Summer DIY Braai Its that time of the year again when the air gets filled up with the great smell of boerewors and chops. A braai offers us the opportunity to enjoy the company of family and friends in a relaxed, easy environment. Although braaiing is undeniably one of the most popular forms of outdoor entertainment in South Africa, the braai itself does not always live up to expectations. Rusted half-drums and rickety portable braai units may help you do the job of cooking, but they fall somewhat short in the Its that time of the year again when the air gets filled up with the great smell of boerewors and chops. A braai offers us the opportunity to enjoy the company of family and friends in a relaxed, easy environment. Although braaiing is undeniably one of the most popular forms of outdoor entertainment in South Africa, the braai itself does not always live up to expectations. Rusted halfdrums and rickety portable braai units may help you do the job of cooking, but they fall somewhat short in the aesthetics and durability departments. Our brick braai, on the other hand, not only gives you a place to prepare and serve the meal, but also provides a firewood storage facility. It may even add value to your property. Using functional and attractive facebricks, it would suit either a patio or garden. Now go out there and start building. Charred chops and blazing boerewors await you Materials * Cement 150 kg (3 sacks) * Building sand 500 kg (10 bags) * Crushed stone 200 kg (4 bags) * Hydrated lime 50 kg (2 sacks) * Facebricks 270 * Paving bricks 58 * Fill 0,3 m³ soil or sand and crushed stone
* Shuttering 0.252 m fibrecement or marine plywood x 10 mm * Metal grid 920 mm x 450 mm Essential tools * Retractable metal tape measure * Shovel and/or spade * Spirit level * Steel builder s square * Trowel * Rubber mallet Download the image guide here Skills required Ideally you will have tackled a bit of bricklaying on other projects. If not, we recommend at least a basic understanding of the principles involved. Having said that, there is no need to feel intimidated: this is a simple enough project for any wannabe-brickie. Rule number one: Your brickwork must be square, level and plumb. This means that all corners must be at right angles (90 degrees) to each other; horizontal surfaces must be flat, and vertical surfaces must be straight and upright. The correct tools will help you achieve this with ease. For instance, you will need to use a builder s square and spirit level to check all corners and both the horizontal and vertical surfaces on every course. From there it is down to correct concrete and mortar mixes, and the right technique. Basic bricklaying isn t difficult, but it does take practise to master the techniques involved. The two principal skills? Pushing the bricks into the correctly mixed mortar so that they stay in place, and correctly buttering the ends, and sometimes the sides, of bricks before you lay them. Laying out You will need to throw a concrete foundation that s 50 100 mm wider (on all sides) than the 1 850 mm x 710 mm brick structure you are building. Start by pegging out where you want to build the braai. Use a steel tape to measure the back and sides and a steel
builder s square to ensure that corners are at 90 degrees. Mark the area of the structure with lime, chalk or even ordinary household flour (image guide - see 1). Foundations If you are building where there is an established lawn, remove sods so they may be used elsewhere in the garden. Use a spade to dig out at least 100 mm of soil. To check that the base of your trench is level, place bricks at various points and place a spirit level across the top. This braai structure is not particularly heavy, so the foundation slab doesn t need to be any deeper than 100 150 mm. A fairly weak concrete mix is quite adequate; for a 1:3:4 mix (measured by volume) you will need 50 kg cement, 150 kg building sand and 200 kg crushed stone (19 mm). You could alter this to a weaker 1:4:4 or even a 1:3:6 mix, measured by volume (using the same containers), depending on the soil in your garden and the size of the stone used. Bear in mind that clay requires a stronger concrete mix than well-drained soil. To mix the concrete, first measure out the sand on a clean, dry, flat surface. Pour the dry cement on top of the sand and mix the two materials together with a shovel or spade until you have you have a consistent colour. Make a small crater in the centre of the mix and add water slowly. Shovel the cement/sand mixture into the water, taking care it doesn t run out as you are mixing. Keep adding small amounts of water until you have a pliable mix that isn t watery or stiff. Add the crushed stone last and continue shovelling until all the materials are thoroughly combined. If you opt to use a cement mixer, load the stone first, together with a little water. Then add the cement and finally the sand, with just enough water to make the mixture workable. Before throwing the concrete into the trench, moisten the ground to prevent water from the mix being absorbed. Since a brick is 100 mm thick, if you leave several of these in the trench until the concrete begins to set, you can gauge where the top surface of 100 mm-thick concrete should be. Level the concrete off roughly with the back of the shovel and then use a straight-edged length of wood to neaten and compact it. Start off using
a sawing motion and gradually change to a chopping motion. Allow the slab to set thoroughly (at least overnight). Brickwork One of the best bits of advice to any new DIY bricklayer is to lay out the first course of bricks without mortar. You can add mortar later, when you re sure everything is in the right place. Doing it this way will help you visualise the structure, see where the first course should be positioned, and enable you to check how many half-bricks are required. Remember to leave a gap of about 10 mm between the bricks (for mortar joints). Start at one corner and mark the foundation with chalk or a pencil, using a builder s square as a guide. Mix mortar in the ratio 1:4, measuring it out into a wheelbarrow using the same container for each material. You will use about 100 kg of cement and 300 kg of building sand to build the structure. Add just enough water to the dry materials to make a pliable mix. Lift a big blob of mortar on to your trowel and place it on the foundation inside the line you marked. Aim for a sausage of mortar about 300 mm long, 100 mm wide and 10 15 mm thick. Use the tip of the trowel to make a jagged furrow through the centre of it and then bed the first brick. Press it firmly into the mortar and tap the brick with the handle of the trowel to embed it further. Use the spirit level to check that it is level. Once the first brick is in position, you can start buttering the ends of each adjacent brick. First lay another sausage of mortar at right-angles to the first brick and make a furrow through it as before (image guide - see 2). Then lift a wedge of mortar with the trowel and press down firmly with the flat surface to make the mortar stick. Slide the second brick into place, pushing it firmly into the mortar on the slab. Tap with the handle of the trowel and use the spirit level to make sure it is flat and level with the first brick. Use the square to double-check that the two bricks are still at right-angles to one another (image guide - see 3 5). You will need two more bricks to complete the first course of the side wall. Once you have done this, lay the second course of this wall. Lay the corner bricks first, and use
the spirit level from corner to corner before completing the course. Use the spirit level all the time to check that all surfaces are flat, level and plumb. Rather spend more time being accurate than have to remove bricks later. Move to the other end of the structure and build the first two courses of the opposite wall in the same way. To line up the bricks accurately, it helps to string a builder s line between the two far corners; use either corner blocks or pins to secure the line. Then start building the 11-course back wall and the first two courses of the front wall. Continue to use the bricks at the corners as a guide. If these are level with one another, you will find it a lot easier to ensure that each course is level. Since the spirit level won t stretch from end-to-end, use it on top of long, straight-edged length of timber. An inside wall is required for support, and to divide the storage and cooking areas. Use two bricks for the first course (image guide see 8) and a brick with two halves on either side of it to bond the second course. From the third course upwards, the central wall ties into the front wall to create a normal stretcher bond pattern. The wall on the outside of the cooking area is a double brick wall. This provides a narrow serving area on the side and will make it easy for you to step the ninth and eleventh courses slightly inwards to form a lip or shelf on which to balance the cooking grid. Make sure the outer bricks form a level vertical plane, but lay the inside bricks so they overlap the bricks below them by about 15 20 mm (image guide - see 10). To create a lip in the centre, lay the bricks in the ninth and eleventh courses so they extend into the fire pit area slightly (image guide - see 11). Before laying pavers around the top edges, fill the two cavities you have created with soil or a combination of crushed stone and sand. Compact this thoroughly with a heavy pole. Top the fill with 25 50 mm of building sand and lay the paving bricks on top, flush against one another and so that they line up with the front wall of the braai. Use a rubber mallet to knock them level.
Fill in any gaps at the sides and back of the two surfaces with mortar and then brush a dry (1:6) mortar and sand mix over the top to fill remaining gaps. Sprinkle the bricks with a hose to moisten the cement. Cut the shuttering to size so that it fits snugly across the top of the storage area. This will depend on what is available; 150 mm-wide fibrecement works well if cut into 550 mm-long lengths and laid so the pieces abut one another to form a solid surface on which the paving bricks may be laid. Brace the shuttering from underneath with a pole or scrap timber. Now lay paving bricks in mortar around the top of the fire pit and on top of the shuttering. Once the mortar has set thoroughly, the brace may be removed. When it comes to using the braai, set the grid in place above the fire pit. Cooking is more efficient if you loose-lay four bricks on edge across the front of the fire. Now that your braai is built, the next step is to buy a few beers, invite a few of your best mates over and put a vleisie over the coles and brag about your handy work.