# Forum Home Renovation Fences & Screens  Brick Piers and Fencing

## cyclic



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## alexjohn

Hmmmm..no re bar in the piers ? 
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## Marc

Yep ... that is what happenes when you tie a huge sail to a brick mast glued down with a square foot of dubious mortar. It want's to fly off  :Smilie:

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## johnc

Dodgy Bros are still making fences then. This build is amateur hour

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## David.Elliott

Looks like WA! 
Every big (for WA) storm we have here leaves a trail of these, bent colourbond steel fence uprights and broken SuperSix...

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## cyclic

> Looks like WA! 
> Every big (for WA) storm we have here leaves a trail of these, bent colourbond steel fence uprights and broken SuperSix...

  Nah, Brisbane North/Moreton Bay area I believe.
Looking at it, I would say 1970-1980 build.
Owners don't know piers like that have no strength, Brickies don't care.

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## Bros



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## Marc

I must say that the first time I saw a brick wall damaged by a car in Sydney, I was amazed at how weak brick walls are here. The bricks come off the mortar clean. 
I used to have a kiln and made bricks the old fashion way. Mud mixed with sawdust or manure, molded by hand on a table, then taken to a flat area like a bocce ball court, and dried in the sun and cooked in a kiln.
The bricks we made were light and very porous. A single brick wall with mortar, 3 sand, one lime and 1/2 cement would bond so well that when it came to demolish it, the bricks would break in half, split, crack but never come off clean like this bricks do here.

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## Marc

The process in a nutshell
Mixing the mud with a wheel pulled by horses. Sometimes just walking a few horses around in the mud.
Molding the bricks and laying them in the sun to dry.
Stacking them on the sides to finish drying.
Piling them up into a makeshift kiln with openings for the fire.
Once finished burning, some 24 to 36 hours of fire, a week to cool down and they are ready  :Smilie: 
THe last photo shows a kiln with some 100,000 bricks
THe second last photo shows a small kiln with roofing bricks. Flatter and lighter they are placed between steel I beams two at the time with a slight angle upwards jammed against each other to form a light dome. The top is then filled with dirt and covered with tiles.

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## UseByDate

> The process in a nutshell
> Mixing the mud with a wheel pulled by horses. Sometimes just walking a few horses around in the mud.
> Molding the bricks and laying them in the sun to dry.
> Stacking them on the sides to finish drying.
> Piling them up into a makeshift kiln with openings for the fire.
> Once finished burning, some 24 to 36 hours of fire, a week to cool down and they are ready 
> THe last photo shows a kiln with some 100,000 bricks
> THe second last photo shows a small kiln with roofing bricks. Flatter and lighter they are placed between steel I beams two at the time with a slight angle upwards jammed against each other to form a light dome. The top is then filled with dirt and covered with tiles.

  The industry fell into steep decline in Australia when the millennial Australian horses stopped applying for the mud mixing jobs. Apparently they won't work if you don't supply them with safe spaces, free food and bean bags.  :Wink:

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## Marc

> The industry fell into steep decline in Australia when the millennial Australian horses stopped applying for the mud mixing jobs. Apparently they won't work if you don't supply them with safe spaces, free food and bean bags.

   Not to mention gender neutral toilets ...  :Smilie:

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## METRIX

> The industry fell into steep decline in Australia when the millennial Australian horses stopped applying for the mud mixing jobs. Apparently they won't work if you don't supply them with safe spaces, free food and bean bags.

  Don't forget a nanny by their side at all times, and a counceler to give them encouragement they are doing OK

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## Spottiswoode

Ok. I now have this problem. It hasn’t fallen over completely yet, but we have three wobbly piers.  
What next? I don’t fancy digging up the footings and base. What’s the best way to stick a timber fence on top of a low brick wall? Colourbond is out because I have sons and soccer balls and colourbond don’t pay well together.

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## SilentButDeadly

We drilled vertically through the sandstone gate posts (and down into the bedrock beneath) of NSW Parliament House to install galvanised rebar in order to prevent a recurrence of their toppling by protesters back in the late 80s.  
These days such core drills are dime a dozen at the local hire place...

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