First go to the Victorian Building Commissions Guide to Standards and Tolerances. Particularly look at the following information:
The masonry information in the guide appears to be taken from AS3700, the Australian Standard for Masonry Structures.
Other things to look for are really dirty bricks and windows. Such as these:
Watch to see if the brickie adds detergent to the mortar mix. This helps to make the mortar much more workable, however is a cheap solution to a plasticiser which is designed for the purpose.
Here's some photos of bad workmanship.
Greater than 15mm of perpend mortar.
Greater than 13mm of bedding mortar.
Crooked bricks and poor looking mortar
Internal corners are difficult, however should not look this bad.
Vertical perpends less than 5mm.
It's a bit of a shame that I could find all of these problems even after the brickies had started their repairs. Stay tuned for more wall shattering posts.....
wow! Thanks for the info, will check out the website you mentioned. How did this get past the site supervisor? I would have thought they would have picked it up alot earlier than this.
ReplyDeleteGood question Linda. You won't have to worry though as Romeo is currently sourcing a new site supervisor for projects North and West of Springvale Rd.
ReplyDeleteI'd have been crushed if I'd seen such work in our place. Although I didn't inspect our brickwork so closely, I am comforted by the fact that our builder broke down a pillar that he wasn't happy with, a day after it was "finished", to have it redone. I hope it is sorted out to your satisfaction.
ReplyDeleteahh will be interesting to see who we get then...thats if we ever actually start building. How far does this set you back time wise? I am presuming they will have to pull out all the dodgy brickwork and replace it all?
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