Bricklayers In Melbourne
At New Era Landscapes, we lay brick, block and natural stone across Melbourne's south east. Garden walls, gate piers, letterboxes, planters and cladding, built on a footing that holds them up.
New Era Landscapes does brick and block work as part of the landscaping we've been doing for years. Garden and boundary walls, piers for gates and pergolas, letterboxes, raised planters, steps, and natural stone cladding over the top. Quotes are free and measured on site.
We should say what we're not, because this is the page you land on looking for both. We're landscapers who lay brick, so our work is everything outside the house. We don't do brick veneer, house walls or anything carrying a roof.
What that buys you is a bricklayer in Melbourne who already understands the yard your wall is going into. The footing, the drainage behind it, the paving that meets it and the garden bed it holds back are all the same crew on one quote.
Footings
Why Do Garden Walls Crack?
Almost always the footing. A wall is only as still as the ground under it, so if you can see a stepped crack running up through the mortar joints, that's the ground moving rather than the brickwork failing.
Melbourne's south east is largely clay, and clay swells when it's wet and shrinks when it's dry. If your footing sits in the top of that movement it rides up and down all year. One that reaches past it stays put.
So we dig to ground that will hold rather than to a depth that sounds about right, tie the footing together with steel, and let it cure before a single brick goes on it. Where your wall also holds soil, we put agricultural drain behind it so water leaves rather than pushing.
It's the least photogenic part of the job and the only part that decides whether you still have a straight wall in twenty years.
The work
Our Brick And Block Work
Bricklaying in Melbourne gardens is two jobs in one: something structural that has to stand up, and a face you look at every time you come home. We do both halves, and you deal with one crew for them.
Brick and block garden work
This is most of what we're asked for, and it's the structural half. Whatever you want it to do, hold soil, carry a gate or take the weight of an outdoor kitchen, it starts with a footing and works up from there.
Here's what our brick and block work covers.
- Freestanding garden and boundary walls in brick or block
- Piers and pillars for gates, pergolas and fences
- Letterboxes, meter box surrounds and house number walls
- Raised planters, garden edging and mowing strips
- Block cores behind rendered, clad or capped walls
- Steps, plinths and bases for outdoor kitchens and barbecues
- Repointing, rebuilding and repairs to existing garden walls
Natural stone and rendered finishes
The face is the half you look at every day. You can finish a wall in the brick itself, render it smooth, or clad it in natural stone, and that choice changes a front yard more than anything else you can build in it.
Here's what our finishing work covers.
- Natural stone cladding on walls, columns and house frontages
- Dry-stone style walling and stacked stone faces
- Rendered and bagged finishes, painted or left raw
- Bluestone, granite and precast capping to wall tops
- Stone-faced pillars matched to an existing fence or gate
- Feature walls in recycled or face brick
| Build | How it looks | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Face brick | The brick is the finish. Red, brown, grey or recycled. | The traditional garden wall and still the cheapest good one. Next to a Federation or interwar house, recycled brick is the only thing that will look like it was always there. |
| Rendered block | One smooth colour, usually white, off-white or charcoal. | Concrete block does the structural work and the render hides it. It's the fastest way to a modern wall, and the easiest to repaint when you change your mind. |
| Stone cladding | Natural stone over a hidden core. Stacked, sawn or random. | The most expensive face and the one people notice. The wall behind it is still block, so what you're paying for is the stone and the labour, not the structure. |
| Bare block | Concrete block left as it is, in grey or charcoal. | Honest and cheap where the wall is doing a job rather than being looked at. Think a retaining core down the back, or the base you'll never see under an outdoor kitchen. |
A site visit is the right place to start. It lets us see the ground, the fall and whatever your wall has to sit against before we price anything.
We walk the line of the wall with you, check what's behind it, and talk through brick, block, render and stone, so you can pick a face that suits the house and a build that suits what you want to spend.
What's inside it
What Is Behind A Stone Wall?
Concrete block, nearly always. Natural stone cladding is a face rather than a structure, so the wall you see carries almost none of the load. The block core behind it is doing the work.
Knowing that changes how you read a quote. Two walls with the same stone on the front can be priced a long way apart, because one has a proper footing, steel through the cores and drainage behind it. It also explains why we'd point you at rendered block for a modern look: same core, same footing, render instead of stone.
The process
How We Build A Wall
Every wall runs in the same order, whether you want a letterbox or thirty metres of boundary.
- Set-out and levels. We mark the line of the wall on the ground so you can see where it lands before anything is dug.
- Permits, if the height asks for one. We tell you at quote time whether your wall needs one, including when the answer adds weeks.
- Excavation and footing. We dig the trench down to ground that holds, put the steel in, pour the concrete and then leave it alone to cure.
- Laying. We build off the footing, plumb and level, with starter bars and core fill wherever the wall carries load or holds soil back.
- Drainage. Where the wall holds ground back, we put agricultural drain and gravel in behind it before anything gets backfilled.
- Face and capping. Render, cladding or the brick itself, then capping across the top, then we clean up and hand it back to you.
Why New Era
Choosing New Era Landscapes For Your Brickwork
We bring over 10 years of experience in landscaping and turf work across Melbourne, and brick and block work has been one of our trades throughout.
That's the practical difference between us and most bricklayers in Melbourne. A garden wall almost never arrives on its own. There's paving that has to meet it, a garden bed behind it, drainage under both and often a gate hanging off it, and all of that is our own crew on one quote rather than four trades negotiating a level.
We also do commercial bricklaying in Melbourne where it's part of a landscape job: forecourt walls, planters, bollard bases and entry features, built to the same detail we'd give your front yard.
Quotes are free, measured on site and itemised, with no obligation to go ahead. You can see finished work on Instagram, where we post jobs as they come off.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a brick garden wall cost in Melbourne?
It depends on the footing more than the brick. How far down we go for solid ground, whether your wall holds soil, and whether a machine can reach it all move the number further than the brick does. Quotes are free, measured on site and itemised.
Do I need a permit for a brick fence or garden wall?
Sometimes. In Victoria you're generally exempt from a building permit for a masonry fence no taller than twelve hundred millimetres within 3 metres of the street alignment, and for a retaining wall under 1 metre not tied to other building work. Go above those, or close to a boundary, and the answer changes. We tell you which side you're on before you commit.
Source: Building Regulations 2018 (Vic).
Do you do house bricklaying or brick veneer?
No. We're landscapers who lay brick and block, so our work is everything outside the house: garden walls, piers, letterboxes, planters, steps and cladding. If you need a wall carrying a roof, you want a builder and a structural bricklayer, and we'll say so rather than quote it.
What's the difference between a garden wall and a retaining wall?
A garden wall stands on its own and holds nothing but itself. A retaining wall holds ground back, so it needs drainage behind it and a footing sized for the load pushing on it. We build both, and you'll often want one of each in a front yard.
Can you match the brick on an existing wall?
Usually, and it's worth asking early. Bricks change over the decades, so an exact match on an older house often means recycled brick from the right era. Where nothing matches cleanly, rendering or cladding both walls is the honest fix.
Areas We Serve Across Melbourne
We're Melbourne bricklayers working out of the south east, and we build right across the city. There's no shopfront to visit, so we come to you and quote on the spot.
You'll find us regularly in Brighton, Berwick, Frankston, Cranbourne, Glen Waverley, Cheltenham, Narre Warren, Pakenham, Dandenong, Bentleigh, Beaumaris, Mentone, Mordialloc, Hampton.
Not on that list? Call and ask. If the wall holds ground back rather than standing on its own, read what our retaining walls cover, and our landscaping page covers the whole yard.
Written by Jono O'Brien, who runs New Era Landscapes and has been in landscaping and turf renovation for over ten years. You can talk to him directly about your yard.
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