Bricklaying - In wet weather

[Neal]

Hi all.

Following on from my retaining wall foundations thread. The foundations are in, however the garden drains into the footings. So even when it's been dry a few days, at this time of year there is a small amount of water draining into the footings. Until I get a few courses of bricks down and proper drainage sorted out this is likely to remain so. The question is how do I get the first courses down with this residual water hanging around since we're unlikely to get a prolonged dry spell until next spring. Obviously you can't lay your first course in an inch of water!!!

Cheers,
Neal...

[Mark B]

if you cant pump out the water, it might be an idea to dig a small pit/hole to the one end of the foundations, then you could brush any excess water into this as you get you first course in, then once the hole is drained yu can back fill.

some of the others will probably have many other ideas,

Mark

[lutonlagerlout]

you could always chuck a bag of cement or hydrated lime into the water this generally dries it out enough to build on
dont forget to leave weep holes just above patio level,or water will build up behind your wall and ruin it
cheers
LLL

[Neal]

Cheers Lads. What if I manage to get the first courses down and it then rains in the next couple of days and I get standing water around the bricks and the mortar. Would this damage the courses that were stood in the water or would it be OK for a while as long as the mortar had set properly. I'm planning on leaving weep holes, but these will be three courses up from the footings and therefore not much use until I back fill behind the wall and also get the patio down in front of it.

Oh and by the way Tony, it would appear that SRPC is almost impossible to get hold of in Scotland. The nearest stocks I could track down were 40 miles away and nobody is prepared to get me some in unless I order a palet. Looks like I'm just going to have to go with ordinary cement.

Neal...

[lutonlagerlout]

you can backfill bwk with concrete the next day ,dunno about the srpc if you dont use it make sure you use 3 :1 mix with as coarse a sand as you can lay
cheers LLL