3 years back a foreman in Galveston said never wet cut brick in a freeze, half the crew says hes full of it
He swears the water gets in the pores and pops the faces off by spring, but two guys on my crew have been wet cutting all winter with zero issues. Whats the real answer here, does temp actually matter or is it just an old wives tale?
Man, the old foreman isn't wrong but the crew isn't either. It's not the cutting itself that gets you, it's the water sitting in the brick after. If those bricks go up wet and then a hard freeze hits before they dry out, that water expands and blows the faces off, but that takes a real cold snap and time. Guys wet cutting all winter in Galveston are probably fine because it barely freezes there and the brick dries fast in the sun. So it's less about the temp when you cut and more about whether that brick is still soaked when the freeze lands.