Hello,

I have a brickwork driveway and a brickwork step leading to the front
door. My problem is that the bricks around the edge of the step have
all worked loose so that if you step on it you could easily slip off
the step and send the whole edge of the step on top of your foot.

No problem, I thought. I'll just re-mortar the bricks and set them
back in the step. But when I stripped the bricks away, I noticed that
underneath was about 1cm of SAND, plus some hardcore stuff under the
bricks themselves. No wonder the bricks came loose. My question is
should I be using sand or mortar stuff? Any particular brands anyone
would recommend?

Many thanks for any assistance,

Stephen Butler

Stephen Butler wrote:

Hello,

I have a brickwork driveway and a brickwork step leading to the front
door. My problem is that the bricks around the edge of the step have
all worked loose so that if you step on it you could easily slip off
the step and send the whole edge of the step on top of your foot.

No problem, I thought. I'll just re-mortar the bricks and set them
back in the step. But when I stripped the bricks away, I noticed that
underneath was about 1cm of SAND, plus some hardcore stuff under the
bricks themselves. No wonder the bricks came loose. My question is
should I be using sand or mortar stuff? Any particular brands anyone
would recommend?

Many thanks for any assistance,

Stephen Butler

Its common to us just sand - sharp sand. I have been patio laying and
mixing up to one part cement to 5 parts sand and making a fairly stiff
mortart seems to be the bees knees. It is just wet enough to allow
tamping down (mortar bulges up) and has enough cement to set fairly
solid (this holding bricks/lsabs in place)

Clean up the mess with brick acid (HCl)

www.pavingexpert.com is your friend.