Never having hired one before, I have no idea if this is good progress or not. My gut feeling is he’s not the quickest.

After Day 1 (inc moving tools onto site) and I guess a lot of faffing with squaring and leveling the first course.

Untitled by brf, on Flickr

After Day 2

Untitled by brf, on Flickr

I was expecting it to take a week, but looking at two or more at this rate, unless he suddenly speeds up when doing the blockwork.

As to why the first two course are bricks, he said they’re easier to get level than the heavy blocks. The actual plan is three sides blocks and front in bricks.

Anyway, is this good / bad / indifferent progress?

Its obviously been raining, i dont think the puddles are brickiee sweat.

Its obviously been raining, i dont think the puddles are brickiee sweat.

Overnight in both cases, but not during the day.

lol, this post should be fun, cup of tea anyone? 😉

Are you paying by the hour, or is it a fixed price job?

edit – looks really slow to me, even if he’s doing his own labouring.

Are you paying by the hour, or is it a fixed price job?

By the day, my choice as so far everyone I’ve used previously has worked hard.

Please tell me he’s not on day rate. 😀

EDIT: Oops.

Is he charging by the hour or for the job? If by the hour I’ d have a word; we had a 4m x4m cavity walled single storey extension (2.7m celing height) go up in 2.5 days with 2 brickies working 7.30am til 3.30pm inc the usual tea, fags and lunch off site

By the day

massively taking the piss then.

West Coast Main Line? Judging by the overhead wire gantries?

No idea about the brickie!

To put his productivity into context, on commercial contracts we pay approx £14-16 per metre squared for blockwork. If he was on a meterage rate he would barely have paid for his breakfast today….

A good brickie(own mixing,etc) should be good for 3-400 bricks a day.

That is taking the micheal, he should be doing 5 times that in a day

1st day I can accept being slow sorting out levels / squareness etc, but I’m pretty unimpressed by today’s progress.

I understand that a Brickie should do iro 600 bricks a day for an average job, up to 1000 for a simple job (ie no windows/doors, simple bond)

Looks like he’s done you about 200 a day, but factor in the moving materials about – did that take 2/3 of the day?

I’m slow on the bricks.

But I’m a hell of a lot faster than that !

Day 1 – hard to say as don’t know how level/square the slab is, or how much kit he had to shift and how far.

Day 2 – that looks like about an hours work at the most !

Hmm, will be having a discussion tomorrow am, today he’s managed 30 bricks and maybe 40 blocks.

That’s roughly as fast as I was, and I was figuring out how to do it as I went along.

On the plus side, your wall’s less likely to fall down.

I shifted all materials onto site (bricks, blocks, sand, cement, DPC, Febmix), so all he had to bring was trowel and mixer.

oh come one, he’s arranged some blocks in a line all at a jaunty angle on the left hand side. that will have taken some time.

Tell him how much you’re prepared to pay for the whole job and see if he’ll do it off that?

The total job is 600 blocks, 700 bricks, two openings with lintels. Site was pretty square (1″ out in 8m) and about the same again in height.

oh come one, he’s arranged some blocks in a line all at a jaunty angle on the left hand side. that will have taken some time.

I though they were bike stands for footflaps huge bike colllection 😉

oh come one, he’s arranged some blocks in a line all at a jaunty angle on the left hand side. that will have taken some time.

Not just a jaunty angle. That’s life size Domino Rally…

BTW, My BIL is a brickie. He reckons he’s taking the piss.

Tell him how much you’re prepared to pay for the whole job and see if he’ll do it off that?

I might give him a day to make some progress or I’ll find someone else. Weird thing is he’s a neighbour’s son (neighbour is a retired builder), so I was expecting some hard graft as ripping off your neighbours isn’t the norm…

LOL @ day 2 progress!

Get a webcam installed and give us the URL 😉

Hmm, will be having a discussion tomorrow am, today he’s managed 30 bricks and maybe 40 blocks.

So about 45 minutes to an hours work then.

Unless he tells you that he had to leave site at 9:30 and couldn’t make it back (for a very good reason) then I would be telling him to **** off and be getting another brickie in.

So what’s a fair price for 700 bricks, 600 blocks, two gable ends, 2 openings?

i would just explain to hom what you think is a days work and that if he cannot do it he should just leave as you are less than impressed

he may just be slow

i reckon I could do day 2 tbh and I have never even tried to lay bricks and probably quicker

i would just explain to hom what you think is a days work

I agree. Build it from wok.

He arrived at 8.30 and GF said he left at 4 (although she was out all day), so no idea if he was here all day.

approx £14-16 per metre squared for blockwork

OK 600 blocks = 60m2 = 60 * £15 = £900 so at £150/day = 6 days work

What’s the m2 rate for bricks (imperial random size ones)?

He arrived at 8.30 and GF said he left at 4 (although she was out all day), so no idea if he was here all day.

If he was there all day, he must have needed to charge his iPhone at least twice !

That’s a hell of a lot of Internet browsing !!

Footflaps can you just clarify your quants? 600 blocks? That’s 60 sqm, where’s all that lot going?
Also he’s not a Brickie, I can tell that just by the way he’s loaded out his gear and how he’ set out.
Also bit of rubbish spouted up there! There ain’t many Brickies who are labouring to themselves who’ll lay a thousand a day on their own. If so most would be coming to work in porsche vans and having Fridays off!
Also wallop unless your in central London you are paying way over the odds! Average block prices to the baron at the mo £11 ish a metre, with the lads possibly getting £8.50, which makes his progress even worse to swallow to be fair!

looks like he had a long nap after his morning tea.. Did he bring his own hammock?

Building size is 8m x 4m, so ignoring openings, we have three walls of blocks 8+8+4 = 20m. 20m long x 2.6m high = 52m2 plus one gable end in blocks (another 4m2) = roughly 60m2 (with pillars every 2m).

Front wall is 4m high gable end, 4m wide with 1.8m x 2.0m door opening = 660 imperial bricks.

Also he’s not a Brickie, I can tell that just by the way he’s loaded out his gear and how he’ set out.

If you mean the blocks stacked – that was me, I moved everything onto site and piled the blocks on the slab.

today he’s managed 30 bricks and maybe 40 blocks

forget the chat tomorrow, sack him on the spot

No that’s just how anyone would want them, you then would make individual stacks of say 20 with spot boards in between so you can feed of each pile as you run the line. Apologies re questioning your measure, I just took a quick look at the photo and didn’t look anywhere near 8m in length.

Is this the base that was posted in jam bo’s shed thread, and cost a gerzillion quid?

Did the same guy do it?