Not enough cement???

[johnny2007]

Been helping a friend bricklaying and fitting a lintel for a new ground floor window.
The labourer was somehow peed off to work on a friday past 2pm and it seems that he mixed the last load of mortar with less cement than the rest.
A week later the pointing can be scratched with a fingernail.
I reassured my friend that it's fine because I packed up with slate the lintel supporting bricks as well as the internal skin bricks above the lintel.
He's panicking, so can I please have confirmation that the job doesn't need redoing so I can show him this thread?
Lintel is 900mm cavity catnic on a gable wall of approximately 7 metres, no other windows on that wall.

 

[Notch7]

It sounds fine to me…..not ideal, but it’s not going to fall down.

At worst, at some point it might need raking out and repointing.


On my house it’s obvious when the garage was built, they let the labourer have a try at bricklaying - in one corner on a few of the courses the mortar has almost no cement in it, I could dig the mortar out with my finger nail easily. But it’s still standing after 50 years

 

[^woody^]

Externally it will need repointing to give the weathering protection.

 

[johnny2007]

Wel, it turns out that after a few days you can't scrape the mortar even with a screwdriver.
Must be the frost proofer in the mix which made it for a slow drying.
Thanks for your input anyway.

 

[stuart45]

Frost proofer is an accelerator, so it should go off quicker.
You can tell from the colour as soon as it goes on the boards if it's too weak a mix. Send it back over the scaffold on top of the hoddie next time.

 

[johnny2007]

Frost proofer is an accelerator, so it should go off quicker.
You can tell from the colour as soon as it goes on the boards if it's too weak a mix. Send it back over the scaffold on top of the hoddie next time.

The mix seemed right to me and I have good eyesight.
Maybe a little dryer than I would like, but still workable.
This might remain a mystery.
BTW, my friend got a call from him yesterday while we were having a beer and was asked if he can work next week because he's skint.
My friend told him it was fine, but he would be paid by the hour, not by day, including Friday.
The cheek of the fecker, he said that everywhere you work, Fridays are half days paid at full whack
I wish I knew in my days!
We used to finish later on Fridays to prepare work for the following week.
Sometimes we would go on a Saturday unpaid for a couple of hours to clean the tools and arrange things.
I thought that was part of the working week
Silly me!

 

[conny]

If your 'friend' is getting paid cash then he should be grateful he is getting the work!
You can't sub for someone and demand full payment for time not worked unless it is what used to be called 'job and finish'. This is where you agree a set price for the job no matter how long it takes or how quick it is done.

PS I think JobAndKnock probably knows about this method and hence his username.

 

[OvertonPlumber]

I worked at Heathrow for ten years on the cargo. We used to do double shifts our last job would be job and knock. We would be rostered to work till 11 but go home at 7 every day

I do get ****ed of with builders who think half day Fridays are the norm, when I normally do a 6 day week.