Spent 4 hours fixing a wall that should have taken 45 minutes

So I'm working on this garden wall out in Austin last week, right? I mix my mortar, lay the first course, everything is going smooth. Then I realize I forgot to soak the bricks and they're sucking all the moisture out of the mortar like crazy. Spent the next 3 hours chipping out half the wall and redoing it because the bonds were all weak. Has anyone else had a brain fart like this mess up their whole workflow?

3 comments

3 Comments

vera_campbell4d agoMost Upvoted

Did you catch that video from that old school mason out of San Antonio where he talked about how dry bricks can wick moisture like a paper towel? He swears by dunking each brick in a bucket of water for at least 30 seconds before laying it, especially in this heat. It's super annoying to do but sounds way faster than chipping a whole wall out.

elliotadams7d ago

Forgot to soak the bricks" is a rough one, I feel that. But I gotta say, chipping out half the wall sounds like overkill. When I've messed up bricks like that in Texas heat, I just hosed them down real good, let them sit for 20 minutes, and then patched the weak spots with a wetter mix. Unless the mortar was totally crumbling, you probably just needed to mist the whole thing and let it cure with a tarp over it for a few days. Lesson learned though, right?

taylor_hayes257d ago

Elliot's got a point about the hosing down trick. Ngl, in this humidity if you don't soak them bricks good they'll just suck the moisture right out of your mix before it even sets. But chipping out half the wall is like using a sledgehammer on a fly. You probably could've just misted the whole thing with a spray bottle every few hours for a couple days and it would've been fine. That tarp trick works wonders too keeps the moisture locked in. Bet you'll never skip that soak step again though once you see how quick it fixes everything.