Saw some new brick patterns on a job site in Salem and it threw me off

I was walking through a new development in Salem last week and noticed a crew laying brick in a diagonal herringbone on a wall. It looked sharp but I could tell it was taking them twice as long as a standard running bond. Has anyone else tried fancy patterns on residential jobs and found they're worth the extra time?

3 comments

3 Comments

brooke712mo ago

Funny how everything's getting extra these days, from brick patterns to coffee orders.

cameron6842mo ago

Damn, wait. Herringbone on a wall? Not just a patio or walkway? That is wild to me. I've messed with basket weave on a small firepit wall once and it took forever just to keep the corner cuts clean. That diagonal pattern you saw sounds like it would waste so much brick material from all the angled cuts. Might look real nice but I bet the homeowner's paying premium labor for that. No way a typical crew charges standard rate for that extra layout time.

smith.jordan2mo ago

On a wall, herringbone actually doesn't waste as much brick as you'd think. The cuts are all at right angles around windows and corners, same as running bond. I did a herringbone wall on a garage last summer and only threw away maybe 5 percent more material than normal. The real time killer is the layout and getting the first row perfectly level. Once you lock that in, the pattern actually goes pretty quick because you're just repeating the same diagonal lines. The homeowner paid time and materials and the final look was worth every extra hour.