Bricklayer daily rate?

robinbanks said:
So, you claim a brick champion does 900 in an hour (more like 750; go look at the results of the SMBL500) and you say my claim of a rate of 1000 in a day (125 an hour) is unlikely?
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The winner of the Specmix lays around 900. I've been to the competion. The record was 914. The reason it's often in the 750 or 800 region is that most of them get deductions from the total when the quality is checked, so 900 goes down to 700. Most of them lay over 900.
Your claim of 1000 a day was for manholes. I've built quite few manholes and you can't lay anyway near as many bricks as you would on a 9 inch party wall.
The work is all done using the level. Bricklaying is at it's quickest laying to the line. As soon as you have to start using the level, like for piers, manholes etc, the numbers drop a lot.
Manholes are also built with engineering bricks, so that slows you down a bit as well.
 
Agree with what Stuart said, you also can't compare site rates with domestic rates, building extensions etc you would be doing well to average around 4 to 500 a day for a single brickie.
 
I only work on an hourly rate nowadays, so 400 sounds good to me. The difference with doing an extension is that you need to make sure the quality is good enough for the customer and all his family, mates and people who look at the photos on forums to study and say yeah, not a bad job.
On site, working for a subby, on a big housing estate, not many people know who's done the rough bits.
 
Whats the rush anyway? Money?

When my house was built in the 1930's I wonder how many bricks they were laying per day?
 
Bricklaying is the trade where speed seems to be the most important factor. It's quite common for people not even in the trade to ask you if you can lay 1000 a day, because they've been told that's what a good brickie can do. They wouldn't ask a sparks how many houses he could rewire in a month, or a plumber how many taps he could fit in an hour.
It was said in Victorian days that bricklayers averaged 1000 a day, doing a 12 hour shift. This included all the rough work. The party and partition walls were all brick and could go up a lot quicker, and the face work was usually 9 inch Flemish bond.
 
Takes me an hour to drink a coffee and get my tools out. By then it's almost time to go down the cafe for a fry up.
That style of bricklaying in the video of just picking up the mortar without rolling it, using the brick to make a shove joint for the perps and making a mess using double the mortar has been used on non union residential work in the USA for years. It's fast on the line, but not really my idea of how brickwork should be done.
 
stuart45 said:
Takes me an hour to drink a coffee and get my tools out. By then it's almost time to go down the cafe for a fry up.
That style of bricklaying in the video of just picking up the mortar without rolling it, using the brick to make a shove joint for the perps and making a mess using double the mortar has been used on non union residential work in the USA for years. It's fast on the line, but not really my idea of how brickwork should be done.
Click to expand...
I have tried pick and dip for a change sometimes, it is a lot quicker ,ok if you have carrier who's good at pointing, but i always go back to normal spreading, just packed it in with the other brickie i was working with, he was younger and very fast, and i struggled to keep up, now i'm getting older, having a few weeks off and then back to work doing the slow awkward bits that the gangs don't want.
 
Pick and dip is quite efficient as you're picking up mortar and a brick at the same time. I knew a trowel years ago that used to prefer working backwards, by picking up a brick, buttering up the end for a full perp, then picking up enough for the bed. He reckoned working backwards was better because he could always see if any bricks were touching the line.
My understanding of the origin of the term pick and dip went back to Victorian times, when for certain bricks like rubbers for gauged work, or really hard bricks like Accringtons which needed really tight joints, a wetter lime putty, or lime/really fine sand was used. It was difficult to spread over the bricks, so the bricks were dipped into the mortar tray enough to get some on the bottom plus a bit more smeared on with the trowel. They were then laid with the bed joint already on the bottom. I can see why it was done like that, you know what it's like when the labourers knock it up too wet like soup.
 
I've concluded that my brickwork is of manhole standard. To be fair garden wall standard. But I've concluded that I don't want the window openings to look like the door openings I've started so I'll accept reality. Not terrible, but not good either. Plus I do about 100 bricks a day - one mixer load after setting up, slogging away all day then clearing up after. If he does 200 a day that aren't wonky I'll be happy with that.
 

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