More Bricks are go!... But

So the brickwork has been quite a project on our house. As it turns out there were significant problems. First the bricklayer wouldn't start due to limited access so a new bricky was chosen. Then we missed the opportunity to start bricks because the team was stuck on another job meaning other parts of our build started instead. Then we had wet tapping delays so no water was available on site. When bricks eventually started we were happy and though we would progress smoothly from there. Nope!

Instead our bricky and site supervisor stopped the brickwork again but this time for a more serious issue. As it turns out our bricks had to be delivered in several batches due to space onsite. The first batch looks good but the second batch the bricky apparently refused to lay them because of the colour difference. The second batch were made 3 months after the first and are significantly different colour to the first and they cant find anymore of the first batch. After consultation with the supplier it has been decided (without consultation with us) that bricklaying was to continue and if there is a colour difference after they are cleaned the supplier will pay to hand colour the bricks to ensure they match correctly. I'm not overly comfortable with this because the bricks have a lifetime colourfast guarantee and the hand colouring process only has 25 year guarantee. I am also not really comfortable with the bricks being pulled down either due to the possibility of internal damage seeing so much has been done inside already.

So what do we do? There has been about 15 courses of each 'colour' bricks layed so far and the likely result will be the bottom 15 courses will mismatch the remainng courses on top. The front our our house is rendered so there wont be an issue there except that our pillars are not rendered and have 15 courses of the first batch. Around the back and sides the colour mismatch is broken up by windows and I guess we can probably move on from that if hand coloured as required. But the pillars and parapet must be the same brick batch because it's the front of our house that we (and our neighbours) look at each day. The other area is the alfresco where we'll sit on occasion. Our plan at this stage is to have the start of the bricks on the pillars pulled down and the pillars and parapet down with the same batch of bricks to ensure consistent colour variation. Then we would like them to render inside the alfresco to sort that area and hand colour the rest. We have started the discussion with our site supervisor but we are still in the wait and see stage.

We are quite disappointed with this but are trying to keep a clear head about it. We can get all worked up about it or accept that it has occurred and work a plan to resolve it to something we are happy about. We chose the later to keep the stress levels in check. :-)

Here are some photos.

(Note: The colour difference is more evident at the rear mostly because of some yellow dust/dirt on the face of the bricks.)

These pics show a significant difference mainly because the render is mostly dry on the lower half and the upper half is only hours old

 This is after the mortar has had some time to dry for both lower and upper parts. The upper bricks also have a yellow tone due to something on the surface of some of the bricks. Once cleaned they should look better.