I can only ask..."What quality"? Ask him (and your private building consultant) where in the NCC it is stated that masonery that will be rendered is exempt from the Standards to the degree that your wall is. The photos show very poor workmanship that is below acceptable limits.

The problem with people accepting poor workmanship on the premise of 'out of sight, out of mind' is that builders and 'tradies' then push the limits to unacceptable levels that become endemic which is one reason for the broken state of the Australian building industry today.

I hope that you include a pre plaster inspection.

Thank you SaveH2O.

This gives me some reassurance that I'm not being unreasonable. I will let the building inspector to provide feedback and try to hold this builder accountable. To your other comments, I agree that the brick layer may not have received the full $2/brick rate, but this rate already excludes the brick costs and the builder's margin unless he charges much bigger margin than he claims.

SaveH2O · Aug 20, 2019 1:06 am

What I meant to convey was that I think that the brickie would have been paid more for a normal (unrendered) quality job whereas this was a slap bang quickie. Most builders try to wrangle every extra dollar they can and they have many ways of doing it.

tweety123 · Aug 20, 2019 7:09 am

SaveH2O

What I meant to convey was that I think that the brickie would have been paid more for a normal (unrendered) quality job whereas this was a slap bang quickie. Most builders try to wrangle every extra dollar they can and they have many ways of doing it.

I think so, too.

Mirrmu83 · Aug 20, 2019 9:27 pm

hi,

it is irrelevant if walls to be rendered or plastered or facework.

The perps are definitely too wide and you shouldn't have straight joints thru multiple courses (first 3 photo's). Stretcher bond should be at least one third I think (maybe a quarter). There can be situations with internal wall junctions where bonding can be awkward, this would need examination.

All components of brickwork eg, mortar, brick unit, metal tie's provide the structural integrity and have to be done correctly.

The builder may try and get job engineer to sign off as okay, I wouldn't accept that. I had an insurance company try this on a friend, brickwork worse than yours, straight joints, wide perps.

thanks

tweety123 · Aug 20, 2019 10:05 pm

Hi Mirrmu83, thank you for the detailed comments. I've pointed some of the problems that you mentioned above to my builder. Now waiting for him to get the bricklayers to rectify the issues. I hired an independent building inspector ready to check out the work for me. I enquired a few brick layers with very good online reviews and much better quality work based on the pictures on their website. Those bricklayers charge $1.45-$1.55/brick (incl. GST) for the labour if the bricks will be rendered and they are all in Sydney. This gives me some ideas on prices vs good quality brickwork.

IsabellaBoots · Aug 20, 2019 10:44 pm

That looks horrific, especially that third picture. It's true that it doesn't have to be as neat if it's going to be rendered, but it still needs to meet basic standards. I took some photos of my old house when it was being built. Unfortunately, the resolution's not great, but the brick below is from an outer wall that will be rendered and it's significantly better than yours.

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Mirrmu83 · Aug 20, 2019 10:51 pm

Okay good. Look forward to outcome

Doozer1905 · Aug 20, 2019 11:28 pm

That would have to be one of the worse brick laying jobs I have ever seen, it wouldn't comply to the masonry code. I'm not sure how it works in NSW but surely there is a building licensing board or similar? I would make a complaint to them or the local council, I would be ropeable if that was my house, demolish and start again.

tweety123 · Aug 20, 2019 11:56 pm

IsabellaBoots

That looks horrific, especially that third picture. It's true that it doesn't have to be as neat if it's going to be rendered, but it still needs to meet basic standards. I took some photos of my old house when it was being built. Unfortunately, the resolution's not great, but the brick below is from an outer wall that will be rendered and it's significantly better than yours.

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Looks better quality than mine. The pictures in my original post are all from internal walls. Does this make any difference?

tweety123 · Aug 21, 2019 12:01 am

Doozer1905

That would have to be one of the worse brick laying jobs I have ever seen, it wouldn't comply to the masonry code. I'm not sure how it works in NSW but surely there is a building licensing board or similar? I would make a complaint to them or the local council, I would be ropeable if that was my house, demolish and start again.

The only government body in NSW is NSW Fair Trading. If you take a look at the reviews about it on Google, you will understand it doesn't do much for consumers.