Two Steps to Take When Having a Brick Garage Built

If you have decided to have a tradesperson built a brick garage beside your house, you may find the advice below to be quite useful.

Discuss your plans with the tradesperson that will be providing the bricklaying service before ordering the supplies

Before you order the supplies that are needed for the construction work, you should have a discussion with the person who will be carrying out the bricklaying process. The information the bricklayer provides during this discussion will help to inform your purchasing decisions when you eventually buy the materials that you require.

For example, if you give the bricklayer the exact dimensions of the garage, they should be able to calculate the precise number of bricks that you will need to buy. This will ensure that you don't end up buying too many (which would be a waste of money) or too few (which would result in you having to order and wait for the arrival of a second batch, which could lead to the garage taking longer to build).

Additionally, discussing how you intend to use the garage with the person who is providing the bricklaying services could be useful, as they may be able to offer some suggestions regarding which type of bricks would be most suitable for your particular garage. For instance, if you plan to store a lot of paperwork or bulky winter clothes and bedding in this space, then your bricklayer might advise you to incorporate a few airbricks into the structure.

The reason for this is that garages are more susceptible to damp than other buildings. As such, if your garage is not properly ventilated, the aforementioned paperwork, clothing and bedding that you store in it may end up damp and mouldy. However, if your bricklayer puts a few airbricks (i.e. bricks with holes that allow air to circulate through them) into the walls of the garage, the risk of the structure becoming damp in the future will be much lower.

Stack the bricks into low and wide piles

It will probably take a week or more for the bricklayer to construct the garage, particularly if it is quite large. During this time, there will be bricks strewn around the area where the structure is being created. To keep this area tidy and ensure that the presence of these materials does not affect your ability to use nearby areas (like your driveway), it is best to put them into neat piles.

However, it is important to be careful about how you do this. For example, you should avoid making tall, narrow piles (i.e. stacking lots of single bricks on top of one another), as these could topple over all too easily if you bump into them or if anyone involved in the construction work hits them with their tools.

A falling stack of heavy bricks could do a lot of damage; they could hit and dent any cars you have parked nearby, injure your pets if they are strolling around this area when the bricks fall over or end up leaving small cracks in your driveway. They could also be chipped by the impact, in which case you may have to replace them. As such, it's best to stack them in low, wide piles, as this should give each pile a low centre of gravity that should prevent them from falling over.