Learn DIY brickwork.

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, DIY brickwork. 

  A bricklayer laying bricks on a single wall in stretcher bond. Note how the mortar has been spread and treammed back and how he lays his bricks following his line. You can also note the position of the mortar board and the bricks, they have nees set like that, for the bricklayer to reach them easily. 

Welcome to our article, DIY brickwork. 

Dear readers, the original article of D.I.Y. brickwork is a long article; so, we are going to divide it up make, a few blogs, if you want to read it in the original form, click on the link above. Anyhow, I am writing this article ‘DIY brickwork’, because I am a bricklayer by trade, so, I want to share my knowledge with you.

I believe that even today, there are things that we must do ourselves, or employ qualified trades people to do the work. So, building knowledge can be helpful, for people that want to build something themselves.

So, we are writing this article of, DIY brickwork, to help people that want to do some building work. In this article, we are describing how to lay bricks and other building works. I know that people can appreciate this for different reasons, and most times could be just to save money.

But, to do any building work, whether is just repairs, or build a small something, or build a house, we must at least know in theory what needs to be done, unless we are tradesmen and knows what to do. So, it is wise to read articles about build. So, in this article we are going to write what we think can be helpful and paste articles that we think are helpful to learn how to build or repair things. 

But I want to point out that it is not possible to teach people to be a bricklayer just by reading a single article about bricklaying. For people that want to lay bricks, the best thing for them is to observe the bricklayers on the job, this is the quickest way to learn. However, even by observing how it is done, it will take a long time to learn bricklaying, in fact, it takes years to become a bricklayer but don’t be discouraged about that, because this article can help you, you see, you can learn enough to do what you want to do. Now, let me explain.

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Explaining my position and what we write  

Now let me explain, you should keep in mind that this ‘DIY brickwork’ article, is part of my life story, and I am writing this article ‘DIY brickwork’, since I am a bricklayer. I am partly retired now from building, so, I have been thinking that leaving behind my life building knowledge would be a waste; so, I want to share my building knowledge, and for this reason I am writing this article DIY brickwork; where we want to show you how to build with bricks, since we want to tell you how bricklaying is done, I have thought that it would be good to tell you how to build a brick base for houses step by step for a start.

So, dear readers please note that this article here is the first article about building with bricks, it will be followed by several other building articles, where we share our bricklaying and building knowledge with you; because then I feel that I have contributed in a small way to the community by sharing what I have learned during my life; in the hope that this can help somebody that wants to do some brickwork.

As we know, we are born with the capacity to learn things; so, we believe that most people can do building work themselves, if they are shown how it is done. Therefore, in these articles we will talk about the following activities: (1) How to build with bricks; (2) Building a brick base for houses. (3) Bricklayer laying bricks. (4) Getting ready to lay bricks. (5) Making sure we start the brickwork level; (6) Laying bricks on a sloping site; these are the main items that we are talking about in this article and the following articles. Of course, there is more to say about bricklaying, so, we are continuing with ‘DIY brickwork’ in our next article; Building a brick base, and we will continue to write about brickwork until we complete the brick base at least, even if we must write several articles about brickwork.

 

Building with bricks and other things. 

Dear readers, I believe that it is the duty of any human being to help humanity to improve their standard of living, as we have written in this website www.frankmenchise.com. So, let me pass to my readers some of my hard-learned knowledge, starting with how a bricklayer would build a house brick base.

But because it is hard to visualize some aspect of the bricklaying trade just by describing them, we are going to use some visual links from the internet to show you a few things about bricklaying, so, it is easier to follow, how to build this house brick base, I know that these are not my videos, but you see, ones you publish anything on the Internet those things are supposed to be shared from the rest of the community, at the same time whoever has published them can still claim to be the owner.

How to Learn the Basics of Bricklaying - YouTube

This link above is for people that don't know much how you lay bricks, however it is a starting point, of course there are things that a real bricklayer would not do, but there are also very useful hints for a beginner.  

How to Bricklaying Tips and Techniques DIY - YouTube 

This link above shows you other things and if you can use this together with what you have learned from the other links, you are on the way of learning how to lay bricks. 

How To Lay Bricks Like A Bricklayer - YouTube 

This link above shows you how a real bricklayer would finish his face brick wall, of course even here you cannot learn everything, and so if you are not a bricklayer, you need to visit most of other links here.

Now that we have pasted some of these helpful links here and we are pasting another one below in this article, let us continue how to build a brick base for houses. 

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For want of a better photo to show a normal house brick base, we are replacing it with this small brick base photo, just to give you the right idea what we are talking about. Anyhow, you can use your imagination to fit it to whatever you want to build. Now allow me to explain it in writing. 

Build a brick base for houses

To learn something, we need to observe how it is done; so, we are going to show you how a house brick base is built. I know that I cannot teach you how to lay bricks from scratch for an entire house base. But let us write, how a bricklayer would build a new house brick base.

Anyhow, as I said I am going to write so many details here, that it is like teaching somebody how to lay bricks, so, I am calling this DIY brickwork. Anyhow, for the following to make sense, we need to go back to our previous article House building in Brisbane, to see what we were doing on the building sites, when we were building a new house and we had reached the point where we were ready for the bricklayer to start laying bricks for this house brick base. 

Now what is going to follow here is how we bricklayers lay these bricks; here I am speaking with the knowledge of a bricklayer, and I may add that what I am writing here can also apply to other brickwork, because bricklaying is a repetitive job and once you have acquired the skills how to do one job, you can easily use this knowledge to do a different job.

So, now that I have explained myself, let me take you step by step how the bricklayers work, when building these brick bases for houses, so that, if you have in mind to do some bricklaying work yourself, you have some ideas of what you need to know. You need this basic knowledge because once you have laid the bricks and the mortar becomes hard it is a very hard and costly to fix it. I have to say also that it is easy to make mistakes here, unless you are an expert and really know what you are doing. So, let us follow how a professional bricklayer would start the house base, because there are a lot of things that must be kept in mind, before you even start laying the first brick.

The most important thing is that you start laying the first brick in the right spot, and this should be done at the lowest point of the foundation, otherwise you could encounter real problems later; so, how we bricklayers go about to achieve that you may ask?

Okay, here we should assume that some of our reader may not know anything about bricklaying, so, it is wise if we can describe to you, how a bricklayer lays bricks and then we will proceed to build the house brick base.

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How a bricklayer lays bricks.

Therefore, let us describe briefly how the bricklayer lays bricks, so that those that have never seen it done before, can have some idea how it is done. Let us explain this first, most of us are right handed by nature, but a few of us are left handed; now let us assume that the bricklayer we are going to talk about is right handed, so, he holds his trowel in his right hand and picks the bricks with his left hand; now let us go back to our last article House building in Brisbane, there we were getting everything ready for the bricklayers to lay bricks; so, we had set near the foundations, a combo-board and a stack of bricks and then again a combo-board and a stack of bricks and so on.

Now that you have this picture of the setup, you can see when the bricklayer lays bricks, first he spreads his mortar bed on the bricks, by picking up a trowel full of mortar and while he tips his trowel to let the mortar fall on the bricks he pulls back his harm towards his elbow, so that a long spread is achieved, if he likes to spread a longer bed then he picks a few more trowel full of mortar and spreads it, then he fix this mortar with his trowel more evenly, and at the end he uses the tip of the trowel to split his mortar and collects the extra mortar on both sides, then he picks up a brick with his left hand and at the same time he picks up a bit of mortar on the tip of his trowel, while he turns toward the wall he sticks to the head of this brick the mortar that he picked up and now he can lay his brick, these are the main things that we can describe here, and it would be hard to say more, unless you can see how it is done, so, I have found a bit of a video from YouTube to show you.

Here are a few videos from YouTube to show you how some bricklaying is done.

The Art of Laying Brick - YouTube

Images for bricklaying

These two links above would be very helpful if they work, because one shows a bricklayer laying brick and explaining how it is done step by step; the other link shows photos of many types of brick walls already built, many types of bonds and also brick walls while they are being built, let us hope that these links works for you, if they don’t try to copy them in Google search bar and use Google engine to find them.

We also strongly advise that if you really want to do a bricklaying job yourself, you must practice how to lay bricks before you start, most people find that it is harder than it looks and also think about it, practice make perfect.

Now that we have explained how the bricklayer lays bricks, you need to learn about important tools that the bricklayer uses, and we are going to talk about how to use and check the spirit level and make sure that it is okay. 

We also strongly advise that if you really want to do a bricklaying job yourself, you must practice how to lay bricks before you start, most people find that it is harder than it looks and also think about it, practice make perfect. Anyhow, hereunder we are pasting more link again hoping they can help you. 

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How to Learn the Basics of Bricklaying - YouTube

This link above is for people that don't know much how you lay bricks, however it is a starting point, of course there are things that a real bricklayer would not do, but there are also very useful hints for a beginner.  

How to Bricklaying Tips and Techniques DIY - YouTube 

This link above shows you other things and if you can use this together with what you have learned from the other links, you are on the way of learning how to lay bricks. 

How To Lay Bricks Like A Bricklayer - YouTube 

This link above shows you how a real bricklayer would finish his face brick wall, of course even here you cannot learn everything, and so if you are not a bricklayer, you need to visit most of other links here.

Now that we have pasted some of these helpful links here and we are pasting another one below in this article, let us continue how to build a brick base for houses. 

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A good quality spirit level in necessary to do a good job, as I have already said, bricks must be laid level and plumb and this is what you can do with a good level, the most used bricklayers level is 1.2 m long

Bricklayers must have a good quality trowel to lay bricks, it is the only way to work efficiently, you see a bricklayer not only lays bricks with his trowel, he sometimes cuts bricks with the trowel, so, it needs to be of good quality. 

All brickwork must be built level and exactly vertical, so the spirit level, is a must have tool for bricklayers. 

Now that we have explained how the bricklayer lays bricks, you need to learn about important tools that the bricklayer uses, and we are going to talk about how to use and check the spirit level and make sure that it is okay. Anyhow, at this point of time, I believe that I have said enough in this blog, so, see you in our next blog, Explaining levels and the spirit level, D.I.Y brickwork part 2 

To see more click on this link, DIY brickwork. 

See you next time, in part 2.

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House building in Brisbane.

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, House building in Brisbane. 

This is how stand alone affordable houses were built in the sixties, they had verandas all around because of the hot climate. This house above is built an a brick base and stumps, it still had all the same fetures of the old timber house on wooden stumps, but it had also some living space under the house. 

Welcome to my article, House building in Brisbane. 

Dear readers, what we are writing in this blog, is about house building in Brisbane in the sixties, today they may be build in a different way, but we stil build them. Anyhow, we must build houses to live in them, so, in this article we are talking about that, because this is what I did when I came to Australia; so, we are talk about house building in Brisbane in the sixties. I know that today building houses can be different from then, but not very much. Anyhow, we are going to talk about house brick bases, and working as a brickies labour.

House building in Brisbane in the sixties, was and is different from the old continent of Europe, because over there most houses are made of masonry, timber over there is more expensive than in Australia, and because of the colder climate. You see, thick walls of masonry absorb the heat during summer and act as storage of this heat by releasing it slowly during the colder months.  Anyhow, houses over there are built mostly from masons’ bricklayer and concreters, and the carpenters play a smaller part than they do in Australia.

Therefore, when we the European migrants came to Australia in the sixties, we thought this is strange to live in timber houses, and we were surprised to see that the carpenter played the role of builders, when houses were being built, because in the sixties most houses were made of timber, we are saying this to compare houses building, between the old continent and Australia in those times. Now we are not saying that this was good or bad practice, since we soon accepted the way of life we found, and we thought there must be a good reason for it.

So, we all did what we had to do in whatever employment we found, and those of us who ended up working in the building industry, we did what we were told to do. But as we know, everything changes with time. As we will see later, when building houses with timber will change even here. Now that we have made this comparison, let us go back to what I was doing myself in helping to build these houses. Therefore, let us talk about how most houses were being built by teams of workers, because that is how we were building houses in Southeast Queensland in the sixties.

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House building in Brisbane in the sixties. 

In the sixties and seventies, most houses building were done from teams of subcontractors, who had their own team of building workers, even if they were only a small team of two or three people, like the team I was working with, which had two tradesman and one labour (myself).  Now let me go over briefly what sort of teams were there; first there were the concreters and bricklayers. When building small houses that did not have a lot to do with these trades, concrete and brickwork could be done from the same team; then there was the carpenter team, then the roof, the electrician and the plumber and the plasters. The work of the builder, which most times was the leading carpenter, because he had the largest job; not only he was building the timber frame of the house, but had to organise all the teams in a way that was appropriate, so that they were not in each other way while they were working, and finally do all the finishing work required.

In those times to be a builder of these standalone houses on an approved block of land was easy, as long as you were a building tradesman and had building knowledge and had the money to build them, you had this opportunity to build one of these houses, of course there were local authority inspections to be had while we were building, but if you knew what you were doing it was easy to pass. So, there were many house builders around that would hire teams of building workers as we were.

I need to say that the building industry in Australia is one of the main driving forces of the economy, since it employs lots of people that are willing to do hard physical work to earn their living, you see you don’t need to be a learned person to work on the building, all you need is common knowledge of things and enough English to understand what is wanted from you, if you know what you are doing; or you work with people that speak your native language and they explain to you what you need to do, but you had to work hard to keep this job.

I believe that in the sixties and seventies there were good opportunities to work on building houses, because the price of the houses was more affordable than they are today. Just looking back at those prices, we can say that one of those cheaper houses would be worth about four time the average wage of a person working full time for a year, so, most people could afford them; therefore, those builders that were building them were able to sell their houses at a decent profit that would enable them to build other houses.

As we know things changes with the passing of time, as we have said, in the beginning houses in Brisbane were mostly made of timber, and they were set on timber stumps, then in the sixties because the timber stumps would rot or they would be attacked by white ants they gave way to concrete stumps, and some brick walls under the house. Then from just a brick wall in front of the house they changed to a full brick base and concrete stumps or steel posts, then came the era of the brick veneer and finally concrete and cavity bricks. Today, I must point out that building apartments is different from the sixties, they are mostly made of reinforced concrete. 

Now that we have said a few things about the history of house building in Brisbane, let us talk about my contribution in the building industry and what I did during the earlier part of working building houses. If I remember right in my last article, I was talking about how we were concreting the stumps for a new house, and we had laid the foundations for brickwork, therefore, let us talk about the brickwork that we had to do, to build a brick base under the house.

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 Brick base under timber houses. 

As we have said, there were many types of houses being built in the sixties, some of them had a brick base, or the front wall under the house built in bricks. So, this was another job that we did with our small team of bricklayer and concrete workers.

In order to be efficient and competitive a small team that lays bricks needs to be made of two bricklayers and a labour, of course larger teams can work well with a different number of people, anyhow this is what was like then and our team had two bricklayer and a labour as myself.

Now that I have explained that, let us start working, so that I can describe how things work out, who does what, and how it should be done. It is the bricklayers’ foreman that decides from where to start. But if he is not there, then it is up to whoever is there to start getting ready where the bricklayers must start. This is not hard to know because to lay bricks you must start from the lowest part of the foundation, So, when I was working as a bricklayer labour, I would get ready the bricks and the combo-boards, at the lowest point of the foundation, so, when the bricklayers had to start, all I had to do, was to give them fresh mixed mortar on these combo-boards, and then continue to supply them with brick and mortar as required.

Here I should say, that it is hard work for the bricklayer-labour and for the bricklayers, because at the end of the day one has to handle so many bricks, since in a day a bricklayer on a normal wall is supposed to lay on average 400 to 500 face bricks, or up to a thousand common bricks, of course this is wishful thinking and most times we didn’t, but we had to try to get there; this is how the bricklayers’ team works. Now let me break it down and describe what the labour does, and then what the bricklayers have to do; I know all this because later I became and worked as a bricklayer for decades myself, but now let us talk about what the bricklayers’ labour does.

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What you do, when you are working as a brickies labour.

The brickies labour job is hard work, it is also a semiskilled work, since he has got to know how to make mortar and to supply mortar and bricks to the bricklayer at the right time in the right place. It is obvious that he must have at his disposition a mixer to mix mortar and wheelbarrows, other small devises to help him achieve that.

Here I need to point out that to start a new job it is very hard, as the ground on the site is not flat and there are hips of dirt around the foundations where the brick or block walls are going to be built, so, the labour needs first to flatten the ground a bit, so that the mortar boards and the bricks can be positioned at the right distance from the foundation, this is about 60 centimetre plus from the walls that are being built, so that the bricklayers have enough room to move and at the same time they can reach the bricks and the mortar-boards without walking; in order to achieve that there needs to be one mortar boards and then one stack of bricks, and again one mortar board and another stack of brick, and so on for the whole length of the wall being built. Now that we have made it ready, the bricklayers are going to start to lay bricks, let me prepare the mortar, which some people may call cement or combo.

Preparing or mixing the mortar

There are rules to follow how to mix good mortar, so, one must keep in mind first what sort of material is available and can be delivered on the local site, because quantity and quality may vary with the locality. Anyhow, let us assume that for this job a load of brickies loam has been delivered on the site; in this case this brickies loam has some lumps in it, so, it needs to be screened before or after mixing the mortar, as I have screened it, I am ready to mix it now.

So, I start the mixer and put in clean water, and a small measure of mortar mix (this is a chemical that helps the mortar to be more workable) then I put in say a shovel full of Portland cement and four shovels full of brickies loam, this is how we usually mix mortar to lay bricks, it is one part of cement to four parts of loam by volume, therefore, for bigger batches you can have say; three shovels full of cement and twelve shovelful of loam and so on. Of course, these quantities can vary, if for instance it is written in the specifications that the mortar must be made with different amounts of materials.

Anyhow, let me go back to this batch of mortar that I have mixed to the right consistency; Now, I take the wheelbarrow near the mixer and tip the mortar in the wheelbarrow, and then take the wheelbarrow with the mortar near the mortar boards, here I wet the mortarboards before I place the mortar on them and finally I am ready for the bricklayers to get started. From now on I must make sure that the bricklayers have always enough mortar and bricks, otherwise they will we shouting at me Bricks! Or combo! (Or mortar!)

Dear readers, if I have missed a few things you have to use your own common sense to get everything going the right way, you see, most things on the building site is plain common sense.

I believe that I have said enough in this article, although there is a lot more to be said, how the bricklayers are going to lay bricks for this brick base. But I am going to leave it for next article, which we are going to call, DIY brickwork, there I will try to explain it in as many details as I can, how to build a house brick base. In fact, we are going to write a group of articles about bricklaying and other building trades; I hope that I can line them up in such a way that they make sense, and it is easy to follow. Anyhow, see you soon in our next article, DIY brickwork 

To see more click on this link, House building in Brisbane. 

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Australia affordable houses.

 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, 

To see more, DIY brickwork. and this article at this link,  Australia affordable houses. 

We need houses to live in, so, there are all sort of house being built continually, but we can only live in houses we can afford, not many people can afford large beautiful house, therefore, because small houses would be more affordable than large ones and attract more buyers, that is the reason why there are builders that build small affordable houses. 

Welcome to my article,  Australia affordable houses. 

When I came to Australia,  I was working building these affordable houses. In those times, new affordable houses were built on the fringe of the city in new suburbs, which is the same as today, if you want a new affordable house, you must look for it, in the new suburbs. 

As we know, houses are not all the same, because houses come in a variety of styles and sizes. Of course, we want to live in the best houses available, but most of us cannot afford expensive houses, therefore, we should be happy to live in any house that we can afford to buy or rent.

For this reason of affordability, to satisfy the house supply market, there are several types of house that are being built at any given time. In this article, we are going to talk about the type of houses that I ended up working on, in the early sixties. Because this article is meant to cover the story of my life, and what I did for a living.

In the early sixties, I ended up working on average houses that the working class could afford to buy, or at least the aim of the builders that were building them, was based in this affordability, since they had designed them with this purpose, because in the end, even though they had been built cheap not all of us workers would afford to buy these types of houses. But anyhow this was the purpose of building these types of affordable houses in the early sixties.

Now let us try to describe how we were building these houses from scratch.

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Building houses from scratch.  

Anyhow, I am writing these article about building houses from scratch, because I believe that knowing how houses are built is useful to know, since knowing a few things about building houses comes handy at times; you see, we live in houses, therefore, we want to know as much as we can about them. Because we need to know how to do it yourself repairs and other things, since houses need to be maintained, if we want to enjoy them fully. So, I am going to describe how these houses were built, with as many details as I can, so that anyone interested can learn something useful from these building articles.

Now, I was working with this Italian builder, which was good for me because my native language is Italian. Now, with this builder not only we were re-stumping or building rooms under the existing houses, which required a lot of work to be done by hand, but we were building new houses from scratch. As I have said, at the beginning of the sixties most of the digging were done by hand, specially the type of work that we were doing on these new houses, as machines were expensive to hire then, So, they were used only, if there was a lot of digging to be done, and with the machines of those days we could only dig straight forward things and not small detailed digging, as they were required to build these houses, anyhow as I said, I did a lot of this digging work myself, as I was employed as builder labour, and this was one of the jobs that I had to do.

Therefore now, let us imagine that I have finished digging the foundation and these stump holes for this new house, and now, we need to lay concrete in the foundation, and to concrete the stumps foundation and the stumps themselves. So, let us go over what we had to do, because in those times these things were all done by hand and started from scratch.

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 Making your own concrete. 

Making your own concrete on site from scratch

Let me explain, what is meant by concrete in buildings and how it is made, because you may find that it is useful to know how to make your own concrete, so that you understand what is required and how and why it must be done in certain ways, you will find this information written in this article. Some people can say that today things are different, when we can buy concrete ready mixed by truckload, or in bags and all you need to do is to add water to make concrete. I say, okay, you can do that. But there are times and places, when you must do these things the old way.

Therefore, I believe that you still need to know how concrete is made from scratch, therefore, let me tell you how we were mixing our concrete in the sixties, and what is required to do that and how it is supposed to be done, if you want a good job done and the concrete to last a long time.

By the way, here we need to clarify one thing, what is meant by the word concrete, because most people replace it with the word cement. On building sites, the word concrete means the element mixed together able to harden to a solid consistency within a certain length of time, therefore, it has got to be done the right way.

One of the most important things while mixing concrete is that the concrete must be well mixed and to a workable consistency using the least amount of water possible, because if too much water is used then the concrete becomes weaker, therefore, it must be done properly.

Usually concreting and other jobs are done according to its specifications, you see, any firm that makes building plans, for a house or something of more importance, they must write also the specification how the job needs to be done. In these specifications it will be written what material to use, how to use it and the quantity and quality required. Therefore, to concrete a foundation for an average small house, the specification could state that the concrete must be mixed to a consistency at least 1 to 6; for people that know this it meant that to mix the concrete you should use 1 part of Portland cement 2 parts of river sand and 4 parts of gravel (aggregate) and mix it as required until an even consistency is achieved. For the stumps usually would be a bit more cement than the foundations. 

Now let us say that we are ready to start mixing the first batch of concrete. To make concrete you need at least four elements of materials plus clean water; 1 Portland cement, 2 washed river sand, 3 clean or washed gravel and 4 reinforcement steel rods, and it is helpful if you have a mixer if you have to mix a large amount of concrete, because to mix by hand is hard work and the concrete needs to be well mixed.

Now let us start the mixer and make the first batch, while the mixer is turning around, the very first thing you put in the mixer is water, one must be careful not to put too much water to start with, it has got to be just enough to mix everything to a certain consistency, so, let us say that we put 8 litres of water (the amount of water can be different, since it depends on the amount of water that is already in the (sand gravel) aggregate) then we put in the mixer cement, next is the river sand twice as much as the cement and then the clean gravel 4 time as much as the cement; here the mixer is going around and mixing everything together.

Please note, that if you change the way you put your materials in the mixer, from what I have described above, you may have different result, and usually it would take longer to mix everything properly and to the right consistency.

For people that do this job all the time it is easy for them to see if the concrete that is being mixed has the right consistency required, once you know this, if it is too dry just add a bit of water and if it is too wet you should add a bit of everything else. 

What I have written above applies only to house building of less importance, for building that are large and important the concrete needs to be to a very high standard and specifications, so, here again you need to know what is needed before you do anything.

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Concrete requires teamwork.  

To concrete well and do a fair amount of work you need a team, even if it is a small team. Our team was usually three of us, I as builder labour, John as bricklayer and Con the contractor who was a bricklayer and concreter. We didn’t mind if we switched around a bit to do the job. So, I was usually on the mixer mixing the concrete, one was with a wheelbarrow taking the concrete from the mixer to the foundations that we were concreting, and one was fixing the concrete in place.

Fixing the concrete for the foundation was physically the lightest job, when we were mixing the concrete with this mixer on site, but it is the most responsible job, because while concreting the foundations, you must make sure that the steel rods reinforcement was in the right position, at the same time you had to pack the concrete down and then the concrete in the foundations has to be finished level, this was easy when the ground was level, but when the ground was not level, it was necessary that steps were made and they had to be to gauge, which was equal to the thickness of one or two laid bricks or more, or the thickness of a laid block, if blocks were going to be used to build the walls on this foundation, whatever was going to be used to lay on the foundations, we had to try to make an adjustment while we were laying the foundations; therefore, this was the job for the experts, at that time it was not that hard, because mixing by hand even using a mixer was a slow job, so, the bloke that was fixing the concrete had enough time to do his job right.

What I have written above is how we used to lay small house foundations in the early sixties, which are the same as we lay foundations today, except that today we order concrete already mixed, but we have to be ready with everything and everything has got to be in the right place, because the concrete ready-mix truck will unload its concrete quickly, so, there is no time to do anything else except to fix the concrete at the right level as quickly as possible.

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Concreting stumps on site. 

Now let me go back again to the early sixties, when we were concreting these stumps on site, this procedure is not done much today, because the buildings have changed, and today short concrete stumps can be made in a concrete factory, and when cured can be delivered to the building site, where the worker can erect them as required.

To concrete these stumps on site we had steel forms of various length, and these forms were assembled together with steel pins, so, we would assemble these steel forms and then start to mix concrete, we had also to make sure that the stumps foundations were exactly in the right place by using the marked profiles and tight line between them.

In this case, it was an easy job for the fellow that is mixing concrete, but a lot harder for the blokes that had to pour the concrete in the stumps formwork and make sure that the stump was exactly in the right place and finished at the right height and were also plumb (perfect vertical position). It was also necessary that some reinforcing rods were placed in the right position with a purpose made devise. These are how we made those onsite stumps in the sixties.

These concrete stumps that we made in the sixties were better that the timber stumps that they were replacing, because it was an improvement as they did not rot with the passing of time and the white ants could not eat them. Here we can say that these concrete stumps on site were easy to make, if you knew the procedure, in fact it was easier to make a set of stumps than to fix concrete stumps made in the factory, as there is no heavy lifting involved.

I believe that we have said enough in this article, as we have explained the work that we did on these affordable houses, so, see you in our next article, House building in Brisbane

To see more click on this link, Australia affordable houses. 

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Australian housing industry.

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; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

To see more, DIY brickwork. and this article at this link,  Australian building industry.  

In Australia in the early sixties, they were still building timber houses, because they were cheaper to build, and there was good cheap timber available. A three bedroom house like this one above, was called the workers cottage, because workers could afford to buy it. So, they were sold quickly, and from the money the small builders got, could soon start to build another one. But even if it was  good busyness things slowly changed for the better, and better houses were built.   

Welcome to our article, Australian building industry. 

Dear readers, we are going to write about DIY brickwork and other building things, because we believe that it can help people that are willing to try DIY small building or repairs, but first let me explain how I acquired that knowledge myself.

When I came to Australia in the sixties, I ended up working in the building industry, we were working mainly on fixing old houses, or building new house from scratch, units and warehouses, so, I ended up learning how lots of building things were done, in the end I became a bricklayer, and have worked most of my life as a bricklayer.

Anyhow, in this article we are going to write about; the Australian housing industry in the sixties; Working in the Australian building industry; Earning and saving money if you can; and Working with this Italian builder.

We believe that the Australian housing and building industry, is one of the major employment industries in Australia, you can say that this is so in other countries. But I believe that in other countries building new houses is not as important as it is in Australia. One of the reasons for this is that Australia is a new country, it needs and takes in many emigrants. In the sixties Australia was taking emigrants in a regulated way, now because the population grows steadily also accommodation need to grow steadily, therefore, new houses need to be built to keep a steady balance. This building of new houses gives opportunities for the newcomers to be employed, since there is manual work involved, therefore, a healthy cycle is created; but even with these opportunities the building industry has its ups and down, as we know. So, let us talk about it and try to make sense, if we can.  

You know, the housing building industry and real estate work together to complete the cycle of supplying to the public what is needed, so, both have their ups and downs. It could have been helpful if one could foretell what is going to happen next year, on the housing market, but it is not possible to guess what is going to happen in the future. If people can know this, then they could make money, since they could invest their money at the right time. Now, for those buying a house and saving to buy a house. We are going to write another article later. 

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In the seventies, a lot of houses like this one above were built. Most of them were brick-veneer, this means that the main frame was still build with timber, but the exterior walls were made of bricks, so, there were a lot of different things happening. Later on, some of these house were made of bricks and concrete. Anyhow, let us look at what work we did then.   

Working in the building industry. 

When I came to Australia, I ended up working in the building industry. Now let me explain this working position, working on building in Australia is a temporary job, because even the employer is subject to the same opportunities of work and he cannot help it, therefore, one is never sure what is going to happen next, when the job you are working on is finished, therefore, there were concerns about our employment status, so, we kept asking ourselves, whether our employer would get another job to do, before we finished the one we were doing, but even though we were thinking that, we still worked hard to finish the job as soon as possible, because to find work you had to be competitive.

Well I should say that although this small Italian builder did lots of small jobs, it did work out all right most times, so, we were able to move from one job to another all-around Brisbane and to other close by towns. Of course, this would cause worries if you had no transport of your own and you had to rely on some friends or the employer to take you on the work site, where the building was going to be built, but we managed somehow.

I remember that there were times, when I had to get up early and catch the first tram to the city, and then I had to catch the second tram to another suburb, where the builder would pick me up and drive me to the onsite job, in the evening after eight hours or more of hard work, I had to go back home, which took again a long time, but anyhow we managed all right, after all we were here in Australia to earn money, so, as long as we had a job to go to and earn money, we were happy to do that. You see, on building sites workers can earn above other people wages, but there was this uncertainty because there was no guaranty that the work would last, and it also was hard work all day long.

Anyhow, it was a good job with good opportunities to learn and improve your knowledge of building something yourself. You see, in those times we could improve our working and earning position more easily than today; it was possible then because a lot of things were simple, and therefore, they could be done just by using your common sense. Of course, there were always inspections from local authorities to follow, but once you knew what it was required, they were easy to follow, if you used your brains diligently, therefore, we should say that we had more opportunities then compared to today opportunities. I believe that it was so, because the building we were building were small houses, so, if you were a tradesman, you most likely could be the builder as well.

Having said that, now let us see, how this type of work affected us newcomers moneywise.      

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Learning how to earn and save money. 

Whatever you do in life, the most important thing is; Earning and saving money. In my case, because there was uncertainty of not having a permanent job in the building industry, we soon learned that whatever money we earned from our job, we had to save some, otherwise we could have problems soon or later; so, this disadvantage that we had in this job pushed most of us building workers to become good at saving money, because we wanted to feel safe and independent.

So, let me talk about money. In Australia because the economy is based on capitalism the more money you can earn and save the better off you are; of course, this is also true to most other part of the world, but in Australia seems to be more so, because it is a new country, and people rely more on what they can earn than anywhere else in the world. This is because there are not existing reach families that live on the earnings of the properties that have been passed down from generation to generations. Therefore, in Australia is mostly up to yourself, if you want to get richer, you should try harder to earn and save money. You see, most of the people here, have earned their own money.

Therefore, we must understand that in Australia, not only you have to try to earn money, but it is important that you should save it too, and at the same time you have to try to improve your working position, so, you can be more independent and not rely on others. This attitude can help if it happens that you lose your temporary job, and also by saving money you can start one day buying your own house, which is the most important thing that people must do, if they want to live an independent decent life. 

Anyhow, I believe that I have said enough about this money business; so, let me go back to tell you, my progress in the building industry and what I did to become a tradesman.

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Working for this builder. 

Working and learning with this small Italian builder

Dear readers, in these articles, while I am telling you the story of my life, about working in the Australian building industry, I am going to try to give you details of how things were done in those days, it could be helpful to some of you, because you already know how we built them.

Now let me go back to when I started work with this Italian builder, who was a bricklayer and concreter, we were working on houses and because there was not enough bricklaying work on these houses, as they were mostly built with timber, we were building only the foundations, the concrete stumps and some brickwork as the base of the house. Of course, we did also some jobs under the existing houses, and this has given me an opportunity to learn many things about those old houses in Brisbane.

Just for comparison’s sake, to see the difference between those times and today, let me describe to you what we did to prepare a new base for a new timber house, which would be setting on concrete stumps and some brick walls.

First of all, we went to set up the site, if it was not set up from the builder or carpenter that was building the timber house. This setting up required that we should fix some timber frame to the ground with pegs and per the measurement in the plan. These timber frames are called profiles, and they are marked accurately to the measurement on the plan, so that we had the right measurement to go by, to start digging the foundations for the stumps and brick walls.

Then we had to dig the foundations, and this was mostly my job as I was the labor and I was pretty good at digging, this may seem hard to believe but even digging one has to be an expert to do a good job, as the shape and depth of the foundations is important to do a good job. Just to show you what I mean to dig a hole for a new concrete stump, 20x20 centimeters as most stumps were supposed to be; the hole for this stump should be in exactly the right place, it should be at least sixty centimeters deep in natural ground and at the bottom should have a circumference of at least 40 centimeters or more. These were the average specifications then, unless it was stated otherwise. I know this because I have dug several hundreds of them if not thousands.

All the tools that I needed to do this digging job were a pick a post hole shovel and a crowbar, it usually would take me a couple of days to dig the entire house holes, which could usually be between twenty and thirty holes. You see I was able to dig a hole in less than half an hour, but it was hard work. Sometimes when there was some brickwork to do, we had also to dig these foundations by hand; the foundations were usually dug according to specification, which then were about 60 centimeter deep in the natural ground, this means that if the grounds had been filled up that filling should not be counted as depth.

Anyhow, before I finish writing this article, I want to say that those houses that we were building in the sixties, with this builder contractor that I was working for, they were average affordable house that the average family could afford to buy, and therefore, they were sold easily.

Now, I believe that I have said enough in this article and although there is a lot more that can be said, we are going to tell you in our next article, which is going to be about how we made those concrete stumps on site, while we were working on these,  Australia affordable houses. 

To see more click on this link, Australian building industry.  

See you soon.

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