Any bricklayers here?

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brian89gp

Minister of Fire
Mar 15, 2008
505
Kansas City
I am tearing my chimney down to roofline and rebuilding, all in all it will be about 8' vertical of chimney. Using modern (new) brick, 3/8 mortar joints, and type N mortar.

How much vertical height can I do in one day before I need to stop to let the mortar on the lower layers set up? And how long do I need to wait for it to set? And if I needed to sit on top of the chimney to have a good angle to put a liner in, how long should the mortar set before that?
 
Having to let the mortar set because you are working too fast, I don't see that happening. Brick laying isn't super fast. The mortar will dry fairly quick, well harden enough where it won't ooze out because of the weight of the other bricks. I have built block chimneys say, 40 block in 4hrs, and the bottom joint has never oozed out because of too much weight. So from roof up, work as fast as you want, it'll be fine.

Now as putting down the liner, it depends on the setup on how much you will be resting your weight on the chimney. If you are going to be standing on it I would give it 3 days or so. That is in good dry warm weather.
 
I eneded up pre-soaking the bricks, used type N mortar (sets slower), and you were right, I could not possibly lay enough brick to cause the lower layers to squish. Did 9' vertical total, about 2' per day. First time I had ever layed brick so I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Pulled 40' of insulated 6" liner up a 7.5" sized rough brick flue, that was not fun at all.

The face of the chimney you see is just over 8' tall and it is a 2' section of class A on top.
 

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I used to work as a brick layers helper (not fun work)
Even those guys as fast as they were, would just start and go all day. If your mud is mixed right you should be fine. First time? Looks great!
 
First time. Thanks.

I heard about an auger mixer you put in a drill and bought it and it made the whole mixing process very easy. It aerated it quite nicely and made it super easy to work with. 1 month later when I was cutting the grooves for counter flashing I was able to verify that it set up properly and had good adhesion to the bricks so that was a relief.

http://www.contractorsdirect.com/Bucket-Mortar-Mixer
Could easily mix 30# of mortar in a 5 gallon bucket in 1-2 minutes and 50# of concrete less then 1 minute.
 
Lookd great...You should be proud, I can't even imagine how bad my first try would look!! Especially since I would be scared on that scaffolding. Not a fan of heights!
 
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