"Great site you have, very informative, way better than a book for sure!
I've been getting info from the net and local gardening suppliers and your site is very clear
and straight forward, so that it really gives me alot of confidence!"
Michael G
...A quick question. I am planning on making two brick columns on either side of my front steps leading up to my front door.
I will be attaching iron railings to the columns that will be attached at the top to the current brick columns that already
exist. I have been flipping back and forth between building some type of wooden box that I bolt to the concrete footing and
then use that as a rough guide and attach ties to as I build the column or just build the brick column by itself.
I've heard that it might be a good idea to then fill the column afterwards with concrete...which seems a little extreme to
me but I am concerned about strength, especially considering I am going to be attaching a railing to it.
Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Chris (Saskatoon-CANADA)
.....Hi Christopher,
First things first...what height and width are you building the piers to?
It sounds to me that they will be at arms height, 900-1100mm H x 1.5 - 2 bricks square?
If this is the case, then even at this low height I still tend to fill them up in the centre.
If your pier is 1.5 bricks square, then I either fill it with half bricks simply stacked in the centre and filled with mortar.
Use solid brick ties every 4th course to tie your brickwork in with this fill (2 ties every 4th course should be plenty)
If your piers are any higher than 1100mm then I would DEFINITELY use the following method.
Sometimes, if there will be a lot of traffic or for added safety, I'll drill into the concrete footings and insert a
vertical steel reinforcement bar (Y12 rod).This must also be fixed with a concrete bonding resin, ask at your hardware store.
The pier is then built around this and filled with concrete once the pier has
gone off (hardened).
Without seeing what you are doing, where you attach your railing, try to make sure you have at least 2 courses of brickwork
above where you'll be drilling into. This is to try and avoid cracking when you drill.
If possible, insert a bolt or fixture into the brickwork as you build the pier.
This is assuming you are drilling into the side of the pier, if you're drilling into the top of the pier (railing from top
of one pier to the other) then you should be safe from any cracking during drilling.
Make sure all of your mortar joints a full, especially where you intend to drill.
If you fill the pier with bricks, be careful not to put too much mortar in the centre. The reason for this is when you
lay the fill in the centre, there's a chance the mortar squeezing against the inside of the pier can move the outside
brickwork.
Also, make sure your concrete footings are clean before you start, a good bond with the mortar is essential.
I hope this helps. Please send me some photographs if you get the chance, I'd love to see your end result.
Regards,
support@howtolaybricks.com.au
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Sorry to be a pain. But you are a wealth of information and I'm more than willing to get as much from you as possible.
So just to clarify, essentially, build 2 columns. One small one inside and then another one around it?
How much of a gap should I have between the inside column and the outside "good" column? Do these two columns all the way
to the top of the 4 feet? And for the ties, do I just put the ties in the mortar of the inside column or do I screw them
into the brick of the inside column? Thanks for all your help and again, sorry to be bugging you. It's the first time
I've bricked columns and these are a feature piece at the front of the house that are going to support railings in the side
of them so I want them to be perfect the first time out of the gate.
Thanks
Chris (Saskatoon-CANADA)
......Don't worry about it, that's fine.
Essentially, you're only building ONE pier, that's the outside pier, the only brickwork that anyone will ever SEE with their
eyes. Remember that when doing any brickwork, always think whether or not anyone will see the bricks you're laying.
What you need to do is build your pier up 1 or 2 courses, get it all nice and square, level and plumb (and straight and in
line with your 2 existing piers...VERY IMPORTANT)....then once you have these 2 courses in place, the inside can be filled
in with chipped bricks of any type. This inside is only to give it more strength, NONE of these inside bricks will be seen.
So just spread a bed INSIDE and lay some bricks freehand (these don't need to be leveled or plumb), just get them to
somewhere near the same height as your 'face' work (brickwork which will be seen!
Then, continue to build your pier up another 2 courses, keeping it all nice and level, plumb etc, then fill in the centre
again just as I've described above.
Keep a 10mm gap between the inside of your 'good' outside pier and any bricks you lay to fill in the centre.
Build this to your finished height, so what you end up with is a solid masonry structure at your height.
Use solid brick ties to tie your 'good' outside pier into the centre of the pier.
If you have a look at the video showing how to build a bbq, I use a couple of solid brick ties to tie the small dwarf
walls into the main wall at the rear. This will show you how to use them. Just substitute your good pier as the rear wall of
the video BBQ, and the small dwarf wall which the brick tie is going into as the inside of your pier.
Also, if you have a look at the videos on how to build a letterbox, the bottom half of the letterbox is similar to what
you're trying to achieve, the only difference is I haven't filled in the centre of the bottom pier with bricks.
I hope this gives you a good idea anyway...
Cheers,
support@howtolaybricks.com.au
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