Tried laying brick in 95 degree heat with ice water in my mortar, and now I'm not so sure the old timers were right

Jana Shah · 2026-09-28T16:05:05.775057+00:00

Last August I was doing a small garden wall in Phoenix and decided to try the trick of mixing mortar with ice cold water to slow the set time in the heat, figuring it would give me more working time per batch. What actually happened was the mortar got stiff and unworkable way faster than normal, and I ended up tossing two full batches and losing about 90 minutes of work before I switched back to regular tap water. Has anyone else tried this and had it backfire, or did I just do something dumb with my mix ratio?

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Tried laying brick in 95 degree heat with ice water in my mortar, and now I'm not so sure the old timers were right | Bricklayers - Thought Shares