Spent 4 hours trying to fix a wall that was only off by a quarter inch

I was laying brick on a garden wall last week and kept fighting with the level. Every course looked fine until I stepped back and saw the whole thing was leaning left just a little. Turns out my foundation was off by about a quarter inch over 10 feet. I spent the whole afternoon chiseling out mortar and shimming instead of just knocking it down and starting fresh. Has anyone else burned a whole day on a mistake that small?

2 comments

2 Comments

ray_carr8d ago

Yeah but a quarter inch over 10 feet is actually a lot in brickwork, that lean gets worse the higher you go. You might've saved time by just redoing the footing instead of chasing shims all afternoon.

dixon.ryan8d ago

Ray_carr's right about that lean compounding as you go up, a quarter inch at the bottom turns into half an inch by the time you're four feet high and that's a whole different problem. Must have been frustrating chiseling all that mortar out when the real fix was just knocking the base down and leveling the footing properly, but at least you know for next time to check the foundation twice before the mortar sets. Sometimes you get so focused on fixing the symptom that you forget to fix the actual problem.