Bricklaying needs to be competitive.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/  

Farming today compared to the old way, My life my struggles, 

Hub Pages, DIY brickwork. and this article at this link, Bricklaying is competitive.   

Bricklaying and block laying is hard work, because the bricklayer must lay planty of them to earn his wage, and it is heavy work. Look at this pallet of blocks. This is how a the 200 series block look like, they weigh approximately 16.5 Kg. each. To build with blocks is very competitive, because it is easier to build a big wall compared to bricks.   

Welcome to our article, Bricklaying is competitive. 

Brick and block laying needs to be competitive.  

Today in the capitalist world, because of the way the economy has been set up, if you want to succeed you need to be competitive, therefore, we must try to do things better and faster than other people. Most people have this inborn need to excel in whatever they do; and those who don’t, will become losers. For these reasons, we must try harder to be successful in life.

This need applies also to the building industry, because the building industry needs to be competitive, to a higher degree than other industries, so, it is important that we can build better and cheaper houses, because that is the only way that the buyers can afford them, and when they are sold, the builders can build another one to sell again.

As we have said, we know that whatever work we do, we must do it well and quickly, so that we can beat our competitors. So, the trade people that work in buildings, they are looking for ways to improve their output; you see, a tradesman needs to perform well, if he is going to be employed from a builder or contractor, because he needs to earn his wage and a bit more for his employer. So, if you are a bricklayer you must be able of laying a certain number of bricks or blocks per day, before you can be employed gainfully, but this can vary greatly depending on the job that needs to be done.

Now, in our previous building articles we have talked about brickwork, we have started with, DIY brickwork,  then we have written  Building a brick base, and  House brick base continues, so, we have talked how to lay bricks in these three articles; anyhow, these three articles were written to show people, how to lay bricks and how to go about building this brick base. We have also pointed out how to lay more bricks by using bricklayers’ profiles and other things, but the aim was mostly for people that were not tradesmen. But what we are going to write here is more advanced, it is for tradesmen.  

Written for the block layer tradesman. 

Now, we are writing it this sub-article for the block-layer tradesmen, because we want the block-layer tradesmen to challenge themselves, to see if what we are claiming here can be done more than just a few times; of course, to do that, we are going to show you how you can lay more Besser blocks in one day than you did before, but you need to follow some rules that we have found helpful ourselves. In this example we are going to make it easy and we are going to talk only about straight forward work, otherwise it is going to be very hard to achieve and also to explain or measure what we want to do.

You know, for the bricklayer to lay blocks is even harder than laying bricks, because the blocks are heavy, each block needs to be lifted with both hands and carefully placed softly on the mortar bed that the block layer has laid, so, it is hard to lay many blocks in one day, but there are ways to make it a bit easier and a block layer could lay up to 250 in one day, when the job is easy enough to do; so, let us see how that can be achieved.

Now it is necessary to explain to the public, what happens in the building industry and how many bricks or blocks a tradesman is supposed to lay in one day. In the building industry the best tradesman will exaggerate a bit their capacity of laying so many bricks or blocks per day, so, we go around boasting that we are able to lay 1000 common bricks, or 500 face bricks, or 200 eight inches Besser blocks in a single day.

Here we need to say that perhaps we have done it once or twice ourselves, and we want to boast about it, as if we can do it every day; but really that is hard to achieve, anyhow, if you have been able of laying down that many bricks or block even one time in your life, you are a good tradesman. But the reality is that on average, when we work on houses or small building at the end of a job the figure can be half of what we are boasting about. Now that we have explained that let us see how we can do better. 

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Laying 250 Besser blocks in one day. 

Now, let us explain how a block-layer can lay up to 250 eight inches blocks in one day. For a block layer to be able of laying 250 blocks in one day, everything and every movement should be planed, so that there is no waste of time and energies. So, how we can achieve that, is explained here under. 

Now, to lay 250 Besser blocks in one day, it must be a straight forward job, let us say the walls are long and you are on a level platform, let us assume that we are working on a concrete slab, so, the place is level and there is plenty of room to move around, the walls have been marked where they should be, so, all you have to do is to lay these eight inches’ blocks. Now to do this job efficiently it required teamwork, so, if you are the block layer, you need to instruct your labour how you want to set up your mortar board and the blocks that you must lay.

Ideally you want the mortar boards to be set off the ground, so, the labour should put a couple of blocks on the slab and set the mortar board on them, they need to be set at least two feet from the wall and about 6 to 8 feet apart, you see here you want to give more room to the labour for the blocks; then instruct you labour that when he brings the blocks he should set the blocks between the mortar boards standing up, so that you don’t have to handle the blocks many times; this is how the labour should set everything up. Now let us talk about how you proceed to lay those 250 blocks, in one day.

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Describing the block layer procedure. 

The block layer first of all lays one block in each corner; and then he stretches his bricklayer line between these two blocks and lays the first course of blocks as usual making sure that all blocks are straight and have an even vertical joint, if everything is done the correct way, because the blocks have been made to cover 400 mm each in the wall, but their true length is 390 mm, if you measure the wall it should be an even number divisible by 100 mm and minus 10 mm. So, if a wall is 10 metre long and you follow this rule strictly, you will end up with a wall 9.990 meters long, of course this could easily be adjusted from the block layer by making a few joints bigger or smaller as required.

The reason why, we have written about these lengths above, is that we want to point out to people that want to lay blocks themselves, how to work with blocks, so, let us explain it in another way: when we work with blocks it is a lot easier for us to follow the gauge, because they have been made to cover an even number when laid, so, a 200 series block is 390 mm long 190 mm wide and 190 mm high, but when laid in the wall because we have to add the mortar joint it covers 400 mm in length and 200 mm high, so, this is the gauge that needs to be kept, of course sometimes the length in the building do not work with the length of the blocks and this may cause a few problems; but whatever problems there are, it is advisable that you don’t try too hard to adjust it by making the joints too big or too small; you can try to make the bed and vertical joint smaller if possible and it is still going to be a good job done, but if you try to make them bigger it becomes unsightly.  

Anyhow, now we need to write how a tradesman block layer can lay 250 blocks in one day, in order to lay that many blocks he must set everything the right way from the start, so, let us describe how that can be achieved. We have mentioned above a wall ten meters long, but it can be any length, but not short, and you can use the following method. After laying the first course of blocks you build the two corners, say four blocks high and you set your bricklayer line on these corners. Now make sure that your labour has brought the blocks and placed them between the mortar boards standing up us we have described above, this will save you the bricklayer to lift the blocks in that position before you place the mortar on them for the vertical joints.

Okay, everything is ready to go, tell the labour that he can wet the boards and fill them with fresh mortar; now pick up a plaster hawk and your bricklayer trowel, fill up the hawk from the mortar board and start laying the mortar on the block ribs on both sides, you see the blocks ribs are narrow and you cannot use a full trowel of mortar straight from the board, well you can but it is going to be hard to drop the right amount of mortar on the ribs, so, by using the hawk you can pick up a small amount of mortar from it and place is straight on the block ribs, by doing this you will be able to lay your mortar bed a lot faster without bending to many times, so, you can save time and energy, it is up to you if you lay the mortar bed for the entire course, or only part of it, it may depend on the length of the wall and other factor, and a good bricklayer knows what to do just by observing a few things; now that you have laid the mortar bed place some mortar for the vertical joint on the blocks that are already standing up, then leave your hawk and trowel on the mortar board; you see you have to leave these tools there because you need both hands free to lift up the blocks, here you have a choice, you can lift just one block carefully lay it on the mortar without squashing it  and tap it into position with your trowel and when necessary even a hammer, now you can lift one block at a time and tap it into position, or a few blocks and then tap them into position, it is up to you whichever way you prefer.

Anyhow, what we have written above is how you can lay more blocks with less effort, in a day, it is worth to try, as we have tried it and it works. I hope that I have been able to explain this procedure clear enough for our readers, or any tradesman to follow.

That is all in this article. See you in our next article, D.I.W. house repairs. 

To see more click on this link, Bricklaying is competitive. 

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Mix your own cement patr two.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story.

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; https://sites.google.com/site/menfrancoreconciliation/  

Farming today compared to the old way, My life my struggles, 

Hub Pages, DIY brickwork. and this article at this link, Mix your own cement. 

There are many types cement deposited in this shed, there are ready to mix bags where all you need to to is to add water, but the most important supply for trades people is the plain Portland cement bags that can be used with many different materials

Welcome to our article, , Mix your own cement, part two

 

, Mix your own cement. 

Mixing mortar, plaster, or cement topping. 

In our previous blog, we have described how to mix concrete by hand and by using a mixer, the same ways can be used to mix mortar and/or hard plaster or cement topping etc. So now, we do not need to explain step by step how to mix them, but we will describe only the different amount of things that are used; but try to remember that when you mix by hand, it is a lot easier to mix the dry materials first and then add water, but when you use the mixer it usually is better and quicker to start with the water first.

To mix mortar for the bricklayer.

Just by using brickies loams and Portland cement, this mixture by volume is most likely 4 part brickies loams to one part Portland cement, but it could vary from (3 to 1) to (6 to 1) the aim here is to give the bricklayers what is easy to work with, and at the same time you don’t want to make the mortar a lot stronger than the bricks when it dries, and you don’t want to make it too weak for the job you are doing, so, it makes sense to see what the bricklayer reckons is good enough for the job; sometimes when making mortar you can replace part of the Portland cement with hydrated lime, plus other things to make the mortar easy to work with.

Mortar for cement blocks

The mortar for cement block is usually three parts fine plaster sand and one-part cement, it is a bit different from the brickie’s loams, as it is thicker and stronger and very close to the block’s colours when dry.   

To mix cement plaster to plaster walls.

This mixture is usually 3 parts plaster sand and 1 part Portland cement, in some countries where lime is easier to have than cement it can be made by using a mixture of lime and cement for the interior, we believe that there are a lot of old places that they have used lime only, the cement mixture is used wherever it is too wet.

Cement topping.

This mixture is usually 3 parts river sand to 1 part Portland cement; it can be used straight on the cement if it is still green, but when the cement is dry you need to make sure it is clean and rough for the cement to bond, you may have to use tools to indent the existing concrete, then you have to wet the cement and also you may need to use some cement bounding agent and/or paint to concrete with this cement glue called Weldbond or  Bondcrete or whatever and place the topping cement according to the instruction supplied, if these concrete glues are not available, you have to wet the concrete that you have to lay the topping on, then make some slur of water and cement and somehow work it in with a brush as if you paint the concrete, and before this starts drying lay your topping on it. 

These three mixtures plus the concrete are the main things that are required when we build with cement, of course, for those people that do not know how the different materials look like, is still hard to understand the hole procedure, but if they read a few times what we have said, they should have a fair idea of what we are talking about. Anyhow, I have described several things already, but I think that I need to describe how to mix mortar with lime only, as it was done in the old days and here I am not talking just hydrated lime that you can buy at the hardware store, but I am talking about quick-lime as it comes from the kiln and slacked lime. 

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Lime use in building. 

Quick-Lime and slacked or hydrated lime

Today when we talk about lime, we see a bag of white powder that we buy at the hardware store, we know that we can use this powder to replace some cement when we make mortar, but we don’t know much more than that, But lime is a lot more than just a white powder in a bag, because lime is one of those materials that has been and is being used a lot in many ways, its’ largest use is in making mortar for the master builders, but it has other uses also. So, let us talk about lime and where it comes from, so that we can understand things about lime and its several uses, of course, here we are mainly interested about its use in the building industry for making mortar etc. But there is more to say about lime, but before we do that let us check out how the Wikipedia explains quick lime etc. Where you can find a lot of information about lime if you care to know, click on the links.

Slaked or Hydrated Lime

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From the Wikipedia:

   Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely usedchemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term "lime" connotes calcium-containing inorganic materials, which include carbonates, oxides and hydroxides of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, and iron predominate, such as limestone. By contrast, "quicklime" specifically applies to a single chemical compound.

Quicklime is relatively inexpensive. Both it and a chemical derivative (calcium hydroxide) are important commodity chemicals.

   Calcium oxide is usually made by the thermal decomposition of materials such aslimestone, that contain calcium carbonate (CaCO₃; mineral calcite) in a lime kiln. This is accomplished by heating the material to above 825 °C (1,517 °F),^[5] a process calledcalcination or lime-burning, to liberate a molecule of carbon dioxide (CO₂); leaving quicklime. The quicklime is not stable and, when cooled, will spontaneously react with CO₂ from the air until, after enough time, it will be completely converted back to calcium carbonate.

Annual worldwide production of quicklime is around 283 million metric tons. China is by far the world's largest producer, with a total of around 170 million metric tons per year. The United States is the next largest, with around 20 million metric tons per year.^[6]

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As we have said, lime has been used for a very long time its use could be prehistoric, nobody seems to know when it was first used in making mortar and plaster for buildings and for other things, it was/is used even to disinfect places, when there is no much else to use, and I know that there is a lot more to say about the use of lime even today; up to the time when I was young it was used even to whitewash the walls in spring once a year, after a long winter all the walls were darkened with smoke, because if you wanted to keep warm you needed to light a fire in the chimney, so, the smoke of the fire would find the way into the rooms instead of going all up the chimney, I am pretty sure that even today this is the cheapest way of cleaning rustic building, as, it is one of the cheapest ways to make everything clean. But let us tell you it’s use as a building material to make mortar.

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From quick lime to hydrated lime. 

From quick lime to slacked lime the old ways

Here we are talking about the late forties and early fifties, when I was young learning what was happening around me, so, hereunder we will be writing about what I saw and learned at that time about lime products and its uses. 

In the town where I come from in southern Italy; in the early fifties when there was a new building to be build or alterations to existing buildings to be done, one of the first things we would see was that the master builder would get ready a good supply of slacked lime, because this was one of the most important building materials, he needed to do the job. In those times bagged hydrated lime and cement was very expensive, and bagged cement has a short life shelving span, as it reacts when humidity infiltrate the bags, therefore, most people or builders that needed to build used lime wherever they could; they would buy quick lime and get it process immediately on delivery themselves or with the help of the people that delivered it, of course, one needs to know how to do that, because it is dangerous while you are doing it. Now, let us see how it was done, and then we will tell you where else the lime was used.

Anyhow, the master builder before delivery had to build a square wall like a box, and in this large box he would process the quick lime, because the quick lime cannot be held the way it is for any length of time, because it reacts to humidity and violently to water, so, it is necessary that it is turned into slacked lime as soon as possible after delivery.

 Okay, the cart or the lorry is on the way, so, the master builder gets his worker to start filling the pit with water, and when the quick lime arrives they start carefully throwing this burned lime stones into the pit in very small quantities, as soon as the quick lime comes in contact with the water it reacts and the water starts boiling, everybody is banned to approach the pit accept the people that must work there, and they ware some protective gear, because it is dangerous to handle quick-lime and around the pit, this process goes on until all the quick lime is thus treated, once they have done that it is left to cool down for a few days; after it has cooled down it is a lot less dangerous, but still you need to be careful near the lime pit. You see, the lime pit is now filled up with slacked lime, which looks like curd when you make cheese, but it is still dangerous and it can easily kill you if you fall in it, its contend must be handled with caution, but anyhow the slacked lime is now ready to be used, this is how the builders used to get ready the lime to make mortar. Now to use this lime to make mortar is different from using bagged hydrated lime or cement; so, we are going to tell you how to make mortar with slacked lime.

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How to make mortar with slacked lime. 

This is how I know it was done in the old time, perhaps for thousands of years, anyhow, let me describe the procedure. Let us suppose that you have the slacked lime in the pit or in a container; you have brickies loams or fine sand, so, let us start:

Start by making a hip of your sand on a platform; now that you have done that, make a well in the centre and place your slacked lime in it. The quantities in here may vary a lot more than when we use cement or hydrated bagged lime, because the slacked lime can be as liquid as thickened cream to as compact as feta cheese, so, you have to learn as you go about the quantities, but if you have mixed mortar before, you soon work it out yourself, or if there is any tradesman that is going to use the mortar he can tell you just by looking at the mortar being done, whether you need more lime or more sand and water etc.

Okay, now that you have the lime in the middle of the sand, with a Larry start pushing this devise up and down through the lime by adding a bit of water as needed and slowly mixing some sand with the lime; you need to do this until you have mixed the whole lot evenly. This is hard work but that is how it was done when there were no mixer and no bagged hydrated lime around.

Here we need to note that this mixing of slacked lime to mix mortar is completely different from mixing other mixture, because the slacked lime is already wet, and it is like a paste.

Now, let me talk about, lime use in farming.

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Lime use in farming. 

You know, lime is a very useful commodity, in fact they are countless places where we can use it, I only happen to know a few of them, so, let me say a few things about how we were using lime in our small family farm at the time when I was young, just the way I remember it:

We would use it like the builders use it when we had to repair or replace a few stone that were falling apart in the old stone building, so, instead of using clay like the first time, we would mix a small quantity of mortar using lime and sand; then, we used lime to whitewash the farm house, the stables, the pig stay, the chicken coop and sheds or other buildings near the farm house once a year in spring.

We could use it to disinfect stagnant water ponds that showed signs of vermin, or the water were too dirty, so, we would dilute some lime in water and then pour it in the water ponds, and next day the ponds would be clean, as the lime would kill the vermin and would make the water clear because all the dirt would sink to the bottom of the pond; you see, in our small farm we used to have a kitchen garden, so, we would dig up a few ponds beside the garden that would feel up with water during winter or when it rained, we used this water to water the plants when the soil was becoming too dry for the garden plants to grow.

In the farms of those days lime was also used to spray vines and trees, sometimes there were diseases that could be controlled by applying a coat of lime to the trunk of those trees; but there is one thing that always comes to my mind; it is when we were spraying the grape vines with a copper sulphate and lime, we would have two containers one with diluted copper sulphate and one with diluted lime, some people used to spray first with copper sulphate and then with lime, so that they would help each other to kill the mildew, but my grandma had worked a way how to avoid this double spraying and it worked thus;

In those times it was not like today and even the vine spraying pump was a devise that you would put on your back, and with a handle that you moved up and down you would spray your vines and trees as well; this devise could hold about three gallons of liquid, so, every now and then you needed to fill it up; as I have said we had two containers one holding diluted copper sulphate and one with diluted lime; (of course you had to know how much diluted you had to do your mixtures but that does not mutter here this time) anyhow, when the pump was/is empty you would go to these containers to fill it up: here is my grandma way to avoid to spray twice, when filling the pump, first of all you had to make sure than the mixture were well stirred, then you would put the copper sulphate in the pump and at the last minute you would add the lime, and immediately start to spray. This was my grandma way and it worked because the mixture would not have time to settle down and become stale. There you are this is just another way of how lime is useful in the farms.

Anyhow, I think that this article is too long, and I have said enough about how to mix your own cement or mortar, about lime and lime use in farming, so, see you next time with our article, Bricklaying is competitive. 

To see more click on this link, , Mix your own cement. 

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