🧱 Bricklaying for Beginners (by an Amateur)
I feel like life has been pretty brutal lately with what has felt like something significant going wrong every day. I've never seen myself as a victim although recently, I'm wondering what I've done to upset the world!
This is a bit of an aside to the topic of my post but I'll go with it anyway...
It all started a few months ago when I got the dreaded call from my mortgage adviser. Our fixed-rate comes to an end at the end of the year and with the Bank of England seemingly at war with our government, interest rates have increased significantly and our mortgage rate would follow - increasing our monthly payment by almost 60%. For our family, this increase is more than significant... more than wiping out all of our disposable income and the discussion as to whether or not we would be able to keep our forever home... the home that we bought for our children to inherit upon our demise 💀
This marked the beginning of our bad luck.
When our boiler stopped working just a few days later and we were told that it would need to be replaced, the world had given us another kick in the nuts.
But with huge expense, comes opportunity so we took the opportunity to move the new boiler into the garage and redo much of our heating and water system, removing the need for the various pumps and installing an unvented water cylinder.
The other opportunity was for me to learn to do a spot of bricklaying - with the old boiler leaving a hole in our wall where the flue once resided. Which finally brings us back on topic.
This lovely hole needed filling and polyfilla wouldn't quite make the grade so I donned my DIY hat and gloves to get to work. (I'd already made a start when I took the above photo as you can see from some drilled holes and already broken brick.)
Step 1: Teeth out the existing bricks
It's always best to work with whole bricks and bind them in with the existing brick work, so my first task was to remove the half bricks that had been cut for the flue - a process called "toothing out".
Unfortunately, this didn't go perfectly and the brick in the top left of the picture broke. Careless on my part as I hadn't drilled out the mortar fully before trying to remove the brick underneath.
A pro would probably have removed the rest of the broken brick at this point but since I didn't want to be taking out the corner brick, I decided to leave it in and "reconstruct" the broken brick that had come out.
Step 2: Put it back together again
My new, larger hole was big enough for me to put a new breeze block in from the outside - I initially expected to have to make a bigger mess inside the house to do this but the opportunity presented itself and I took it 🥳
I then had to mix my mortar and for this, I went for a fairly solid mix - roughly 3.5 parts sand to 1 part cement. I read that you can mix anything between 3 parts and 5 parts sand depending upon its use so I went solid 💪
Unfortunately though, whereas new bricks come in a standard size (215 mm x 102.5 mm x 65 mm), my house is older than standardisation so my bricks were slightly wider than those used in its construction. Annoying, but since it was a relatively small area being filled, I was able to trim down one of the bricks by about 10-15mm which did the trick nicely (can you guess which one?)
As you can see, a beautifully filled hole.
Ok. It's not beautiful and it highlights another fuck-up on my part. I didn't mind about the layer of mortar that I'd left over my handywork, thinking that I could simply wash it off later. But it turns out that I can't and I need to buy some special acid or something if I want my bricks to be clean.
Apart from this, I'd even go so far as to say that my brickwork is better than whoever did the rows 2 lower than mine, which probably would have benefited from a layer of "masking mortar".
I hope that you've enjoyed reading about my little opportunity which has contributed towards my most recent silence. Hopefully I'll be able to share my "roofing" opportunity with you soon.
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What's eating away at your self-esteem? Of course you're a top programmer. One for whom there is not always the most challenging task. Who cares? Gifted, multi-talented craftsmen are always in demand - all over the world, even in gorilla houses... ;-D
I’m fairly sure I’m suffering from depression which I’m struggling to cope with. It’s probably been here since the-2yo-gorilla was born 🤷♂️ I’ll work it out, don’t you worry 😊
I’ve always planned to improve my word working skills 🤔
Sh... I'm gonna sell you a tip. But sh..., it's just for you: Play SCRABBLE... ;-)
Oh my, that’s a silly little auto correct. It should’ve said “wood working” 🙄
Very nice work. You can get rid of the haze again - with vinegar essence or hydrochloric acid. Alternatively, sand or flex. Next time, simply wash it off with soapy water while it's still damp ;-))
Thanks for the tip. Hydrochloric acid scares me so vinegar sounds like a good approach 👍
Exitos, siempre se logra salir adelante...
Gracias 🙂
Agreed! My father, a doctor by profession, has a knack for construction, mechanics, and building. Most of the time, I would be his helper along with my brothers. I can tell that you really did an awesome job for an amateur.
I came across your profile and saw that you have a love for sports. You might as well have witnessed Maxwell's historic performance last night if you are into cricket.
In case you missed it (or not), this is my take on his remarkable innings.
https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@soulfuldreamer/maxwell-s-historic-innings
I haven't really watched any of the World Cup, mostly because England have been so appalling. I saw that he'd set some kind of record though, saving them from an embarrassing defeat v. Afghanistan. Like our embarrassing loss!
Yes, not a world cup to watch for England fans. Although Stokes has ensured qualification for champions trophy yesterday.
We had pinned our hops to rain gods in today's match; Sri Lanka vs New Zealand, so that the latter would be white washed and limited to 9 points. But crushing defeat awaited Sri Lanka instead.
So now for Pakistan to qualify, they will have to beat England by 287+ runs or chase the target with 284 balls to spare which is... well next to impossible!
So yes, we are out of semifinals!
💔
That's quite possible.
Don't be so hard on them. They will do better next time!
It's really not easy to "let it go" 😞
I wanted team green to qualify for finals with dignity for once, but...
In the end only hard work pays off... India did exceptionally well, though they had the edge of home ground, there is no doubt that they were very well prepared for the world cup.
What's the Champions Trophy? Is that for the losers?
TEAM 1
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted through steemcurator04. We support quality posts , good comments anywhere and any tags.Thanks @o1eh 🙂
Dealing with mortgage woes and then a malfunctioning boiler on top of that? It's like the universe decided to throw everything at you at once. But kudos to you for finding the silver lining and turning those challenges into opportunities. Learning bricklaying and upgrading your heating system is no small feat! It's amazing how adversity can push us to learn new skills and tackle projects we never thought we could. Embracing Construction Terms in the midst of all this chaos must have been quite the journey.
I see that you're generating comments with AI. Is that really worth the effort (or lack of)?