Difficulty: Rating: GCSE Marks:

GCSE Text:
A team of bricklayers are helping to construct a new building. There are 7 bricklayers working in the team, and each person can lay 200 bricks per day.

There are 84,000 bricks needed to make the outer wall of the building.

a) How many days of brick laying effort will be required to complete the outer wall?

Due to the forecast of bad weather, the construction company bases calculations on an average of 4 working days per week instead of 5.

b) Based on that average, how many weeks will it take to complete the outer wall?

Suggestions:
This video was made when a school building was being constructed on site. KIER Construction kindly allowed a number of videos to be made so that students could grasp the use of Maths in the construction industry. Whilst this is a simple arithmetic problem, students benefit from extracting information for the wordy question and take around 5 minutes to complete in class.

Extension Ideas:
Teachers could extend the learning by considering:

• Add a nominal number of weeks for the foundations/footings, and for the roof to be added and windows to be installed. How many weeks will it take for the building to become water-tight?