c/bricklayers

Old guy at the supply yard told me my trowel was too light.

Happened on a Tuesday morning. I'm grabbing mortar mix and this retired mason in line behind me just points at my trowel. Says I'm fighting the brick instead of letting it lay. Made me switch to a 10 inch Marshalltown. Been night and day since. Anyone else run into random advice that actually stuck?

Spent 3 hours chiseling out a brick that was only half-baked

Installing a new arch at a job site near Tacoma and one of the clay bricks came out of the kiln looking fine but crumbled like a cracker when I tried to cut it. Took me forever to clean out the mess because it fell apart inside the wall. Anyone run into bricks that just don't hold up? Is it a bad batch or just bad luck?

Lost a whole afternoon on a mortar mix that was too wet

Mortar mix changed my whole approach to laying brick

For about six months now I was using the same pre-mix mortar from the big box store, thinking there was no difference between brands. Then I got talked into trying a Type N mix from a local supply yard over in Columbus. The difference in workmanship was night and day. The site stuff held together better on the trowel and didn't slump out of the joints as fast. It made my lines cleaner and I didn't have to stop as often to clean up drips. I was losing about 15 minutes per course just fussing with sloppy mortar before. Has anyone else noticed a big difference switching from pre-mix to site delivered mortar?

Learned the hard way: never trust a pre-mixed mortar that's been sitting on a pallet all winter

Picked up 40 bags from a supplier outside Nashville last month. First job of the spring, thought I was saving time. Mixed the first batch and it was full of hard lumps. Had to dump half the bag and sift the rest. Ended up spending 3 hours double handling my mix. Called the supplier and they said the pallet must have gotten wet. No refund. Back to mixing my own from dry ingredients. Anyone else dealt with this or am I just unlucky?

The trick with wetting bricks before laying in hot weather saved me last summer in Phoenix

I was fighting mortar drying too fast on a 110 degree day and an old timer told me to dunk each brick in a bucket of water first, and it gave me an extra 45 seconds of working time per brick has anyone else tried this or do you just work faster?

Hit 500 feet of brick in one day yesterday for the first time

Been laying brick for about 3 years now, mostly small jobs. Last week on a warehouse wall in Akron, I finally broke 500 feet between 7am and 4pm. My foreman just nodded and said 'not bad' but I was buzzing the whole ride home. Anybody else remember their first big number day?

Straight edge vs string line for long brick walls

I did a 60 foot garden wall last week and used a string line like always, but my helper kept pushing me to try a straight edge. Ended up with a slight dip in the middle that I didn't catch until the mortar set. Which method do you guys trust more for keeping long runs dead level?

Shoutout to the guy who proved me wrong about silica dust masks

I've been laying brick for 22 years and always thought a basic dust mask was good enough for silica. Last month an OSHA inspector showed me a study from the CDC that said silica dust particles are 100 times smaller than what those masks catch. I pulled up the PDF on my phone right there at the job site near the mixer. Now I'm using a proper half-face respirator and telling everyone on my crew to do the same. Has anyone else actually read the numbers on what gets through those cheap paper masks?

Bought a $28 mortar mixing paddle from Harbor Freight. Regretted it on job one.

Found a stat about mortar freeze-thaw cycles that scared me straight

I was looking at a study from the Masonry Society and it said that 1 in 4 brick walls fail within 20 years because of moisture getting trapped behind the face. Has anyone else started using a weep system on every job since reading something like that?

That Tuesday in Austin where the mortar set up in 20 minutes because the humidity was zero

I spent more time chipping out crusted mix from my hawk than actually laying brick, and the foreman just laughed and said welcome to Texas, has anyone else dealt with mortar going bad that fast in dry heat?

Tried a raked joint on a retaining wall instead of a flush joint. Actually liked the way it looked better.

Tried lime mortar for a repoint on an old church last month and it's way easier to work with than standard Type N

The stuff stays workable for like 45 minutes longer and you don't have to fight it drying out before you can tool the joints, has anyone else switched over for historic stuff?

Took me 4 hours to fix a corner I could've done in 20 minutes

I was laying a herringbone pattern on a fireplace last Tuesday and hit this weird bump where the mortar kept squeezing out too much on one side. I figured it was a leveling issue so I pulled it all apart, rechecked my story poles, even went back to the garage for a different trowel. Turns out the brick itself had a slight bow I missed during sorting. I made a rookie mistake and didn't check each one for flatness before I started.

Still think about that old timer's trick with a butter knife

I was cleaning out my truck yesterday and found a beat up butter knife I kept from a job back in 2008 in Dallas. An old bricklayer named Hank used it to tap brick into place when the face was already set, said it saved him from chipping the corner every time. I tried his method on a tricky archway last week and it worked perfect, no cracks. Has anyone else picked up a weird tool habit from a guy who'd been doing this 40 years?

Hit a little milestone today with my pointing work

I found out from an old foreman friend that my mortar joints this month are averaging 3/8 inch consistent across 120 feet of wall, which surprised me because I always thought I was off by a hair.

Used to eyeball my mortar mix every time, finally got a scale last month

For ten years I just guessed at my sand and cement ratios on every wall. Ended up with weak joints or wasted bags more often than I want to admit. A mason in Spokane told me, "Your mortar is only as good as your measuring" after I showed him a cracked retaining wall. Now I weigh everything for each batch, and my joints look way more consistent. Any of you guys actually weigh your mix or still fly by sight?

Finally figured out why my corners kept cracking on those big commercial jobs

For years I'd see hairline cracks in the mortar at the corners of big block walls, especially on warehouse builds. I always blamed the mix or the weather. Then last month, I watched a guy from a different crew lay a corner, and he was buttering the end of every block before he set it. I never did that on long runs, just the beds. Tried it on a job in Knoxville building a 40 foot retaining wall, and after 6 months, not a single crack. It's such a simple fix, but it makes the whole corner unit solid. Anyone else have a little trick like that they picked up from watching someone else work?

Appreciation post: My old foreman in Cincinnati changed how I think about mixing mud

I always mixed my mud a bit on the dry side, thinking it gave me more time to work. He watched me for a minute last Tuesday and said, 'That's why your joints look hungry, you're fighting the mix.' I tried a wetter batch on a chimney rebuild yesterday and it buttered like a dream. How wet do you guys usually go for standard face brick?

Read a study that said a brick wall in Chicago lasted over 200 years because of the lime mortar mix.

I was looking at old building reports online and found a case study on a warehouse from the 1820s. The analysis showed the original lime mortar was still doing its job, while modern cement repairs from the 1970s had already failed. It really makes you question if we're always building for the long haul these days. Has anyone else worked on a job where the old methods clearly outlasted the new stuff?

My brother-in-law, a retired union guy, just asked me why we still mix full batches of mortar in this heat after his buddy got rushed to the hospital.

He said, 'That heatstroke wasn't from the sun, it was from the steam coming off that mixer,' and now I'm rethinking every summer pour over 90 degrees.

A retired guy at the hardware store changed how I look at old brick walls

I was picking up some Type N mortar at the local supply place in Springfield last Tuesday, and this older man, maybe in his 70s, was looking at the same bags. We got talking about a 1920s wall I was fixing. I mentioned how I was going to grind out all the old joints and re-point it clean. He just shook his head and said, 'Son, sometimes the best thing you can do for an old wall is leave it alone. That mortar's part of its story.' He pointed out how the slight wear and the old lime mix actually helped the bricks breathe and shed water. I'd always been taught to make everything look new. But he was right. I ended up just doing a few spot repairs instead of the whole thing. It saved me two days of work and the wall looks better, more honest. Has anyone else had an old-timer give you advice that went against what you were taught?

Walking through the new civic center downtown and the brickwork is... interesting.

They used this super thin, almost paper-like mortar joint on the entire facade. It looks clean from a distance, but up close you can see how fragile it is, with hairline cracks already forming. Has anyone else worked with that style and found a way to keep it from failing so fast?

TIL a $150 laser level can save you a whole afternoon of arguing with a foundation.

Got a new job laying block for a garage, and the footing was a solid inch out of square over 20 feet. I set up my DeWalt laser, showed the contractor the red line on the tape measure, and we had it fixed before lunch. How do you guys handle it when the concrete guys leave you a mess to fix?