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eggs
 
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Default How long for brick mortar to dry?

Hi everyone. This is a fantastic group and I've learned a lot just by
googling. Thanks for the help I've already taken from the archives!

I am currently renovating (will be my own gc and will probably do a lot
of the grunt work) a circa 1900 terraced (row) house in Sydney,
Australia. It is doubled storied at the front, with a single story run
of three small rooms out the back. It shares a common wall with one
neighbouring house, but has a 3 foot wide walkway between us and the
next house on the other side. I am planning to convert the three small
single storied rooms at the back into one long narrow kitchen/dining
area (rooms are only about 9 foot wide). I am waiting for the
engineers's drawings & calculations before I have any walls removed.

These three rooms will need a new skillion roof (colorbond corrugated
metal, as is common in Australia) to replace the current one. It does
not currently leak, but is obviously on it's last legs. The city has
told me that if I am putting a new roof on, then I will need to raise
the lower end of the skillion as it is no longer of legal height,
HOWEVER, heritage restrictions in my area also require me to match the
angle of the lower storied skillion with the upper story roof. In
effect, I will need to raise my side of the brick party wall (high side
of the skillion) to match the height of the neighbours' wall, which is
about 6 rows of bricks higher than I currently have. My freestanding
wall on the opposite side of the room will have to be raised about 3
rows of brick. Then I put on the new (pine) timber roof frame and the
new colorbond roof. The weight of the colourbond is about 1 oz per
square foot.

My questions a

1)How long will the mortar in the new rows of bricks take to cure? How
long must we wait, after the bricks are layed, before we can put a load
on them, i.e. bolt the new roof frame onto the walls and put the new
roof on?

2)How do I know if I need a new roof frame, or should I just assume that
I do? Can I just reuse the old one? FYI, Cost will not be the primary
driving factor in making my decisions on this job - I want the job done
right, but I don't want to waste money unnecessarily.

Thank you for any helpful advice you may have,

Suzie Egg.