The Art of Bricklaying: A Mason's Technique

As a mason, I can attest that bricklaying is an art form that requires skill, patience, and attention to detail. When it comes to laying bricks, many people assume that it's just a matter of slapping some mortar between two bricks and calling it a day. But nothing could be further from the truth. Veneering, which involves covering a surface with thin layers of material, is actually a technique used in bricklaying to achieve a uniform and seamless appearance.

One of the most common misconceptions about veneering is that it's a type of material, rather than a technique. In reality, veneering can be achieved using a variety of materials, including brick, plaster, or stone. So, when you're shopping for this "material," make sure to ask your supplier if they offer veneering as an option.

As I began the project, I started by buttering each brick into place. This is an important step, as the brick behind it is often inconsistently laid and there are holes in the joints. By applying a small amount of mortar to the back of the brick, I could ensure that it seated properly and filled in any gaps.

Next, I used a level to make sure everything was plumb and level. This is crucial, as an uneven or crooked bricklaying job can be disastrous. With the bricks in place, I then focused on filling in the joints between them. I used a regular type of mortar and employed the same technique that I would use when repointing a wall.

To avoid creating a straight line across the entire joint, I wiggled each brick slightly as I placed it into position. This allowed me to create a natural, staggered effect that added visual interest to the project. As I worked, I checked my work frequently to ensure that each joint was full and even.

One of the most useful tools in my kit is the brick rule. This small device features a series of hash marks on its surface, which correspond to different heights and widths of joints. By placing the rule against my opening, I could accurately measure out the dimensions of my bricklaying project.

The brick rule was particularly useful when it came to estimating how many bricks I would need to complete the job. By measuring the width and height of each joint, I could determine exactly how many courses of brick were required to achieve the desired height.

As I continued working, I found that adjusting the height of my joints was crucial in achieving a perfectly level finish. By marking each joint with a different number – such as a four or a seven – I could make adjustments on the fly as needed. This allowed me to fine-tune my work and ensure that everything was exactly level.

One of the most surprising things about working with the brick rule is how adaptable it can be. While the hash marks provide a useful guide, I often find myself adjusting my measurements halfway through a joint. It's almost like reading minds – I'll be working along, thinking I've got just the right amount of mortar, and then suddenly realize that I need to make an adjustment on the fly.

The final result is nothing short of stunning. As I stood back to admire my handiwork, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. This was more than just a bricklaying project – it was a work of art that required patience, skill, and attention to detail. And with the brick rule by my side, I knew that I could achieve anything I set my mind to.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday on ask this old house i'll show you the perfect garden for crafting your own cocktails you could add these to iced tea you could put them in daiquiris you could put them in margaritas and you could put them in gimlets okay another use for herb gardens and a pretty good one in this case this radiator jumped back a half an inch when the valve was disconnected i'll show you how we bring it all together we're going to use the power of a lever so as we pull down here it should draw the bottom of the radiator up to the face of the unit we can get it just enough to make the first two or three threads we can tighten up and we're there perfect and this fireplace is sloppy poorly done and i don't even think that's the right material but i'm gonna make it look like it belongs here hi there i'm kevin o'connor and welcome back to ask this old house where our team is standing by ready to answer questions about your house so make sure you keep your emails and your letters coming hey richard good morning sir what are you working on today my task today is help a homeowner with a leaking radio wow those old radios aren't going away are they still around all right hey jen how are you good how are you i'm doing all right wow herbs huh boy you love your herb garden this is different though this one is a themed herb garden and what is the theme the theme is cocktail gardens it's really just great to have a purpose for your garden i think it'll help you learn about the plants it'll help you utilize them and use them makes a lot of sense so mint i get mint juleps mojitos right right you could take this the reason why this is in a container because it starts to get crazy in a garden so here you could use a stem you could use the leaf and you could put in many different types of drinks this is an obvious choice right if you told me you were going to do an uh cocktail herbs i would think of mint but what are some of these others over here i have slower growing uh herbs and so i'm gonna jam them all into one pot and you could say keep this on your deck and and this is accessible you're sitting there have a drink crush it put it in your drink all right this one is rosemary i would think that maybe you would take a little piece off and you'd put it on a piece of pork and on the grill you're going to put this in my drink there are so many different recipes out there you could go to any culinary website uh sage smells good smells a lot like i'm going to put that in the background because that's going to get tall okay so don't you go right in there verbena lemon never heard of it oh it's a fantastic i mean smell you could eat it yep that thing tastes like it has been dunked in lemon juice that's amazing you could add this iced tea as well you could put them in daiquiris you could put them in margaritas and you could put them in gimlets okay another use for herb gardens and a pretty good one in this case so gardens with a purpose though i think they'll make you focus on taking care and then you'll really know learn how the plant grows good good information and you know what it's five o'clock somewhere it is five o'clock somewhere now you can watch this old house and ask this old house anytime anywhere download our new app to stream full episodes to your tablet your tv and your phone binge classic episodes catch up on recent renovations and get step-by-step help projects all around the house best of all it's free the most trusted home improvement information is now available on amazon fire tv roku apple tv ios and android devices download the thistle house streaming app today richard thank you so much for coming we really appreciate it well it's nice to be back in the old hood i was born just up the street this place was built this whole neighbor was built around the teens in the 20s it's a great spot yeah this house actually was 1923. i love what you've done you kept all the old wood left it exposed it looks great thanks this is a nice piece yeah i built this myself for thanksgiving two years ago you did yeah you know tommy you know i'm really proud of you i hope so and here's the radio that we were talking about all all right nice sun room and cold sun yeah yeah that little space heater has actually been trying to cover for this radiator since we have the problem not so great all right so what happened so we had a leaking radiator valve in my daughter's room and here in the office and i thought while my wife was in the hospital actually having my daughter before she came home i'd swap these out so that the heat would be all sorted out i did hers and it went great perfect yeah right and i figured while i was doing that one i could do this one as well but when i went to loosen the valve from the radiator itself the supply line actually sprung away from the radiator you can almost see how much it pulled that way exactly and i've tried to cover that distance and you can see where it needs to be relative to where it is i've tried everything since then i've tried wedges in the basement i've tried pulling them together with straps and i cannot get this not to leak i threw a cap on it and we've had no heat in the office ever since he had the cap yeah good thing is right all right well this is a hot water rated every single one of these radiators filled with water is very common in this area in this neighborhood for this vintage house what we're gonna do is turn off the heating system drain the radiator again and then i'm sure we can fix it great first i shut the power off to the boiler then i shut off the cold water feed going into the boiler and add a hose so i can drain the system it's really important to vent each radiator to break the vacuum all right every radiator on a hot water system has a radiator valve like you've got right here right this is the standard here it's got two parts to it one is the valve itself and that's designed to be able to shut down the radiator or affect the flow to balance it a little bit but it really is a balancing valve it's never going to hold positively tight if there's a leak on the radio it's not going to stop the leak you're going to have to do what you did so there's two parts there one is the valve itself and also there's a part called the spud now that's the part that presents a union you know this is this will be the part that goes into the radiator and here's the valve but you need a nut like this to be able to bring and mate those two pieces together and that's why it's called a union now it's going to tie into the radiator itself you look here there's a thing called a bushing even though it's covered with paint that the radiator itself has a two inch thread and a bushing looks like this unpainted so it has a thread on the outside and a thread on the inside and they come in every different size and combination so if we had to we could go all the way back to a two inch bushing and we could we could adapt as we need to but i think we're going to be fine just leaving that one in and now we're going to make this spud go in but this is really tricky to get into the radiator because if you used a regular wrench you defaced right the threads so if you look here you see the two tabs right there yeah and there's a special wrench called a spud wrench and look what happens you probably know about this right i bought one for my daughter's room so now with that we can now tighten that thread into the radiator without defacing the threads so now we're going to start by pulling out your plug and taking off the cap great oh it's a little easier when it's only been in for a week or two yeah the first one wasn't that easy we actually had to cut it out yeah sometimes they can be a bear if they've been in there for 100 years all right so now let's just be i got a little rag here there might be a little bit of water in the bottom not too much okay so there's the plug and now for this i'm going to use two wrenches i don't want anything to happen to that pipe thread down inside the floor when i go on to the pipe itself i want to be sure i have a three corner bite i want to have a piece of the pipe touching here here and here so don't let this thing get out of round so you see right here and i just snug it like there and now another wrench and then i pull counter clockwise lefty loosey good now we can use a smaller wrench okay now many times to put a new spot in we have to break both sides of the radiator and move the radiator out of the way in order to have enough space for the spud wrench with the valve but with no valve here i think we're going to be okay so these connections are going into the old works i really want to have a good tight thread seal many people might use teflon tape what i like is to use sort of a tried and true method for me which is pipe dope that goes around what i like to use is this it's called single strand wicking and what with with that i will actually put some of this in each thread i've never heard of that before right it acts as a filler i mean it's we've been doing it for 100 years and i'm not worried about the new connection i'm worried about that you know is there any pitting on that old one and this will help to fill any gaps and avoid leaks that's great all right so we're ready to go so now let's get it caught and you don't want to cross these threads you have one shot at it so i want to start it by hand because i don't want to cross these threads they're brass threads and they could get marred and crossed and once i have it cut which there it is put the spud in just tighten it up and use a wrench to just snug it the last bit now we have to do the same thing to the pipe before we put the valve on and again we want to be careful of the threads we don't cross them now that's caught and again i have to use that wrench to hold that pipe i don't want to do any stress on that 100 year old thread that's down underneath the floor right all right so now we see the gap you've been trying to deal with right here now we could just muscle this thing and push this pipe over but if we did that it would make this pipe potentially bend a little bit which would make this face no longer plumb to the opposing side i think that was my problem the first time okay so we're going to try to outsmart this thing all right i look down below this play on both of these pipes so i'm going to use the power leverage so you're going to take a wedge right here i want you to bang that down against the pipe on that side okay thereby we're going to draw the pipe this way the radiator this way but also i'm going to use these straps to come around here and then with the 2 by right here we're going to use the power of a lever so as we pull down here it should draw the bottom of the radiator up to the face of the unit so that's going to make it but you see this we're just a little bit it's high on the pipe so we're going to use another lever so once you take this as a fulcrum back a little bit and a lever and just lift this up right when i say so and then when we get it up there i want you to try to catch the nut on those threads all right because i'm going to hold it up so ready you lift lift not too much you're you're too high yep we need the radiator up slightly the radiator up just a nano like right there yep yeah baby yahtzee okay so now let's get a wrench on that three-quarter bite okay so this is the last of the radios to vent you can hear the air coming out it's getting close i can hear the gurgle oh all right so there it is so now all the radiators are now filled with water air came up through the vent and you're ready to go i have the burner on a little while this office is going to be roasty toasty i cannot wait richard thank you so much thanks for helping good luck with your new daughter thank you i really appreciate it want to tackle all your home improvement projects with confidence join this old house insider a new streaming service from this old house the iconic emmy-winning series that inspired a generation of home enthusiasts stream over 1 000 episodes of this old house and ask this old house commercial free watch it all in the this old house app and join live online q a's with our experts best of all you can try insider free for seven days to join go to thisoldhousemembership.com laura hey mark i love this neighborhood i've actually worked on a number of houses around here a lot of dutch colonials a lot of colonials interior exterior kind of similar but always different yeah so ours is from 1929 we really wanted an old house and it was a lot of it was redone and we thought oh great it's all done and then as we lived here over time we've realized oh it was flipped and not flipped so well so come on inside i'll show you around so here's the living room oh very nice nice crown molding thank you and the fireplace the telltale sign that a flipper was here yeah i kind of picked up on that uh just to break down what you have sure you have the block mantle which is just a chunk of wood cleaned up thrown on top of the masonry okay below that we have that stone veneer uh-huh all right below that we have a gas fireplace yeah which a lot of people like you throw a switch you have a flame it's a nice touch that's what we really liked about the place and then sitting on this couch looking at the mantle i noticed this is really done poorly something's up yeah well a few things anyway um just to start in the face you can see that these are not individual pieces they're actually blocks that are weaved in together okay and when i can see that weave it's probably not a good job that's the first thing but another thing again if you look at this corner yeah they actually sell corner pieces which would give you the illusion that you have a full stone going back into the wall what they have done is they tried to make it a 45 but you can see they stick out like tabs and again they'll give you that inconsistent unclean look that we're not trying for and now that we're down low lara look at this see how they tried to mate the stone to the mantle this looks so messy a very sloppy job so if you look here you can actually see the red brick underneath and i was wondering if it was possible to clean that up and just get it back to the original unfortunately no uh once they applied this stone with that thinset mortar takes a grab and leaves a lot of residue on it so we'll take a lot of it down but we're not going to be able to clean that brick but we do have what they call a thin brick veneer okay and that will give you the appearance of a brick yep okay and we're going to bring it up eight inches on each side okay eight inches across and that will mimic exactly what you had back here in 1920 and then after we can add the wood mantle around the more traditional look that's right i'm not a carpenter but i'm going to leave the brick in such a manner that they'll be able just to bring the mantle in and tack it to the wall and be done awesome all right lara so this is the fun part okay called demo all right what we're gonna do is we're gonna look for a little wedge okay okay to see if we can fit our tool in okay we're gonna pound that and see if we can get an opening or create an opening for ourselves and that way we'll be able to get a bigger chisel in with a bigger hammer and just clean it up as we go sounds good there you go you're working it that's it so now that you have an opening you should be able to pop everything right out okay one little trick laura is now that you've made this indentation right here i would take the sledgehammer and just just bust that whole thing up as much as possible and then as you're working the chisel through it'll come out easier there you go all right you got it i like the way you're trying to pull back on that chisel now you can see it pop off the wall yeah there you go all right now we're cooking all right that's it you're finding the gaps that's it all right what's next all right so what i was just doing is checking to make sure that the unit was level yep it is okay uh and as we talked about before we took that veneer off we really didn't know what the condition was gonna be right so now we have a good look at it but you can see it's almost what we thought some of that thinset is still on the brick it's not going to come off okay so what we're going to have to do with this is cover it again okay so what we're going to use is a thin brick veneer okay this is actually a brick that's been cut thinly okay like that and we're going to just bring it up the leg bring it across and up the other leg as well okay so you can see pretty good look it looks exactly like the brick behind it the next thing we're going to want to do which is probably the most important okay is going to be layout and what i'm going to use to help me with that is a brick rule on one side it's a normal ruler but on the other side it's a series of numbers with increments that are going to help me with the spacing so i'm just going from edge to edge and that's my layout i'm going to follow the number two all the way across that will give me the correct spacing that i need we're using a thin set just like a tyler would it prevents the brick from sagging because it has a fast setup time and there's also an adhesive in it that helps stick the brick to the wall when laying tile because the surface that you're laying on is flat the notch trowel is very handy here i decided to back butter each brick because the brick behind it is inconsistently laid and there are holes in the joints people think that veneering is a material it's actually a technique it can be brick it can be plaster it can be stone so if you're looking for this material in the store it's not thin brick veneer it's just thin brick as i back butter these into place i do wiggle the brick just to make sure it fills in all the voids and then i take the level make sure i'm level and plumb now we're ready to fill in the joints and i'm just going to use a regular type and mortar and use the same technique that i would if i were repointing a wall so you don't have to do it in a straight shot you can do it a little bit by little exactly you just want to make sure the joint is full so the edge and the edge wanna ride each brick okay i see what you're saying yep so try that one in that one perfect there you go something i got yep we'll go over and fix that and now i'm going to concentrate on the first half of that joiner like that okay and now i can go basically where i want you see me stuff it in boom go to the top make sure i stuff it coming back around next brick fill that void when i feel like i'm full again i'm working my way in yeah great stuff it in make sure you push it with the joiner great now watch this i'm just going to push in and then ride up i know i'm full so when i come down i'm coming into something full it's looking really good all right we're we're about halfway there we still have to wait three or four weeks because when the carpenter comes in to do the mantle and the new surround he's gonna bang it around a bit so we wait three or four weeks this stuff sets up it's going to look like after the mantle it's going to look like it's been here since 1929 sounds good all right thank you so much mark oh you're welcome looking good that's a nice chance for me she was happy so i like the brick rule although i'll be honest i don't quite understand it well every trade has a trick you know that yeah and this is the mason's little trick on one side you can see it looks like a regular ruler so we're inches and all the little increments quarter inch half inch sure uh opening typical opening for a fireplace is 26 inches high uh if i just laid brick after brick i don't know if i'd get there this brick rule if i throw it around you can see all these different numbers here yeah so that's all greek to me those are just hash marks what do those mean why are you using it so all i do is i place it up against my opening and you can see the increments going from one to ten yep yep right here so that one lands on a it looks like a four that's a four and it climbs all the way up as such four four four cool and through that plant i'm eventually going to hit my height but if you go over here you are at a looks like a seven seven seven seven so this is the difference between a seven joint and a four joint that's right so that gives me the ability to adjust my height as i go so mark you were trying to hit 26 but when you flip it around i noticed that it doesn't really land right on a four right it's a little off so if you play the fours you're going to miss that mark but i do have an opportunity to adjust that and that's at my bottom course so this first joint can go up or down according to what i need to finish at perfect and are you marking it once or are you adjusting all along the way i usually mark everything up once story pool uh story pole style but uh sometimes bricks are irregular so i do take the opportunity as i go halfway up to re-measure so you can jump from say a four to a three and the i probably won't pick it up another yeah i will not pick that up right beautiful next to the three i'm seeing a red six a red six that six is going to indicate the amount of courses that we need to get to where we're going so again great tool so now you can estimate how many brick you need to finish the job that's right so you're not taking off extra brick from the stage at the end of the day good information mark and uh thanks oh well hey all right thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button to make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feedtoday on ask this old house i'll show you the perfect garden for crafting your own cocktails you could add these to iced tea you could put them in daiquiris you could put them in margaritas and you could put them in gimlets okay another use for herb gardens and a pretty good one in this case this radiator jumped back a half an inch when the valve was disconnected i'll show you how we bring it all together we're going to use the power of a lever so as we pull down here it should draw the bottom of the radiator up to the face of the unit we can get it just enough to make the first two or three threads we can tighten up and we're there perfect and this fireplace is sloppy poorly done and i don't even think that's the right material but i'm gonna make it look like it belongs here hi there i'm kevin o'connor and welcome back to ask this old house where our team is standing by ready to answer questions about your house so make sure you keep your emails and your letters coming hey richard good morning sir what are you working on today my task today is help a homeowner with a leaking radio wow those old radios aren't going away are they still around all right hey jen how are you good how are you i'm doing all right wow herbs huh boy you love your herb garden this is different though this one is a themed herb garden and what is the theme the theme is cocktail gardens it's really just great to have a purpose for your garden i think it'll help you learn about the plants it'll help you utilize them and use them makes a lot of sense so mint i get mint juleps mojitos right right you could take this the reason why this is in a container because it starts to get crazy in a garden so here you could use a stem you could use the leaf and you could put in many different types of drinks this is an obvious choice right if you told me you were going to do an uh cocktail herbs i would think of mint but what are some of these others over here i have slower growing uh herbs and so i'm gonna jam them all into one pot and you could say keep this on your deck and and this is accessible you're sitting there have a drink crush it put it in your drink all right this one is rosemary i would think that maybe you would take a little piece off and you'd put it on a piece of pork and on the grill you're going to put this in my drink there are so many different recipes out there you could go to any culinary website uh sage smells good smells a lot like i'm going to put that in the background because that's going to get tall okay so don't you go right in there verbena lemon never heard of it oh it's a fantastic i mean smell you could eat it yep that thing tastes like it has been dunked in lemon juice that's amazing you could add this iced tea as well you could put them in daiquiris you could put them in margaritas and you could put them in gimlets okay another use for herb gardens and a pretty good one in this case so gardens with a purpose though i think they'll make you focus on taking care and then you'll really know learn how the plant grows good good information and you know what it's five o'clock somewhere it is five o'clock somewhere now you can watch this old house and ask this old house anytime anywhere download our new app to stream full episodes to your tablet your tv and your phone binge classic episodes catch up on recent renovations and get step-by-step help projects all around the house best of all it's free the most trusted home improvement information is now available on amazon fire tv roku apple tv ios and android devices download the thistle house streaming app today richard thank you so much for coming we really appreciate it well it's nice to be back in the old hood i was born just up the street this place was built this whole neighbor was built around the teens in the 20s it's a great spot yeah this house actually was 1923. i love what you've done you kept all the old wood left it exposed it looks great thanks this is a nice piece yeah i built this myself for thanksgiving two years ago you did yeah you know tommy you know i'm really proud of you i hope so and here's the radio that we were talking about all all right nice sun room and cold sun yeah yeah that little space heater has actually been trying to cover for this radiator since we have the problem not so great all right so what happened so we had a leaking radiator valve in my daughter's room and here in the office and i thought while my wife was in the hospital actually having my daughter before she came home i'd swap these out so that the heat would be all sorted out i did hers and it went great perfect yeah right and i figured while i was doing that one i could do this one as well but when i went to loosen the valve from the radiator itself the supply line actually sprung away from the radiator you can almost see how much it pulled that way exactly and i've tried to cover that distance and you can see where it needs to be relative to where it is i've tried everything since then i've tried wedges in the basement i've tried pulling them together with straps and i cannot get this not to leak i threw a cap on it and we've had no heat in the office ever since he had the cap yeah good thing is right all right well this is a hot water rated every single one of these radiators filled with water is very common in this area in this neighborhood for this vintage house what we're gonna do is turn off the heating system drain the radiator again and then i'm sure we can fix it great first i shut the power off to the boiler then i shut off the cold water feed going into the boiler and add a hose so i can drain the system it's really important to vent each radiator to break the vacuum all right every radiator on a hot water system has a radiator valve like you've got right here right this is the standard here it's got two parts to it one is the valve itself and that's designed to be able to shut down the radiator or affect the flow to balance it a little bit but it really is a balancing valve it's never going to hold positively tight if there's a leak on the radio it's not going to stop the leak you're going to have to do what you did so there's two parts there one is the valve itself and also there's a part called the spud now that's the part that presents a union you know this is this will be the part that goes into the radiator and here's the valve but you need a nut like this to be able to bring and mate those two pieces together and that's why it's called a union now it's going to tie into the radiator itself you look here there's a thing called a bushing even though it's covered with paint that the radiator itself has a two inch thread and a bushing looks like this unpainted so it has a thread on the outside and a thread on the inside and they come in every different size and combination so if we had to we could go all the way back to a two inch bushing and we could we could adapt as we need to but i think we're going to be fine just leaving that one in and now we're going to make this spud go in but this is really tricky to get into the radiator because if you used a regular wrench you defaced right the threads so if you look here you see the two tabs right there yeah and there's a special wrench called a spud wrench and look what happens you probably know about this right i bought one for my daughter's room so now with that we can now tighten that thread into the radiator without defacing the threads so now we're going to start by pulling out your plug and taking off the cap great oh it's a little easier when it's only been in for a week or two yeah the first one wasn't that easy we actually had to cut it out yeah sometimes they can be a bear if they've been in there for 100 years all right so now let's just be i got a little rag here there might be a little bit of water in the bottom not too much okay so there's the plug and now for this i'm going to use two wrenches i don't want anything to happen to that pipe thread down inside the floor when i go on to the pipe itself i want to be sure i have a three corner bite i want to have a piece of the pipe touching here here and here so don't let this thing get out of round so you see right here and i just snug it like there and now another wrench and then i pull counter clockwise lefty loosey good now we can use a smaller wrench okay now many times to put a new spot in we have to break both sides of the radiator and move the radiator out of the way in order to have enough space for the spud wrench with the valve but with no valve here i think we're going to be okay so these connections are going into the old works i really want to have a good tight thread seal many people might use teflon tape what i like is to use sort of a tried and true method for me which is pipe dope that goes around what i like to use is this it's called single strand wicking and what with with that i will actually put some of this in each thread i've never heard of that before right it acts as a filler i mean it's we've been doing it for 100 years and i'm not worried about the new connection i'm worried about that you know is there any pitting on that old one and this will help to fill any gaps and avoid leaks that's great all right so we're ready to go so now let's get it caught and you don't want to cross these threads you have one shot at it so i want to start it by hand because i don't want to cross these threads they're brass threads and they could get marred and crossed and once i have it cut which there it is put the spud in just tighten it up and use a wrench to just snug it the last bit now we have to do the same thing to the pipe before we put the valve on and again we want to be careful of the threads we don't cross them now that's caught and again i have to use that wrench to hold that pipe i don't want to do any stress on that 100 year old thread that's down underneath the floor right all right so now we see the gap you've been trying to deal with right here now we could just muscle this thing and push this pipe over but if we did that it would make this pipe potentially bend a little bit which would make this face no longer plumb to the opposing side i think that was my problem the first time okay so we're going to try to outsmart this thing all right i look down below this play on both of these pipes so i'm going to use the power leverage so you're going to take a wedge right here i want you to bang that down against the pipe on that side okay thereby we're going to draw the pipe this way the radiator this way but also i'm going to use these straps to come around here and then with the 2 by right here we're going to use the power of a lever so as we pull down here it should draw the bottom of the radiator up to the face of the unit so that's going to make it but you see this we're just a little bit it's high on the pipe so we're going to use another lever so once you take this as a fulcrum back a little bit and a lever and just lift this up right when i say so and then when we get it up there i want you to try to catch the nut on those threads all right because i'm going to hold it up so ready you lift lift not too much you're you're too high yep we need the radiator up slightly the radiator up just a nano like right there yep yeah baby yahtzee okay so now let's get a wrench on that three-quarter bite okay so this is the last of the radios to vent you can hear the air coming out it's getting close i can hear the gurgle oh all right so there it is so now all the radiators are now filled with water air came up through the vent and you're ready to go i have the burner on a little while this office is going to be roasty toasty i cannot wait richard thank you so much thanks for helping good luck with your new daughter thank you i really appreciate it want to tackle all your home improvement projects with confidence join this old house insider a new streaming service from this old house the iconic emmy-winning series that inspired a generation of home enthusiasts stream over 1 000 episodes of this old house and ask this old house commercial free watch it all in the this old house app and join live online q a's with our experts best of all you can try insider free for seven days to join go to thisoldhousemembership.com laura hey mark i love this neighborhood i've actually worked on a number of houses around here a lot of dutch colonials a lot of colonials interior exterior kind of similar but always different yeah so ours is from 1929 we really wanted an old house and it was a lot of it was redone and we thought oh great it's all done and then as we lived here over time we've realized oh it was flipped and not flipped so well so come on inside i'll show you around so here's the living room oh very nice nice crown molding thank you and the fireplace the telltale sign that a flipper was here yeah i kind of picked up on that uh just to break down what you have sure you have the block mantle which is just a chunk of wood cleaned up thrown on top of the masonry okay below that we have that stone veneer uh-huh all right below that we have a gas fireplace yeah which a lot of people like you throw a switch you have a flame it's a nice touch that's what we really liked about the place and then sitting on this couch looking at the mantle i noticed this is really done poorly something's up yeah well a few things anyway um just to start in the face you can see that these are not individual pieces they're actually blocks that are weaved in together okay and when i can see that weave it's probably not a good job that's the first thing but another thing again if you look at this corner yeah they actually sell corner pieces which would give you the illusion that you have a full stone going back into the wall what they have done is they tried to make it a 45 but you can see they stick out like tabs and again they'll give you that inconsistent unclean look that we're not trying for and now that we're down low lara look at this see how they tried to mate the stone to the mantle this looks so messy a very sloppy job so if you look here you can actually see the red brick underneath and i was wondering if it was possible to clean that up and just get it back to the original unfortunately no uh once they applied this stone with that thinset mortar takes a grab and leaves a lot of residue on it so we'll take a lot of it down but we're not going to be able to clean that brick but we do have what they call a thin brick veneer okay and that will give you the appearance of a brick yep okay and we're going to bring it up eight inches on each side okay eight inches across and that will mimic exactly what you had back here in 1920 and then after we can add the wood mantle around the more traditional look that's right i'm not a carpenter but i'm going to leave the brick in such a manner that they'll be able just to bring the mantle in and tack it to the wall and be done awesome all right lara so this is the fun part okay called demo all right what we're gonna do is we're gonna look for a little wedge okay okay to see if we can fit our tool in okay we're gonna pound that and see if we can get an opening or create an opening for ourselves and that way we'll be able to get a bigger chisel in with a bigger hammer and just clean it up as we go sounds good there you go you're working it that's it so now that you have an opening you should be able to pop everything right out okay one little trick laura is now that you've made this indentation right here i would take the sledgehammer and just just bust that whole thing up as much as possible and then as you're working the chisel through it'll come out easier there you go all right you got it i like the way you're trying to pull back on that chisel now you can see it pop off the wall yeah there you go all right now we're cooking all right that's it you're finding the gaps that's it all right what's next all right so what i was just doing is checking to make sure that the unit was level yep it is okay uh and as we talked about before we took that veneer off we really didn't know what the condition was gonna be right so now we have a good look at it but you can see it's almost what we thought some of that thinset is still on the brick it's not going to come off okay so what we're going to have to do with this is cover it again okay so what we're going to use is a thin brick veneer okay this is actually a brick that's been cut thinly okay like that and we're going to just bring it up the leg bring it across and up the other leg as well okay so you can see pretty good look it looks exactly like the brick behind it the next thing we're going to want to do which is probably the most important okay is going to be layout and what i'm going to use to help me with that is a brick rule on one side it's a normal ruler but on the other side it's a series of numbers with increments that are going to help me with the spacing so i'm just going from edge to edge and that's my layout i'm going to follow the number two all the way across that will give me the correct spacing that i need we're using a thin set just like a tyler would it prevents the brick from sagging because it has a fast setup time and there's also an adhesive in it that helps stick the brick to the wall when laying tile because the surface that you're laying on is flat the notch trowel is very handy here i decided to back butter each brick because the brick behind it is inconsistently laid and there are holes in the joints people think that veneering is a material it's actually a technique it can be brick it can be plaster it can be stone so if you're looking for this material in the store it's not thin brick veneer it's just thin brick as i back butter these into place i do wiggle the brick just to make sure it fills in all the voids and then i take the level make sure i'm level and plumb now we're ready to fill in the joints and i'm just going to use a regular type and mortar and use the same technique that i would if i were repointing a wall so you don't have to do it in a straight shot you can do it a little bit by little exactly you just want to make sure the joint is full so the edge and the edge wanna ride each brick okay i see what you're saying yep so try that one in that one perfect there you go something i got yep we'll go over and fix that and now i'm going to concentrate on the first half of that joiner like that okay and now i can go basically where i want you see me stuff it in boom go to the top make sure i stuff it coming back around next brick fill that void when i feel like i'm full again i'm working my way in yeah great stuff it in make sure you push it with the joiner great now watch this i'm just going to push in and then ride up i know i'm full so when i come down i'm coming into something full it's looking really good all right we're we're about halfway there we still have to wait three or four weeks because when the carpenter comes in to do the mantle and the new surround he's gonna bang it around a bit so we wait three or four weeks this stuff sets up it's going to look like after the mantle it's going to look like it's been here since 1929 sounds good all right thank you so much mark oh you're welcome looking good that's a nice chance for me she was happy so i like the brick rule although i'll be honest i don't quite understand it well every trade has a trick you know that yeah and this is the mason's little trick on one side you can see it looks like a regular ruler so we're inches and all the little increments quarter inch half inch sure uh opening typical opening for a fireplace is 26 inches high uh if i just laid brick after brick i don't know if i'd get there this brick rule if i throw it around you can see all these different numbers here yeah so that's all greek to me those are just hash marks what do those mean why are you using it so all i do is i place it up against my opening and you can see the increments going from one to ten yep yep right here so that one lands on a it looks like a four that's a four and it climbs all the way up as such four four four cool and through that plant i'm eventually going to hit my height but if you go over here you are at a looks like a seven seven seven seven so this is the difference between a seven joint and a four joint that's right so that gives me the ability to adjust my height as i go so mark you were trying to hit 26 but when you flip it around i noticed that it doesn't really land right on a four right it's a little off so if you play the fours you're going to miss that mark but i do have an opportunity to adjust that and that's at my bottom course so this first joint can go up or down according to what i need to finish at perfect and are you marking it once or are you adjusting all along the way i usually mark everything up once story pool uh story pole style but uh sometimes bricks are irregular so i do take the opportunity as i go halfway up to re-measure so you can jump from say a four to a three and the i probably won't pick it up another yeah i will not pick that up right beautiful next to the three i'm seeing a red six a red six that six is going to indicate the amount of courses that we need to get to where we're going so again great tool so now you can estimate how many brick you need to finish the job that's right so you're not taking off extra brick from the stage at the end of the day good information mark and uh thanks oh well hey all right thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button to make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feed\n"