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So our house is being built and the brick just went up on the house (it isn't structural).

I personally feel that the job was done extremely poorly. I don't know much about masonry but from my knowledge, the mortar spaces should be pretty consistent (unless going around an arch or something) but almost every brick has a different spacing distance. Also the size of the mortar spaces are from < 1/4in. all the way to 1 in.+. From my understanding they should be ~3/8 of an inch +-1/8 of an inch. Some of the spaces are 1+ inches. Builder says that what I'm seeing mostly is just excess mortar and that they will be pressure washing the brick to make it look better. But I don't feel that will help.

Am I out of line to think this brick was installed poorly?

Example pictures. http://imgur.com/a/rc9JT

There are a lot of other issues (e.g. they didn't space out the bricks correctly and one-half of a wall is almost all brown and the other half is all white brick). Gaps, and spaces in the brick etc.

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    That is really a bad job. It may hold up very well, but technique is lacking
    – Jack
    Sep 19 '16 at 3:34
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    Horizontally it looks ok but the verticals are a mess. I agree with Jack. Pressure will only clean the mess off the brick. Since it is not structural there may not be anything that can be done legally.
    – Ed Beal
    Sep 19 '16 at 8:03
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    That looks really bad bricklaying to me. You can be sure that cleaning excess mortar will not make a significant difference.
    – RedGrittyBrick
    Sep 19 '16 at 10:36
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    Sheesh ... I'm an electronics guy and I can lay bricks better than that ...
    – brhans
    Sep 19 '16 at 14:47
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    I mean: the pointing is so poorly done and the spacing is so wide that a pressure washer could easily remove chunks of mortar and loosen bricks from the wall. - Pressure washing in general is not harmful.
    – A. I. Breveleri
    Sep 19 '16 at 14:57
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I have laid thousands of bricks and that is crap work! Don't pay for that, and there is no way to fix it it must come off and be redone. They should be ashamed of themselves, a new house that looks terrible. Stick up for yourself and the investment your making and make them redo there work.

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  • That's the sentiment that I've been given from everyone that I've talked to about this. Spoke with builder this afternoon and he's going to be talking with the brick mason tomorrow morning and will get back with me on how they think they will be able to resolve this.
    – Kevin Vasko
    Sep 20 '16 at 3:08

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