What is the Time Required to Lay a Brick Patio?

The Average

• The average journeyman bricklayer is someone who has been performing the same task day in and day out for at least 10 years. As a result, his familiarity with the routines, the tools and the various aspects of installing brick patios is far greater than someone doing it himself in his spare time on the weekends with rented tools from the local home improvement store. What a professional can do in a day, a do-it-yourselfer can expect to take three to four times as long or even longer, although it depends on the individual in question.

Tool Familiarity

• Just as a novice driver taps the brakes too early or accelerates too quickly, someone who is unfamiliar with the tools required to install bricks on patios is going to take far longer than a professional who has been working with the tools for years. For example, a journeyman craftsman already knows the perfect methods for measuring, marking and cutting a piece of brick for a corner, and can do it in under 30 seconds, while a first-timer or do-it-yourselfer will need to take time to double-check his measurements and deal with trial and error, which can cause a cut to take several minutes.

Estimation and Layout

• The estimation and layout stages of any installation are vital to the overall project. A professional bricklayer will know in advance exactly how to stretch out the string lines, calculate square footage, measure for various patterns, how to lay out the grid patterns, how much gravel and sand to add under the bricks and so on and so forth. A veteran installer can estimate and lay out a 300 square foot patio in roughly ten minutes (the average patio size), while it can take do-it-yourselfer three times as long or more, due to unfamiliarity with the methods combined with trial and error.

Installing Speed

• A reasonably competent residential bricklayer can put down a minimum of 500 square feet in a day in good conditions, while a commercial bricklayer can put down an average of 1,000 square feet per day in ideal conditions. Bricklayers usually work with an assistant who is handling the cutting of the bricks and the general labor, while the bricklayer focuses on actually installing the brick. The time it takes a do-it-yourselfer to complete the same task can range from four times to 10 times as long, depending on the individual and if he has help.