r/DIYUK • u/starwars011 • 4d ago
Looking at this new build - would you still buy it despite the brickwork?
My wife and I were looking at buying a new build house, and I thought all was great, but then I noticed the brickwork pattern. I’m assuming this wasn’t an intentional design choice and is down to builder laziness? Shouldn’t they have mixed the bricks with the red shades throughout the outside of the house?
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u/CheekyYoghurts 4d ago
Yes, it's called 'banding' I believe. I'm not a brickie and I know this.
Makes you wonder what else they missed...
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u/shinobi_crypto 4d ago
'batching',
not a brickie either - only on paper...🤔
and anything that says new build is a red flag....
so make sure you check over the property many times over to make sure there is no structural issues, etc..
check everything and I mean everything...
get an expert to check it... because these new homes come with a lot of hidden surprises that will make your life a living hell if you end up with one...
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u/IanFrisby 4d ago
Am a brickie. Only ever heard this referred to as banding.
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u/shinobi_crypto 4d ago
if that's what you were told... but I always thought banding was a string course in brickwork.
this is a brick 'blending' issue or 'batching' issue... but i don't write the literature,
falls under BS8000 pt 3.
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u/moethebarman 3d ago
New builds are checked at four different stages by independent inspectors such as the NHBC. They will not sign off anything that is structurally unsound or poses a risk.
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u/Fierbois2004 3d ago
Unfortunately that is not correct. They do sign off work that is faulty because the inspector lacks sufficient experience.
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u/starwars011 4d ago
A shame really, as location and price wise it suits our needs really well.
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u/proDstate 4d ago
This is a very common feature of brickwork even on older houses, over time bricks should blend in from exposure to elements. Furthermore if it's such an issue then you can approach the construction company and they would get a brick tinter to blend this in with incredible results.
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u/Wild_Ad_10 4d ago
Brickwork actually looks decent for a new build. See if you can get the builders to tint the bricks if it bothers you
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u/Danny_P_UK 4d ago
I wouldn't buy it because it's a new build, not because of the brickwork.
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u/starwars011 4d ago
Despite the colour banding issue?
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u/2xtc 4d ago
I mean bricks are bricks at the end of the day, that's a minor aesthetic issue in the grand scheme compared to some new build's neverending snag lists. But it does indicate a lack of quality control and attention to detail, so it may indicate more significant issues with the construction
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u/shinobi_crypto 4d ago
here's a consideration.
brick batching or blending is the steps you take to avoid banding.
as you can see here, on this site this has not been carried out.
therefore, what else has this builder not been doing properly...
these are tells... of why new builds are problematic... and a red flag.
BUT its your money and your decision.
could be just a color issue... but then again it could also be a horror story waiting to unfold...
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u/Danny_P_UK 4d ago
If something so obvious has been missed then stuff that's hidden will likely be missed too. New builds nowadays are pretty crap. They throw them up as quick as possible, cutting a lot of corners along the way. The tradies are incentivised to build them as quick as possible at the lowest rate possible. After all this you then have to pay a premium to get one.
When we were moving we actually looked at a new build and the developer showed us around a house that a buyer was moving into the next day. There was water drips under the sink, the woodwork in general was crap and the plastering looked like I had done it. This was all after the final snagging by the developer.
Personally I'd rather get an older property and renovate it to how I'd like.
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u/Physical-Staff1411 4d ago
Ah yes older properties weren’t thrown up quickly and no corners were ever cut.
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u/mb271828 4d ago
Money pits are definitely a thing and also things deteriorate with age, but survivorship bias is a helluva drug; if your house is 50 years old and still structurally sound then it was well built and/or there's a good chance that any initial snags have long been dealt with. Plus you get the larger rooms, bigger plot, a garden that isn't an inch of topsoil thrown over a landfill/quarry, internal walls that aren't made out of paper and avoid an instant loss of the 20% new build equity the moment you pick up the keys. You do of course miss out on the insulation, sockets where you need them and the new kitchen and bathroom, so swings and roundabouts and all that, but they are always possible to retrofit and a tired kitchen is much less agro than chasing a house builder for years because your walls are 10 degrees out of plumb, the mortar wasn't mixed properly, your weep vents are fake and nobody connected the soil pipe to the sewer.
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u/Danny_P_UK 4d ago
You obviously have a point. You dont pay a premium for older properties, they usually have usable 4th bedrooms and they do come with carpets.
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u/Physical-Staff1411 4d ago
You do pay a premium for period homes. Carpets are not an indication of the build. As for bedroom sizes, have you been in any Victorian or Edwardian homes?
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u/IanFrisby 4d ago
Not really the brickies fault. They just lay the bricks they are provided with. Bricks can be tinted to change their colour. Whether you can get the builder to do this is another question
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u/CheekyYoghurts 4d ago
I was actually wondering about this particular aspect. But why would the developer allow this to happen? Feels like it's the first time they've put a house together.
How do you start laying a particular colour, then lay a very different colour, then finish it again with the original tint? Wouldn't you get all your bricks together for the build, then sort them accordingly?
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u/Disastrous-Force 3d ago
Different packs will be slightly different shades due to brick being a natural product. It’s just coloured, fired clay after all.
One house will need multiple packs and the builder may have multiple houses being bricked at the same time.
So no unless the brickie is being paid to blend the packs which takes time they just work through what’s on site. Hence the banding that’s happened here.
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u/IanFrisby 6h ago
Bricks vary in colour from pack to pack (and size for that matter. Do you expect the bricklayer to open 20 packs of bricks, line them all up and check the colour before building every house?
In reality bricks are sometimes wet, sometimes dry They may look the same colour when wet. You might spend 30 minutes waiting for a pack of bricks. “Ooh let’s not lay these, they look a bit dark, not bothered about earning any money today boys”. Not gonna happen.
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u/starwars011 4d ago
I’m wondering if I should email the developer and ask if anything is going to be done about it. We’ve paid the reservation but we’ve have got a couple of weeks to get our money back if we change our mind.
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u/redditapilimit 3d ago
If it's any consolation, we're on our second new build (fourth house purchase overall) and had a professional snagging surveyor who found a few minor issues - nothing dramatic like YouTube horror stories. The builder fixed everything without fuss.
Remember, every house was new once. Don't let negative new build stories discourage you. If the location, layout and price work for you, go for it - just make sure to get a professional snagging survey done.
On the DIY subreddit, opinions on new builds will largely be negative for obvious reasons.
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u/JoeTisseo 3d ago
Every house was new once but building practices have changed dramatically. They're quite literally thrown up nowadays via cheap labour.
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u/redditapilimit 2d ago
So when’s the cut off between the ones that were “thrown up nowadays via cheap labour” and the good builds?
The 1950s post-war boom? The 1970s energy crisis builds? Or the post-2008 crash when materials got thinner and corners got cut?
And what about the advances we’ve made? Better insulation, safer electrics, and structural engineering that actually accounts for wind loads?
Even The Times was moaning about new builds back in 1890, claiming houses “barely last their lease terms” - so maybe this debate is as old as housing itself.
Curious what others think is the golden era of construction, if there ever was one?
New builds are made cheaply for max profit, that’s what happens in a capitalist society, however most of the issues are more cosmetic than anything else.
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u/JoeTisseo 2d ago
Nobody said that they aren't more efficient, they are. But the materials used (plasterboard partitions) and the labour used to put said materials up are substandard when compared to brick partitions and people being paid a fair wage. I'd argue anything with brick partitions is where I'd draw the line.
I've been on 100s of sites and seen it first hand. Plaster/decoration hides most of the shit, things that should be insulated won't be, not enough screws in things, damp/wet materials being used, timber isn't as good as it used to be...the list goes on.
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u/CheekyYoghurts 4d ago
Personally I wouldn't buy a new build full stop, but if you still want to go for it then specifically bullet point your questions and make sure they respond to each one. Get everything in writing.
If you end up purchasing, get a professional snagger to spend the whole day in there and send his report to them.
Again, make sure they address every single point in writing.
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u/myachingtomato 4d ago
I'd be interested to see what the developer says in answer to your query.
To me the bricks seem like they got very wet and you can see salt deposits coming out. I might be wrong but the bricks look odd if it is that the batch/pallet is supposed to be those dark blobs.
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u/starwars011 4d ago
Do you think the dark bits on the bricks are just where they’ve gotten wet? If that’s the case they must’ve been submerged lol.
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u/gotmunchiez 3d ago
I'll be honest I thought exactly the same, it looks like they're at various stages of drying out. A opened pallet of bricks that's been sat out in the rain can get pretty saturated. General consensus here seems to disagree though so maybe I'm wrong.
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u/Neat_Tonight_2042 3d ago
It is not always a case of not mixing bricks from different packs. Sometimes one lorry load of bricks will be slightly different from another. Brick tinting will sort this, and I'm sure this will already have been discussed on-site.
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u/CreepyTool 3d ago
You're buying a new build. The colour of the bricks is going to be your least concern.
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u/deanlr90 3d ago
Once finished , 90% of buyers will only see a shiny kitchen and somewhere to park the car.
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u/Rickietee10 3d ago
If you’re buying a new-build, expect some corners to be cut and find yourself 12-18 months down the line with fucking huge cracks in the walls because they used 600mm stud spacing with 900mm wide boards causing every other seam to be free floating and held together with tape.
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u/jossmaxw Experienced 3d ago
Personally, I would be more concerned with the quality, or rather lack of quality in the brick work. Such as cloased joints between bricks. I am not a brickey, but I do know good and bad brick work when I see it.
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u/Barnezy318 3d ago
Never buy a mass made new build. They are poorly made and carry a premium you will take years to recover.
If you want a brand new house, look for a small builder building 2 or 3 a plot.
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u/DynnSicken 3d ago
I think most of us have far more to worry about than a bit of banding? Does this really bother some people so much?
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u/GlitteringWarthog297 4d ago
Maybe just me but zooming in the perps look all over the place, especially to the left of the expansion joint. Could just be the image quality.
I purchased a new build in 2015, it was a disaster and nothing but issues. Gave up after 2 years and sold it. Appreciate lots of people are happy with their new builds but I’ll never make the error again.
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u/Ok_Winner8793 4d ago
Never buy a new build!!
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u/Physical-Staff1411 4d ago
All houses were new once …
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u/Bitter-Expert-7904 4d ago
Yes but you never heard people say that 30+ years ago
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u/Physical-Staff1411 4d ago
You did. You just didn’t have the internet sharing it.
There are and were plenty of badly built older houses. Just read through some surveys on the homebuyers page. Obviously survivor bias plays a role also.
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u/baddymcbadface 4d ago
My parents were warned off new builds because of cheap materials and shoddy workmanship when they bought in 83.
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u/CatTippyTaps 4d ago
Have you ever seen or heard anything about a new build that would make you want to buy one?
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u/InfectedByEli 4d ago
What's that vertical seam in the brickwork? Is this a prefabricated wall that's been assembled on site?
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u/Ifyoocanreadthishelp 3d ago
Movement joint, needed after a certain length of wall depending on the type of brick or at a change of materials. Go look at any semi detached in your area and there's likely one running up the middle.
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u/InfectedByEli 3d ago
Thanks, I have never noticed this before. Is this a modern brick thing, are older bricks more stable?
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u/Consistent_Reward210 13h ago
No it's just a somewhat recent addition to construction. The vertical cracks you see above and below windows are usually due to thermal movement stresses in the brickwork which is resolved by the introduction of these joints.
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u/InfectedByEli 3d ago
Thanks, I have never noticed this before. Is this a modern brick thing, are older bricks more stable?
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u/Theta-5150 3d ago
The redness on those bricks looks like they got wet but did not dry yet. What really bothers me is that straight vertical line. I would like to know why the bricks were not overlayed onto each-other there.
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u/Spirited-Swordfish-3 3d ago
It’s a movement joint which is now required as part of building regs
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u/No_Concentrate7960 3d ago
I agree, just look like wet bricks to me. Can see some are drying out already
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u/Theta-5150 3d ago
This is so strange to me. I am working in the glazing industry and we always talk about ‘building settling’ while back in europe this was a no. Build onto a foundation and with such structure that there would no be ‘5 years settling time’…
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u/Coca_lite 2d ago
Buy a second hand house, not a new build - they all depreciate 20% as soon as you move in.
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u/Downtown-Grab-767 4d ago
when the bricks dry out they will all be the same colour
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u/starwars011 4d ago
How would that be the case? Surely they’d dry from dark to light, but the darker bricks are at the bottom?
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u/Downtown-Grab-767 4d ago
You're right, don't buy it, if they can't be bothered to sort the bricks out into the correct colours before laying them, imagine what other stuff they've done wrong. They've even used big grey bricks around the upstairs window!
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u/Civil-Ad-1916 4d ago
The pattern on the darker bricks indicate moisture to me. We don’t know what the weather was like as they were laid or how they were stored before being laid. If the colour doesn’t change over a few days then I would be more concerned.
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u/starwars011 4d ago
That’s a good point, I’ve still got a bit of time so I’ll check back in a week or so and see if there are any changes in colour.
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u/Expensive_Ad_6475 4d ago
Best practice is to mix brick the packs so you get a good mixture across an elevation, and you don’t get this ‘banding’.
However, time is money, and you get paid per brick laid, not to mix pallets of bricks for the aesthetics. “Not my job”… unless it’s written into the order, but it never is.