Best design strategies for designing brick and mortar?

[laukejas]

Hi,

I have been using SOLIDWORKS since 2015, but for the first time now, I have to design a brick and mortar furnace for a sauna. I know rough dimensions of the space in which the furnace has to be built, as well as dimension of some off-shelf components (steel doors, reinforcement bars, heat transfer pipes, etc.) that will be laid in between the bricks. I also know the dimensions of the bricks I want to use.

What I need for the final result is a BOM with brick count and mortar requirements, as well as some basic reference drawings to use during brick laying. I want to optimize the design so that a minimum amount of brick cutting is required (to use full-sized bricks wherever possible).

What I am not sure is the best design strategy for such a thing. I want my design to be flexible, allowing for different brick laying variants until I figure out which one is the best, and if brick cutting is required in some places, to know how many off-cut pieces I have left so I can use them in other areas of the furnace.

I am thinking that perhaps Top-down multibody strategy with Weldments enabled (for brick body count), and the inserting this into an assembly to mate it with the off-shelf parts and check for interferences or gaps, should be reasonably convenient, but split bricks will be an issue when it comes to BOM, as they will be recognized as totally separate items due to their different geometry. Also, I have no idea how to represent mortar in between the bricks, so that I can get an accurate total.
If I went with Bottom-up assembly approach, I could probably partially solve the split brick issue by using configurations (full brick, half-brick, third brick, etc.), but this would be very inflexible if I realize that I need a different brick layout. It would also probably rebuild slow as hell.

I have ideas, but I don't want to re-invent the wheel. What is the traditional approach in designing brick and mortar stuff in SOLIDWORKS? What strategies prove to be the most efficient for a flexible model and an accurate BOM?

[Frederick_Law]

Unless you're willing to model and layout brick by brick.
My guess is, it'll be easier to just estimate by volume.

[laukejas]

Unless you're willing to model and layout brick by brick.
My guess is, it'll be easier to just estimate by volume.

Well, I need an exact model, not an estimation. I am willing to work on it, and I'm sure it can be automated with patterns, but I am still seeking the best modeling strategy for this kind of a task before I start.

[Lucas]

I have never seen brick and mortar design in SW, but depending on the size and shape might be fine to do it.

You could design the structure with floating bricks in a assembly and for the mortar create a New Part, Join the bricks, create one solid and substract the bricks:

I think it is better to leave the split bricks showing on the BOM and make a manual counting of total bricks needed.

[laukejas]

I have never seen brick and mortar design in SW, but depending on the size and shape might be fine to do it.

You could design the structure with floating bricks in a assembly and for the mortar create a New Part, Join the bricks, create one solid and substract the bricks:

image.png

I think it is better to leave the split bricks showing on the BOM and make a manual counting of total bricks needed.

Thank you for that suggestion! Subtracting is a really good idea.

But as for split bricks, manual counting is exactly what I want to avoid. This isn't the first time that I need something like this (splitting a standard part and using it in several completely different parts of the assembly, but still seeing it as a single item in BOM), and I'm yet to find an effective solution that is flexible and convenient to use from the modeling perspective. Any suggestions are welcome

[Frederick_Law]

Well, I need an exact model, not an estimation. I am willing to work on it, and I'm sure it can be automated with patterns, but I am still seeking the best modeling strategy for this kind of a task before I start.

Been there, done that.
Bar stock and welding.
Unless you need to do that everyday, just estimate.
You'll need to spend lots of time to create macro to get it done.
And that will start with estimation so you get the equations.

[mike miller]

Will this sauna be a block-shaped structure or will it have fancy corners and arches? The reason I ask is because if it's a simple shape, you can figure out the number of blocks per run for each wall based on length and height dimensions and compute the total number of bricks required using an equation. I would then use an appearance to make it look like a brick wall.

I'm not trying to be stubborn, just practical and pragmatic. The bricklayers probably don't want or need a BOM detailing the number of 1/2, 1/3, and 3/5 ( ) bricks required. All they need is a reasonable estimate of bricks for the whole project.

[zxys001]

Been there, done that.
Bar stock and welding.
Unless you need to do that everyday, just estimate.
You'll need to spend lots of time to create macro to get it done.
And that will start with estimation so you get the equations.

..my best guess is... 4 pallets?

[laukejas]

Lol, some funny answers here The bricklayers might not need detailed drawings, but I will be building this furnace myself, and as I don't have lots of experience with that, I want to figure out all the stuff on SOLIDWORKS, rather than get stuck in the middle of the build, realizing that I made a mistake 3 days ago that is now set in stone, literally speaking.

I spent the whole day attempting this design in multibody strategy, with LOTS of Linear Pattern and Move/Copy features...







Over 120 features... Not the worst I've done, but still. All this in order to arrive at laying pattern drawing:



Here is the whole project in Pack&Go if you want to take a look. It isn't finished yet, I am not entirely sure of the brick layout in some of the levels, the stones need more support, and I didn't finish mortar calculations... https://ufile.io/3qsr70gm File is saved in 2021, "infested" with student edition watermark

This is just a test to see if this is an optimal way of designing such a thing. Let me tell you, it doesn't feel optimal at all... All these features, all that patterning takes astonishingly long to complete, and it is not very easy to edit, especially if I need to change something in the lower layers, which might ruin the patterns for the upper layers. I could make layers more independent from each other, but then there would be far more repetitive work.

Do you see any way how this strategy could be improved? Or switched to another, some more flexible and less time-consuming strategy?

[Frederick_Law]

Every manufacturer that use bar stock and sheets has same problem like yours.
No, Solidworks cannot do that out of the box. No other CAD software does.
Solution is custom addin/macro to fit each company.

You could probably setup auto mate for the bricks.
Not sure if fill pattern work.

BTW great work.

[SPerman]

I've done something similar when working out a tile layout. I haven't found a good solution.

For me, 1 row of tile is an assembly (1 tile, linear pattern) Then the wall is an assembly of rows. The wall then gets cut to fit the room. Then manually count the tiles. If I did this all day long every day I would try and come up with a better solution. For a few one off projects, it wasn't worth investing the time. Buy extra and return what you don't use.

[zxys001]

Nice design! Sorry I can't offer any strategies.. I'd probably do what you did honestly.
..so, it looks like about 767/2=384 bricks or 1 pallet.

[MJuric]

Hi,

I have been using SOLIDWORKS since 2015, but for the first time now, I have to design a brick and mortar furnace for a sauna. I know rough dimensions of the space in which the furnace has to be built, as well as dimension of some off-shelf components (steel doors, reinforcement bars, heat transfer pipes, etc.) that will be laid in between the bricks. I also know the dimensions of the bricks I want to use.

What I need for the final result is a BOM with brick count and mortar requirements, as well as some basic reference drawings to use during brick laying. I want to optimize the design so that a minimum amount of brick cutting is required (to use full-sized bricks wherever possible).

What I am not sure is the best design strategy for such a thing. I want my design to be flexible, allowing for different brick laying variants until I figure out which one is the best, and if brick cutting is required in some places, to know how many off-cut pieces I have left so I can use them in other areas of the furnace.

I am thinking that perhaps Top-down multibody strategy with Weldments enabled (for brick body count), and the inserting this into an assembly to mate it with the off-shelf parts and check for interferences or gaps, should be reasonably convenient, but split bricks will be an issue when it comes to BOM, as they will be recognized as totally separate items due to their different geometry. Also, I have no idea how to represent mortar in between the bricks, so that I can get an accurate total.
If I went with Bottom-up assembly approach, I could probably partially solve the split brick issue by using configurations (full brick, half-brick, third brick, etc.), but this would be very inflexible if I realize that I need a different brick layout. It would also probably rebuild slow as hell.

I have ideas, but I don't want to re-invent the wheel. What is the traditional approach in designing brick and mortar stuff in SOLIDWORKS? What strategies prove to be the most efficient for a flexible model and an accurate BOM?

If you do it all as a weldment, create all your bricks as patterns etc using "Complete bricks". Then do a cut were ever you want you will end up with the correct amount of everything you want. This will work for any cut you make and SW will only "Group" "Like" parts.

[matt]

...
What I am not sure is the best design strategy for such a thing. I want my design to be flexible, allowing for different brick laying variants until I figure out which one is the best, and if brick cutting is required in some places, to know how many off-cut pieces I have left so I can use them in other areas of the furnace.

I haven't thought about this in detail, and I admit, I haven't even really read the rest of the thread, but what I'd try first is this:

- Model what you want the furnace to look like.
- model 1 brick (as a separate body - I'd make it a surface body, but you can make it a solid)
- use patterning to fill the volume you created in the first step with bricks
- use the Intersect tool to find where the bricks overlap with the rest of the model. This will give you a body count for bricks needed to build the shape.
- Appropriate use of the Intersect tool should also leave a volume of the design shape that is not the bricks, and this is the mortar.

[laukejas]

Thanks for your input, guys! I really tried my best.

@zxys001 , @MJuric , @matt - that is pretty much what I did. I modeled 1 brick, patterned it, cut it half of it where required, and then applied Weldments to sort it all. If you open that model I attached to my previous post, you will see that the multibody brick part has it all sorted in the Cut List:



Sorry it is not in English, basically it means Full Brick (384) and Half Brick(21). So nearly 400 full bricks in total. I would prefer to have full-bricks only, having SOLIDWORKS automatically count how many additional full bricks are required to make these half bricks, but the for this specific example the math just takes seconds to do manually, so it's okay. I thought I'd have 1/3 brick splits and so on in this project, but it turns out it was not needed. Still, for learning purposes, I really hoped there is a way to automate these calculations. Bricks are always bought in surplus anyway, but for some more expensive stock materials, it might be important to have an accurate count done automatically.

The most time-consuming part of this was describing these brick layouts. Ideally, brick design should be like - fill perimeter with bricks end-to-end, fill with a pre-defined pattern, go to next layer, fill perimeter again with a half-brick offset, fill with offset pattern, and so on. But the way I've chosen to model this, every step of this was waaay too much time-consuming. Insert brick, position the brick, pattern, insert again, pattern, mirror, insert another brick, rotate, move it to position, pattern, mirror... Dozens of steps for something that is actually very simplistic in the end.

I realize that SOLIDWORKS is meant for a different kind (mechanical design), but I wonder if it is possible to efficiently set up a rapid, pick-and-place LEGO-like design, where all of the placing, spacing, etc. would be automated. Perhaps Mate References, along with Ground Plane and Magnetic Mates (like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR-Wb1A1d5s) could be utilized for this? I tried, but it gets really messy with multiple layers, I would probably have to do each layer in a separate assembly. Not really experienced with Magnetic Mates, perhaps some of you have any ideas if this is at all doable?

[SPerman]

I think sketch driven patterns could be used. That could be driven by equations. But dealing with the different layers gets more complicated,

[Lucas]

Pretty cool work

I checked how to make the mortar in a optimal way. Best approach I got is to use Indent with Cut option and select the bricks in Wireframe display. You can check the volume of the solid afterwards.
Or creating it with Join feature in the assembly is also fast.

With Intersect is also possible, but I had to select every brick manually. Is there a way to select them more easily, @matt ?

I would have done it in assembly since I don't like to position with Move Bodies and SW jams less in assembly, but I think I would get a more manual result than you. lol

[matt]

....
With Intersect is also possible, but I had to select every brick manually. Is there a way to select them more easily, @matt ?

Select them from the bodies folder, or maybe use the selection filter and fence select, ctrlA maybe.

[Lucas]

Select them from the bodies folder, or maybe use the selection filter and fence select, ctrlA maybe.

My bad, I mean selecting the Regions. Could not find a easy way to automatically select just the bricks and the mortar and delete the common region...

[Lucas]

Not really experienced with Magnetic Mates, perhaps some of you have any ideas if this is at all doable?

@laukejas, I gave it a try with Magnetic Mates, created 3 cylinders and used them as references for the Asset Publisher. In Assembly they work as connectors, you might want to create more connectors to change the brick position:

This feels like wizardry lol



And is also possible to use sketches for the Connectors. I converted the edges from the cylinders and used the center points:

[laukejas]

I think sketch driven patterns could be used. That could be driven by equations. But dealing with the different layers gets more complicated,

I have explored this, but I can't seem to find a way to specify the orientation of the patterned brick. Sketch driven pattern requires points, but what I basically want is to either draw horizontal or vertical lines to specify the rotation of a specific brick. Any ideas?

My bad, I mean selecting the Regions. Could not find a easy way to automatically select just the bricks and the mortar and delete the common region...

I can't seem to find that either. But still, I like what you did, this definitely has potential. I wanted to have mortar in a separate part, so I used Cavity to subtract the brick multibody part from the mortar part. But that still leaves me with all the open spaces filled with mortar, which have to be cut out manually... Unless I make another, hidden body in the multibody brick part that represents the internal empty space - then it can be subtracted via Cavity as well. I think this is a bit easier than using Intersect, because it does not require selecting anything - the whole part is subtracted, no matter how many bricks are there.

@laukejas, I gave it a try with Magnetic Mates, created 3 cylinders and used them as references for the Asset Publisher. In Assembly they work as connectors, you might want to create more connectors to change the brick position:

The attachment image.png is no longer available

The attachment image.png is no longer available

This feels like wizardry lol

And is also possible to use sketches for the Connectors. I converted the edges from the cylinders and used the center points:

Nice! I have explored this further. I think you don't need these cylinders. You can simply make sketches on several planes in the brick part, place some points, dimension them, and then use them in the Asset Publisher. Less graphics triangles down the road



The magnetic mates are really fun. I made connectors on all 6 sides, and building multi-level is indeed possible.



However, as the assembly grows, I find it increasingly difficult to get new bricks to snap in the correct place. When I drag a new brick, the magnetic mates keep trying to connect it to the wrong bricks. SOLIDWORKS suggests that [ and ] keys can be used to change the connector points on the brick you're dragging and the brick it is attaching to, but I can't seem to find a key that allows to switch the connection to another nearby brick. Without this, sometimes I struggle for minutes to find the correct camera angle to get the connection I need.

The only solution (kind of) I see here is to leave out the top/bottom connections on the brick, and in Asset Publisher, specify a Ground Plane. Then, in the assembly, create a Ground Plane as well, switch view to Top, and then work one level at a time. Assemblies support multiple Ground Planes (you can switch which one is active, meaning the plane to which new bricks will attach to), but for some reason, when you drag the bricks on Level 2, they still try to connect to bricks from Level 1, which is irritating as hell. Hiding bricks from Level 1 does not help, as their connectors remain active. Placing Level 1 bricks in a sub-assembly doesn't work, as it breaks the magnetic mates. And if you try to suppress the Level 1 bricks, it breaks the assembly

So far, the only solution I'm seeing is to have each level as a separate assembly with a single Ground Plane - that way, using Magnetic Mates is borderline manageable. Still, I feel like there's a couple of keyboard shortcuts missing here that would reaaaally help with usability of this feature, like filtering the connection points, hiding parts and their connectors on non-active Ground Planes, and so on. Time to submit an SPR

Attaching my attempt. Any suggestions how to overcome these issues I mentioned?

[Lucas]

Yeah, I also had the same problem with the magnetic snaps as the assembly increased. I tried to split the faces that the connectors were placed, but the result was kind of the same. I think this tool is intended to be used on large assemblies only, since it is bothersome to zoom and select the mates.

One way to fix it was connecting the bricks using the sketch points that were made to be used as magnets, they aligned faster with one coincident mate. lol
But probably a 3DSketch with the points and selecting the sides as planes might be the fastest way to build it.

[MJuric]

I would prefer to have full-bricks only, having SOLIDWORKS automatically count how many additional full bricks are required to make these half bricks, but the for this specific example the math just takes seconds to do manually,

This would be pretty easy to do in the BOM itself. Just add a new column and add whatever formula you want. For instance for my hold blocks I multipled the qty cell by .5 and the 1/3 qty by .33333. I also just added all the cells to get the number of total full blocks needed next to the full blocks.

The most time-consuming part of this was describing these brick layouts. Ideally, brick design should be like - fill perimeter with bricks end-to-end, fill with a pre-defined pattern, go to next layer, fill perimeter again with a half-brick offset, fill with offset pattern, and so on. But the way I've chosen to model this, every step of this was waaay too much time-consuming. Insert brick, position the brick, pattern, insert again, pattern, mirror, insert another brick, rotate, move it to position, pattern, mirror... Dozens of steps for something that is actually very simplistic in the end.

I did mine all in the sketch. There's probably multiple ways to do this depending on how much you're going to use it, how much you want to get out of it etc.

If I were doing this once I would draw two brick in separate rows with the proper offset in a sketch. I would then do a derived sketch of the first sketch and array accordingly. Rinse and repeat until all your walls are done. Do the same thing for roofs and floors with a different sketch.

I'd then do sketches trimming all the blocks where I wanted them.

Create a drawing, add in the equations column and you're done.

On the other hand if this was something I was going to to be doing ALOT of and wanted to add, door hardware, grates etc etc I'd probably look at Driveworks or the API.

[Krzysztof Szpakowski]

Hi. I see that you lack general knowledge about bricklaying. In the case of bricklaying, you don't try to use whole bricks. Often, even when the dimensions allow the use of whole bricks, we start with 3/4. On the other hand, the construction of stoves is "higher class" of masonry. Here, in a small area, we need to provide bonds between the layers. In your case, you made a lot of mistakes. Your "stove" consists of 3 blocks that are not connected with each other.

You can of course connect them with mortar armoring, but that's not the point. In stoves, the mortar layer should be as thin as possible. The vaulting of the furnace does not ensure smoke and fire tightness. Such a stove is a threat to your home (fire) and worse for you and your family - choke-damp! My advice? Pay someone who is qualified and knowledgeable about building stoves. As Paul wrote, a specialist needs general knowledge of how many bricks he needs. And the overall design of the stove. And for you to believe that I know what I am writing about, it is one of "my" stoves before finished surface.

I greet everyone
and sorry for the lack of time to come back here more often
K.

[mattpeneguy]

Hi. I see that you lack general knowledge about bricklaying. In the case of bricklaying, you don't try to use whole bricks. Often, even when the dimensions allow the use of whole bricks, we start with 3/4. On the other hand, the construction of stoves is "higher class" of masonry. Here, in a small area, we need to provide bonds between the layers. In your case, you made a lot of mistakes. Your "stove" consists of 3 blocks that are not connected with each other.

oGKwazp.png


You can of course connect them with mortar armoring, but that's not the point. In stoves, the mortar layer should be as thin as possible. The vaulting of the furnace does not ensure smoke and fire tightness. Such a stove is a threat to your home (fire) and worse for you and your family - choke-damp! My advice? Pay someone who is qualified and knowledgeable about building stoves. As Paul wrote, a specialist needs general knowledge of how many bricks he needs. And the overall design of the stove. And for you to believe that I know what I am writing about, it is one of "my" stoves before finished surface.

IMG_20160423_155348.jpg

I greet everyone
and sorry for the lack of time to come back here more often
K.

image.png (229.06 KiB) Viewed 7636 times

In your picture the mortar doesn't look to be minimized. I wonder if there's a particular type of mortar to use, just like there are certain types of bricks you should use?

Your point still stands, though. Especially if you do this inside. If you do it in your backyard, most of the safety concerns are much less and you may not have to consider as much carefully.

It's like after every hurricane here people kill themselves and others by running generators in enclosed spaces...With proper ventilation something like that is possible, but you sure as hell better know what you are doing, or you can kill people...Same applies to this situation.

[Krzysztof Szpakowski]

Matt, as you can see in the photo, the mortar have not been cleaned so they appear to be thicker than they really are. They were about 5 mm thick. The mortar is special, resistant to high temperature, but it is used where it is needed. There are even those that remain "soft" until cured with temperature. The use of such mortar in places where the temperature is too low can cause problems. The solution is, for example, adding "normal" cement in these zones, which will result in faster setting of the mortar. In this particular case, the whole stove, apart from the base and the top, was made of fireclay bricks, which, apart from resistance to high temperatures, accumulate heat better and my colleague decided to pay extra for the bricks.

As for the carbon monoxide poisoning, I can tell you that I had the misfortune to come across such a situation. A friend's daughter went to the bathroom to take a bath. They had a gas water heater in bathroom. We sat in the room - fortunately I not like the TV, so it was turned off. Thanks to it, we heard that something had fallen in the bathroom. When the girl did not speak, I broke the door open. She was lying unconscious on the floor. She turned on the water to fill the bathtub and she started to undress. She didn't even finish when she passed out, It took maybe 2-3 minutes. The problem was a faulty ventilation system that did not provide an adequate air supply. Fortunately, nothing serious happened, we managed to revive (?) her, but the ambulance took her to the hospital for the night for observations and blood tests. Soo... better safe than sorry

[MJuric]

Hi. I see that you lack general knowledge about bricklaying. In the case of bricklaying, you don't try to use whole bricks. Often, even when the dimensions allow the use of whole bricks, we start with 3/4. On the other hand, the construction of stoves is "higher class" of masonry. Here, in a small area, we need to provide bonds between the layers. In your case, you made a lot of mistakes. Your "stove" consists of 3 blocks that are not connected with each other.

oGKwazp.png


You can of course connect them with mortar armoring, but that's not the point. In stoves, the mortar layer should be as thin as possible. The vaulting of the furnace does not ensure smoke and fire tightness. Such a stove is a threat to your home (fire) and worse for you and your family - choke-damp! My advice? Pay someone who is qualified and knowledgeable about building stoves. As Paul wrote, a specialist needs general knowledge of how many bricks he needs. And the overall design of the stove. And for you to believe that I know what I am writing about, it is one of "my" stoves before finished surface.

IMG_20160423_155348.jpg

I greet everyone
and sorry for the lack of time to come back here more often
K.

And yet another case of why I think Youtube is the destruction of the human race. There is so much knowledge in even the seemingly simple tasks around the world that is difficult, even impossible to gain from watching a simple video.

I'm actually quite concerned that over the next couple generations we will loose an incredible amount of knowledge due to the fact that everyone thinks everything is so simple to do. I think in many cases this will actually lead to loss of ability to do some complex tasks, destruction of property or even death.

For most of history the belief was always "Well my grandma has been doing this all her life and she's really good at it's probably going to take me a good part of my life to be as good as she is". Today the belief is "Well my grandma has been doing this all her life....I should be able to watch a Youtube video and read a Wiki and be as good as she is"

Sadly people end up watching that video, doing whatever it is they want to do and just assume it's as good as what grandma did....then they go out and do a youtube video....that someone else watches, and the knowledge of the subject is ever more degraded.

Sadly we've gotten to the point already that the "Experts", people you hire to do something, are really no longer experts. I'm not sure that if I hired someone to build me a brick fireplace that they would be any better than what I would be building a brick fireplace...because the majority of the "Experts", just aren't.

I've run into this MANY times on a whole lot of things. Plumbing, electrical, machining, medical and on and on. You hire someone to do something because you know that it's a bit dangerous and you shouldn't be doing it. The "Expert" does the job, you look at at it and go "Uhhh....that's wrong, that's horribly wrong!"

[SPerman]

I've run into this MANY times on a whole lot of things. Plumbing, electrical, machining, medical and on and on. You hire someone to do something because you know that it's a bit dangerous and you shouldn't be doing it. The "Expert" does the job, you look at at it and go "Uhhh....that's wrong, that's horribly wrong!"

I do everything I have the tools for myself. Do I have the experience and knowledge of the expert? No. But I give a damn because it's my house. The "expert" is thinking about the beer in the fridge at home and doesn't give a damn, so at the end of the day, my work is at least as good as his, because I'm willing to rip it out and start over if it has issues, while the expert says "good enough" and packs up and goes home.

[mattpeneguy]

I do everything I have the tools for myself. Do I have the experience and knowledge of the expert? No. But I give a damn because it's my house. The "expert" is thinking about the beer in the fridge at home and doesn't give a damn, so at the end of the day, my work is at least as good as his, because I'm willing to rip it out and start over if it has issues, while the expert says "good enough" and packs up and goes home.

Yep, got a guy to do gutters. I pointed out it didn't look like it would drain...He didn't have a level up there with him...Said he knew what he was doing. The gutters hold water...
Checked the plugs in the house and one of them had an open ground. I knew where the junction box was under the house. Went to it and was surprised it was wired right. Checked the panel and the ground was good there. So, I crawled on my belly from the junction box 40 ft until I found a splice in the wire. I undid the electrical tape and 2 wire nuts were used for the neutral and the hot. The *butt-sphincter* who did this even cut the ground wire short on either side which made it impossible for me to just put a box in and wire nut the ground together. I had to run a whole new wire to the junction box from the panel.
Plumber cut clean through the joist under the bathtub and didn't bother fixing that...
And the list goes on...I don't trust anyone doing work, until they've proven they know what they are doing....

[mike miller]

I do everything I have the tools for myself. Do I have the experience and knowledge of the expert? No. But I give a damn because it's my house. The "expert" is thinking about the beer in the fridge at home and doesn't give a damn, so at the end of the day, my work is at least as good as his, because I'm willing to rip it out and start over if it has issues, while the expert says "good enough" and packs up and goes home.

But.....we all know union workers are the best.......

[MJuric]

I do everything I have the tools for myself. Do I have the experience and knowledge of the expert? No. But I give a damn because it's my house. The "expert" is thinking about the beer in the fridge at home and doesn't give a damn, so at the end of the day, my work is at least as good as his, because I'm willing to rip it out and start over if it has issues, while the expert says "good enough" and packs up and goes home.

But here's the thing. I've worked with real experts in many different areas over the years. They are much better than me in their area of expertise on their worst day than I am on my very very very best day.

The problem is that we've lost site of what a real expert is today because every one has the mentality that "Oh, that's easy" and "Gee I saw that on Youtube so I know how to do it"

This seems to pervade all aspects of our society. The last place I worked the owner stated on several occasions about a couple of areas of "Expertise" that "Well anyone should be able to do that". He was talking about areas of expertise that take years to really become an expert in, but in his head "Anyone should be able to do it".

When you have owners that think this that means you have people being hired to do things that have no business doing it at all.

This has been filtered through most areas of expertise to the point that today we really don't have experts. 30 years ago if you called a plumber from a reputable company, you got an expert. You would NEVER be able to do the quality of work that plumber could do no matter how shitty of a job he thought he did and no matter how good of a job you thought you did. In the last 5-10 years I've had two instances where I've hired plumbers that did work that was so bad that I refused to pay for it because I could do better on my worst day and no way would I have done what that "Expert" did.

[MJuric]

Plumber cut clean through the joist under the bathtub and didn't bother fixing that...

Oh come on, we all know the number of floor joists is SOOoooooo over designed. removing a couple is a non issue...

[SPerman]

I'm sure there are good people left out there but how do you go about finding them?

[MJuric]

I'm sure there are good people left out there but how do you go about finding them?

It's getting more and more difficult. About the only way I know of doing it these days is word of mouth and word has to be coming from the mouth of someone you know would know the difference between good and bad work.

the internet is largely worthless because most people wouldn't know a good quality job from a bad one and there are just as many people that are happy with a pile of steaming dog excrement as there are people that are unhappy with an absolute work of art.

Most of the people that I used to use are retiring and being replaced by people that aren't nearly as good and or I wouldn't use them at all.

[Jim Steinmeyer]

And here all I was going to do is point out that what we design in SW is in the perfect world where there is no variation in dimensions from brick to brick. In real world that never is the case. The same can be said for "most" metal work where parts are formed and welded. What is manufactured is seldom EXACTLY like designed. And is more seldom when the fabricator is less experienced.
Heck, the guys on our shop floor seem to look at prints as mild suggestions.

[bradb]

Heck, the guys on our shop floor seem to look at prints as mild suggestions.

Reminds me of something I heard from one of the long time model makers in the shop many years ago to one of the new guys, " You want me to build it so it will work or how you designed it".

[mattpeneguy]

Reminds me of something I heard from one of the long time model makers in the shop many years ago to one of the new guys, " You want me to build it so it will work or how you designed it".

Probably a corollary to the cheap, fast, and good here...
You can have it as designed, have it work, and have it inexpensive...pick any two...