Bricklayer / blocklayer — tasks, one by one

Laying brick and block walls

Robots have laid walls on real housing projects in the Netherlands, on the long straight runs, with a bricklayer working alongside. One builder says the robot is not yet as fast as hand work and is limited in height, while a builder that helped develop another robot says it can work faster; the leading robot maker's machines are fully impaired in its own accounts.

A few housing projects in one country and one vendor's accounts; they do not show how much brickwork robots lay overall or whether bricklayers' hours have changed.

Reading drawings and setting out

No record found shows a robot setting out on site. In the Dutch pilot the wall is measured and the bond worked out beforehand, and the robot then follows the building model.

The absence of a record and one builder's description; it does not measure who does the setting out where robots are used.

Cutting, pointing and detail

In the Dutch pilot a bricklayer rakes out the joints next to the robot, and the builder says the real craft work stays with the tradespeople. The robot maker reports developing a saw module for fully autonomous block cutting; no record shows it cutting on a site.

One builder's account and a vendor's report; they do not show how much detail work robots could take on.

Repair and restoration

No record found shows machines doing repair or restoration masonry. The robots found work on new walls built from a model, on housing sites.

The absence of a record; it does not measure how much repair work there is or who does it.

Moving bricks, blocks and mortar

In the Dutch pilot self-driving carts bring mortar and bricks to the robot, while the bricklayer keeps it supplied with new bricks. A back-support exoskeleton tried by bricklayers raised low-back muscle strain, and few wanted to use it again.

One pilot and one small field study; they do not show how materials are handled on most sites.