This is an amazing resource, if only every website was this detailed so thanks for taking the time to do such a great job…
I have a small patio project at home where I wish to use recycled 'characterful' bricks to make the shape shown in the photo below.
I’m going to lay an MOT sub base but could do with some advice on how best to lay the bricks.
Because of the circular design and my choice of materials there’s obviously lots of varying gaps to fill. I've currently laid out the bricks 'tight' together and I’m inclined to just lay as seen on a sand base, mortar the gaps and secure the circumference with a cement bead.
My concerns are that with time:
1) I’ll end up with cracking between the bricks.
2) The stability of the entire construction may be suspect.
Would it be best to introduce a space around each brick (eg. ½ inch) such that rather than having lots of mortar infills the mortar is continuous?
Hi Rich. Quick couple of pointers.
Concrete base would be best and bed bricks on mortar. If you can find a circular slab for the centre, maybe a stepping stone from the garden centre or make it up with pebbles or something.
So that you don't have too much of an unsightly wedge of mortar between the bricks you could cut them in half along the length or at the very least cut in half across their width and lay as two rows of half bricks. Also cut the the blue banding in half across the width of the brick to make a smoother curve.
The outer ring should be fine as it is but I would prefer to see them laid on their edge, showing the face. But if that's all the bricks you have...
If it's laid on mortar and jointed with mortar, should be no need for restraint, wouldn't hurt though for small haunching with left over mix.
I agree with the bedding method and the cutting of the bricks so the joints are much tighter as mentioned above but personally I would point the bricks with a polymeric jointing product or similar
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Bricks flipped to show facing edge - tighter gaps and much sturdier construction.
Now down to 30mm gaps on inner and 20mm gaps on outer rings.
Time to search the garden for some more bricks to cut in half and experiment further. Still not down to 12mm gaps but much improved and probably where my compromise may have to sit considering the number of bricks I have and the patio size requirements. It would be great to get to a point where I could use kiln dried sand but I don't think I'm going to be able to get tight enough with my limitations.
I'm much happier with the revised design.
Thanks for the advice
Richard how do you get your photos to show. If you look at my post on a patio sealer (soon after yours) you'll see my attempt at a photo failed even by following Tony's instructions in the Noticeboard section.
There are a number of ways to do this but I just uploaded the photo to http://imgur.com (just go to this URL and follow the upload image instructions) and then once it's uploaded you get the option to copy differently formatted html code as links to the photo, I copied the link under the 'BBCode (message boards & forums)' into my post.
So i managed to get an even(ish) base and I've laid on a dry-mix which I've also used to joint the bricks up to 30-50 mm below the surface level. It's all gone off and is very firmly in place. I'm pretty happy and my wife loves it...
I tried pointing a joint with slightly wet mortar and it proved very difficult/time consuming. Am i going to run into trouble if I use the Everbuild jointing compound @ £30/tub (http://www.everbuild.co.uk/index.php?ro ... uct_id=584) from my local builders merchant? as I don't feel I can stretch to the more expensive ones recommended on this site.
or should I just get my trowels out and get on with pointing it..!
Any advice gratefully received.
Photo of where I've got to, just pointing to finish.
