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This article can be also found at this Hub Pages link, Bricklaying is competitive.
To build a Besser block wall is harder for the bricklayer, because the blocks are heavy to lift and you need to lift each block with both hands, so, if you are not well organized, it is hard to lay many blocks in one day, but there are ways that can help you lay more blocks. This is what we are going to talk about in this article.
Welcome to our article,
Building workers
need to be competitive.
Today 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.
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 buy them quickly.
As we have said, 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.
Anyhow, 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. Now what we are going to write is more advanced, it is for tradesmen.
Written for the
block layer tradesman.
Now in this article, we invite the block-layer tradesmen to challenge themselves,
to see if what we are claiming here can be done more than 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. So, to make it easy we
are going to talk about straight forward work, otherwise it is going to be
very hard to achieve and also to explain 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, 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 over 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 labor 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 labor 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 labor for the
blocks; then instruct you labor 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 labor should set everything up. Now let
us talk about how you proceed to lay those 250 blocks, in one day.
--------------------------------
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 meter 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 labor has brought the blocks and placed them between the mortar boards standing up us, 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 labor 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.
To see more click on this link, Bricklaying is competitive.
That is all in
this article. See you in our next article,
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