Just a few things
 

Hi everyone, new to the site today, basically im 19 and just finishing my level 3 diploma/NVQ in bricklaying and have my heart set that i will be going abroad within the next 2-3 years and i'd love to go to canada. However with the government now brilliantly deciding to cancel all new schools projects i couldnt let myself on the dole and maybe have to think about moving sooner rather then later.

So just wondering where the work is for brickys in canada, what to expect etc. Any help or tips appreciated.

Re: Just a few things
 

Can't help with your enquiry but best of luck. I'm sure someone will be along soon with some useful information.

Re: Just a few things
 

Have a lok at the WIKI and also at BUNAC.

As for bricklayers - there is a guy building mock walled gates (breeze blocks finished with a posh outer layer) He is taking forever, been at it since march, I can only assume decent bricky's are hard to come by:blink:

Re: Just a few things
 

Understandable given most peoples houses are made of wood.

Re: Just a few things
 

19 ? get yourself to somewhere warm and have a bit of fun, spain or somewhere - working hol in australia etc ; you need to wait til the lifes been sucked out of you before you head over here (as a young guy)

Re: Just a few things
 

I"d apply for a working holiday visa - BUNAC.

Best way to get the lay of the land and you can see if Canada's really for you.

Re: Just a few things
 

haha beaverquest see i wouldnt mind trying australia too but ive heard its a bad country for bricklaying from people i know who've been there, besides i think i'd melt working in that heat. Is canada not somewhere to be reccomended for a young lad, i know its a big place just wondering on your opinion. Thanks kiwilass thats what i was thinking of , im going to give it a go when i get more serious on it. Some people mention to me about there always being adverts in the papers for brickys in canada though?, but ive been looking through the forums for a while and there dosent seem to be a mention.

Re: Just a few things
 

So all the young folk that come over here from all manner of different countries to work the ski season have a lousy time? Canada's certainly different in terms of opportunities compared to Australia, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad choice.

Re: Just a few things
 

bricklaying in balzac has hardly the same appeal as boarding in banff...

Re: Just a few things
 

We've got some bricks on our house.

Re: Just a few things
 

Problem is with brickies in Canada is that you have two major things against you.

1) The weather - most thigs i the outside trades get done / started after spring break - so you get around about 7 months to build outside if you're lucky.

2) Most of the houses are made of wood with vinyl siding on them.

You could specialise in building interior brick walls that go behind people log burners :rofl:

Joking aside, back in the UK I knew loads of brickies, here I don't think i've met one??? Shame cos I wouldn't mind 2 brick posts at the end of the drive (so if anyone knows a good brickie!!!!!)

If you were to come over on a BUNAC visa, work out which province you are going to and then contact a load of house building companies and see what they say the need for brickies is.

Re: Just a few things
 

Lots of large commercial and public building use brick either structurally or as fascia.

Re: Just a few things
 

Yes true, wasn't thinking - it' been a while since I saw a commercial building :rofl:

Re: Just a few things
 

:p

Personally I don't think brick is a practical material for building homes here in Canada. At least anywhere other than southern Vancouver Island and the lower mainland.

New homes in Canada are insulated with fibreglass batts which are rated at R20. These batts are 6" thick. In order to build with brick you would have to have outside walls that are 14" thick just for the two courses of brick (4" per brick) and the space required for the insulation. In addition to this you would still need something on the inside of the brick to hang the drywall on there's another possible 4" (2x4 +drywall), potentially an 18" thick wall.

Wood frame requires a 2x6 frame plus the sheething and the drywall total thickness about 6.5"

Re: Just a few things
 

Just get your self on BUNAC and have a year in Canada to decide for your self.

Re: Just a few things
 

Actually, almost all new houses are timber framed construction. The outer finish is really a veneer (non-load bearing) and can be of any suitable material: brickwork is very popular so I would guess there's lots of work for qualified bricklayers.

Re: Just a few things
 

Brick is popular here in the GTA as a finish. So no shortage of work for a good bricky.

The real question is, are you willing to compete with the significant number illegal immigrants that fill out the vacancies for construction workers here.
Throw into the mix that the Canadian way is 'who you know, not what you know' (or how good you are). You’ll find that it creates little ethnic groups, that tend to dominate certain trades, in certain areas.

Plus IMHO for a young person the vast majority of Canada would easily be described as boring, with a few, often seasonal, exceptions!

Re: Just a few things
 

Would that opinion not depend on where in Canada and where a person comes from?

I love the small part of Canada I have seen and lived (Vancouver Island mainly) and am going to live there in less than a month. I did one year on a Bunac and think this is a great way to see Canada.

Cant say I think BC is boring as a young person but maybe that's just me;)

Re: Just a few things
 

OK a couple of pointers from a fellow brickie

steve p I say this with respect and a smile on my face but you obviously know nothing about construction either here in Canada or in UK.

The tradesmen that I have met over here are exceptionally good and that even includes the illegals although I have met a few hacks. Nobody cares about an NVQ because they simply dont know what it means over here it is your experiance that counts and above all WHO YOU KNOW! Things are different over here and it takes a little time to adjust. There are many multiple sizes of bricks that you have to get used to and you had better be good at building arches and quin corners and you'd better to be able to lay 800 - 1000 per day for about £8 - £15 per hour depending on where you are located. There is no bonus or price work here. The blocks are very different over here. I dont care how good you are or how good you think you are unless you have layed them before you will struggle. Probably take you a couple of months to get used to them.

Then to add insult to injury you need to speak Portugese to be able to apply for the few jobs that there are. All of those adds you see in the papers are all lies. They just want your money to "process your application"
One more thing at the age of 19 you will simply not be taken seriously over here very few people start laying until they have done a few years labouring first and considering that most people dont leave school until they ar 18/19 that would put you in your mid 20's before you can call yourself a bricklayer.

Dont want to put you of too much but I am trying to arm you with the facts. It seems to me the days of a brickie being able to travel abroad making good money and having a laugh at the same time are over at least for now. The best place I ever worked was Germany from 1993 till 1997. You could make a grand a week with 2 broken arms. Go over there now and you'll starve to death! I have a brickie mate who emmigrated to Australia and he said they money was good and lots of work (and still is) but the heat would nearly kill ya. He did the smart thing and re trained as a massage therapist and now only works inside (air con).
They say Poland is the next boom country waiting to happen. How ironic would that be?

To sum up once I had been here a couple of months one of my workmates asked me what the main differance was being here from the UK. I said " a Canadian works twice as hard for half the money"

Re: Just a few things
 

I don't dispute this, I did say "personally I don't think". ;)

However it's unfair to state I don't know anything without stating where I'm wrong in my assumption.

Please explain.

Re: Just a few things
 

Fair comment,

Ok in Canada many houses are built with brick but the thing to realise is that the brick is only decoration and has no structural purpose at all. You could take all of the brick away and the house would stand. Apart from looking pretty (and that is a matter of opinion) the only purpose of having brick is to provide some weather protection to the actuall structure of the house which in Canada is 95% of the time a 2x6 timber framed wall insulated with the 6" bats you mentioned and if you wanna throw some money at the project an extra 2" board insulation on the outside of the studs giving you an extra R5.
The alternative to brick would be siding which could be in various forms eg; Vinyl, wood etc.
Actually the same is true in the UK except we use most of the time light weight blockwork as our structure with cavity insulation. What I mean is in the UK on just about any house built 1900 onwards you could strip all of the brick away and the house "should" stand. :fingerscrossed:

Re: Just a few things
 

With repect. ;)

You haven't told me anything I didn't know about Canadian houses.

And it sounds like UK homes are built pretty close to how I described except they use light weight blocks for one course rather than two courses of bricks.

What I didn't know was about the light weight blocks. In addition how large would the cavity between the blocks and the bricks be to get an R20 rating? Also what would be used inside to hang the drywall on? Is that 2x4 framing or do they still just plaster the inside of the outside walls?

So if you were to build a UK type constructed home here in Canada with at least R20 insulation, how thick would the outside walls be?

Re: Just a few things
 

Uk new houses have walls 300mm -400mm thick that is 12"-14" ..thats 100mm insulated internal blockwork or timber frame studwork..50-100mm celotex insulation 50mm clear cavity 100mm externall brickwork/blockwork 2 coats waterproof render 25mm thick to block exterior construction and if you count the internal plasterboard with a 22mm dab AND 12.5mm board and 3mm skim finish..(so you dont need to "hang" drywall to bricks or blocks im afraid) thats grand total of approx 345-445mm thick standard construction walls in the uk (UK building regs).

Re: Just a few things
 

Now my head hurts I need to go back to college!
In the UK the thermal resistance of a wall is measured differently than in Canada. They use a measurement called a U value which is derived from the R value but takes into account the many layers of a wall as well as an assumed temp diff from inside the structure to outside of 24c and a humidity level of 50%. To make things more complicated we use different values to measure R values. US and Canada uses the old imperial system UK and rest of the world uses the SI system (as far as I can tell). I'm no mathematician but as far as I can tell a Canadian R20 wall would have a U value of 0.22. The lower the U value the better. Therefore the Canadian heat loss standards are better.
Now according to knaufinsulation.co.uk a figure of 0.23 (almost 0.22)can be achieved by
4"brick 4" cavity fully filled with there insulation and a 4" lightweight aircrete block. I
t should be pointed out though that most builder dont go with a full 4" fill but would normally have 3" with an inch air space or 80mm full fill.

Therefore to answer your question the outside walls would have to be 12" thick. The same as a Canadian wall built using a brick veneer. 2x6 stud 3.5" brick, 1" cavity, 1" for ply sheathing and drywall. Ok 11.5"

Oh and nobody plasters any more. The drywall is glued to the blockwork and levelled using a straight edge. You can put a 3mm skim on but most builders prefer to tape the seams.

Re: Just a few things
 

Thank you that's what I wanted to know. You have to keep in mind I left the UK in 1963 at age 16 hence my questions and lack of knowledge re UK building standards.;)

While I have your attention...on a UK home is there any electrical run on the outside walls and if so how is that done if the drywall is just glues to the blocks? Also do they still have a cistern in the attic for the hot water supply?

Re: Just a few things
 

You make me think Steve. Thanks

Ok the cistern in the attic is a great almost fail safe system but not energt efficiant compared to a modern "combi" boiler. These boilers provide the hot water for the central heating sysytem and a seperate loop for instant hot water. (You turn on the hot water, the rush of water moves a diaphram and this triggers a switch that heats a coil that the water is passing through).
You have to remember that when you left the UK hardly anybody had natural gas but by the time the late 70's/early 80's rolled round almost every house in the country could get nat gas hence more efficient systems. I remember talking to one guy who bought his house in 69 (brand new) boiler run on coal, mid 70's oil early 80's nat gas.

Yes the external walls have electrical the wires are tightly stapled to the block and most of the boxes are thin enough to accomodate the glue and drywall. The glue and the drywall together makes about an inch. If you need a deeper box then you need to chisel out a little of the block which is no big deal with the lightweight blocks.
One thing I have noticed is that in Canada the electrical standards are far higher than UK but the plumbing over here is a little old fashioned.