My uncle in Cleveland swore by soaking bricks before laying in July, and it saved my wall
My uncle Ray, who laid block for 30 years in Cleveland, kept telling me to dunk my bricks in a bucket of water before laying them on a 95 degree day back in July, and I finally tried it on a small garden wall job in Parma. The mortar set way slower and I got a full 40 minutes of working time instead of it drying up in 15, and the bond came out way stronger when I checked it the next morning. Has anyone else had an old timer give them a tip like that, and did it actually hold up or was it just the way things were done back then?