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eggs
 
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Default How long for brick mortar to dry?


"RB" wrote in message
...
Quest 1: At 72 hours you should have 80 to 90% of the ultimate

strength
in the mortar. A week would be more than enough to wait.

Quest 2: Since you have an engineer involved I'd solicit his opinion

on
the need for new roof framing. It's difficult to assess without

seeing it.

Check your roofing weight. For 1 sq. of flat steel to weigh 1 oz it

can
only be 12/(489*16)=0.0015 inches thick. Corrugated steel would be

even
thinner.

RB


Thank you. To be honest, I pulled the weight calculation off a sheet
from the Aussie version of Home Depot (Bunnings), but I would certainly
check it out properly before actually installing anything. The steel
sheeting is very thin, maybe 2 mm thick. As it is, it is illegal in New
South Wales (the state Sydney is in) to do roofing work yourself - it
must be done by a licensed plumber. I will therefore need to get a
plumber in for the day to bolt the roof down, so the calculations will
be done properly before the install. I am currently at the rip-out
stage of my job, tearing out the old kitchen, masonite wall sheets, etc,
and I won't really know what the roof frame is like until I have taken
the ceiling down (heavily bowed masonite sheets). I'm pulling up the
lino and pulling down the ceiling today, so I should have more clues by
then end of the day.

I am mainly concerned about the length of time I will need to let the
bricks dry before re-roofing, as I am trying to get a realistic time
frame for getting each of the jobs done, so I don't end up with a
disorganized mess on my hands. As the roof does not actually leak at
the moment, it is possible that we may get the rough work done on the
building (interior wall removal & patch, new windows, doors, wiring,
plumbing, etc) and then get an occupation certificate from the city with
the old roof still on. We could then install the new roof sheeting as a
simple replacement job after the certificate is issued, leaving the
walls at their current height. Remember, the lowest wall height is only
3 bricks lower than the current standard - it's not like anyone is
banging their head on anything. The city can only make us change the
wall height if we are doing new roofing work, and they will only know we
are doing this if they do a final inspection after the roof is on. It
would be inconvenient to do this as a seperate job however, and I won't
even know if it is possible until I have looked at the current roof
frame to see if it is reuseable. So I guess I should stop typing, get
up off my butt, and go rip that masonite down!

Thanks again for your help,

Suzie Egg.