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Things like Brick Tor are used for crack control. Sometimes in Thermalite walls to help prevent shrinkage cracks. Used to have 3 courses of it above the timber door and window frames when the brickwork went straight on top without a lintel.

Doesn't look bad to me for a 30year old house. I can't be sure from the photos, but the original looks likely to have had a flush joint, possibly recessed slightly with a wooden dowell. This type of joint is popular with irregular shaped bricks to give an older style look to a property. However...

I've never heard of it being intentionally rusty. It normally has a bit of surface rust. If you didn't use rebar with a bit of rust, there'd be of lot of it dumped. There have been tests done which say that a small amount of surface pitting and rust is acceptable, and might even help with the...

4 inches of concrete is enough for most sheds, unless they're taking a lot of heavy machinery.

It can be done by hand, although it's around 2 bulk bags of all in, so you might want to look at the cost of a weekend mixer hire. Mixing in a wheelbarrow is a lot slower than mixing on a large banker board. You could stick some hard-core in the bottom to reduce the amount of concrete needed. 6...

Have you tried Worktop Express, or similar companies, or joinery firms.

Removing a chimney breast is notifiable work to Building Control, so your builder should have informed you of that. I can't see a Building Inspector passing that. Back in the 70's it was really common on conversion jobs to take out the chimney breasts. Loads of them were left hanging, relying on...

Vermiculite board is the best. You can get them ready made with brick slips on them in various patterns such as herring bone, but they aren't cheap.

I think he meant cement board, the one called no more ply, although the OP said he didn't want to use boards.

I've used mortar, both cement and lime, to fix brick slips in the past. Tiles used to be fixed using mortar years ago before adhesives came out. If you ever have to remove tiles done with mortar you'll know how much harder they are to remove than ones done with adhesive.

It was for Dan, as he's got some real Sunday joints there. However, after 20 years you deserve a new one.

As your joints vary in size so much you could get a 7/8inch W.Rose bullhorn jointer for around £20. This will do small and large joints.

That lintel is designed to take point loads. If you've ever got any doubts about a catnic lintel where an excessively heavy point load is going into a lintel ring catnic and they can advise whether a heavy duty or extra heavy duty is needed. In your case the one in your link should be fine.

A composite lintel like yours is designed to have 3 courses of brickwork or 1 course of blocks before any point loads are on top. Having the plate will help spread the load and it might work, but technically it's the wrong lintel.

As noseall's pointed out, you need to get a non composite lintel if you want concrete.

Plastering sand is a fine sharp, as is silver sand which is a very fine sharp sand. Building sand looks the same as the photos of yours when the laitance has weathered back. It's not all fine grains. A well graded building sand contains a mixture of sizes. A rule of thumb is that the largest...

It depends what you mean by sharp sand. Nowadays if you ask for a bag of sharp sand you'll get a bag of coarse sharp flooring grade sand. However some fine sands are sharp sand. Sharp refers to the shape of the grains, compared to soft sand which has rounded grains.

When you finish the joints with a.metal tool it brings cement laitance to the surface, which is why you get that grey, Portland stone colour skin on top. When it weather's back, the colour of the aggregate starts to show, and the colour changes. A wooden tool tends to bring more aggregate to the...

Flush joints are one of the easist. Once the joints are filled there's a few methods of finishing. You can either hit them with a churn brush when green hard, rub them with a piece of sack cloth or.use a piece of timber like a wooden dowel. You can have them slightly recessed if you think it...

If it's done properly it can improve the looks of a wall, even if it's a bit rough. I was on a job in London years ago doing a repoint, and the Clerk of Works pulled up my mate because he was left handed, and was doing the perps the opposite way to me.