Andrew Smith, masonry engineer with the Atlantic Masonry Institute and the CMDC's Atlantic office, and Darrell Jerrett, part-owner of 37-year-old Darim Masonry in Bedford, NS, sit down for a rare two-sided look at one trade: the numbers that are bringing load-bearing block back, the landmark jobs that prove it can be built, and the demographic cliff that could undo everything.
For most of the past two decades, load-bearing masonry was a footnote in the multi-residential conversation. Wood framing was cheaper, concrete was the prestige choice, and block was what you used for foundations and the odd fire wall. Andrew Smith spent several years at the Canada Masonry Design Centre's new Atlantic office in Dartmouth trying to change that — not by advocacy, but by commissioning the study that would force the comparison.
The study, set in Moncton, priced a four-storey multi-residential building three ways: conventional wood framing, reinforced concrete, and load-bearing concrete masonry. The result was sharper than anyone expected. Masonry came in at only a 4% premium over wood framing — within the noise of any real estimate — and roughly 22% cheaper than reinforced concrete. It also finished 16 weeks faster than the concrete option. Built-in two-hour fire rating. No add-on intumescent coating required.
That study is now being stress-tested on the ground at Fox Creek in Moncton: Atlantic Canada's first fully load-bearing masonry multi-residential building in roughly 15 to 20 years. One aspect, Smith explains, is showing that the numbers work — "one aspect is showing that the numbers work the second is actually backing it up" — and the demonstration project is the second half of that proof.
Why the design community needed an institute — and who paid for it
The Atlantic Masonry Institute wasn't born from optimism. It came out of frustration on job sites. Contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, and the union funded it because designers kept specifying masonry they didn't fully understand, producing drawings that were either un-buildable or triggered expensive change orders. The premise was simple: fix the education upstream and stop paying for it downstream.
The institute operates as what Smith calls an industry voice — not a contractors-only lobby, but a coalition that includes the union and the non-union shops. "we're really more of an industry voice rather than the unionized contractor's voice" , he says. The union supports it because a healthier, busier industry means more work for its members. The manufacturers support it because more masonry spec'd means more material sold. The alignment isn't accidental.
Practically, this means members like Darrell Jerrett at Darim have a free technical backstop at bid time. At one point, while pricing a stack-pattern brick veneer job, Darim's estimator realized that the joint reinforcing required by CSA A370 hadn't been carried in the bid. A call to AMI surfaced it before the number went out — a mistake that would have cost real money. "oh freak i didn't bring that i didn't carry that in my numbers" — was the moment. One call, zero cost, problem caught. That's the membership value statement in a single anecdote.
What Darim actually builds — and how they price the unknown
Darim Masonry has been operating out of Bedford for 37 years. They run 50 to 100 employees depending on the season, are fully unionized under BAC Local 1, and Darrell Jerrett represents the third generation of his family in the trade. The company's staging investments — hydro mobiles, telehandlers, heavy-duty EZ Scale swing-stage scaffolding — are a deliberate productivity calculation. The equipment "allow us to increase our productivity and keep our labor costs down" and on tight downtown Halifax sites, the ability to work without a conventional scaffold footprint is a practical advantage, not a luxury.
Their recent portfolio includes two of Halifax's most watched construction projects. Darim worked the Nova Centre over two-plus years, a job that generated daily change orders and required a foreman-led adaptability that paperwork alone couldn't provide. Then Queen's Marque: a 2-inch hanging sandstone ceiling that, by Jerrett's account, had not been done that way before in Nova Scotia. When you have never built something, the bid has to reflect that. "we had to take a strong number on it to make sure that we were covered" — not as a windfall, but as the price of absorbing the learning curve and still standing behind the finished product.
Foremen are central to how Darim operates. The people in the work every day hold the institutional knowledge, and the company relies on them for problem-solving and continuity. "we lean on those guys heavily and and the collaboration from our experience" — that trust, pushed down to the people closest to the work, is what holds a labour-intensive trade together across multiple active sites.
The local supply chain argument — and why COVID made it obvious
One piece of the load-bearing masonry case that the Moncton numbers don't capture fully is supply chain risk. Masonry block in Atlantic Canada is made within roughly 200 km of most job sites — Shaw Brick, Casey Concrete, VJ Rice are the regional producers — and that proximity became a pricing argument the moment COVID disrupted lumber markets. "we have the materials here locally we make them here locally we have our laborers here locally" — and while lumber quotes were being revised week to week, masonry was holding price. A supply chain that doesn't cross a border is a hedge, and the pandemic made that concrete in a way that procurement theory never quite does.
The demographic cliff is real and the number is 53
The strongest part of this episode is the section the two guests reach without flinching. The average bricklayer in Canada is 53 years old. "the average age of a bricklayer is 53 years old" — not an estimate, a measured figure. The trade recruits almost entirely through family lines: most working bricklayers knew one before they became one. That sustains the craft but masks a failure to communicate it to people who didn't grow up around it. "we struggle from a communication standpoint getting our trade out there for new bricklayers" — Jerrett says — an honest assessment of a structural gap, not a complaint.
The reasons run deeper than visibility. Masonry is physically hard, and the industry had historically under-invested in treating that seriously. The University of Waterloo ran ergonomics research on suited bricklayers — "how much force are they putting on their back how much force they putting on their shoulders" — to quantify the load and inform technique training in college programs. The same staging technology that boosts productivity also keeps workers at working height, reducing the spinal load of laying at your feet or reaching overhead. Darim's investment in equipment is, among other things, an investment in the working lives of the people doing the work.
On the recruitment side, there are two lines that both guests come back to. First: masonry offers something few trades match: at the end of a shift, you can see exactly what you built — a wall you can point to, a building your kids can identify in ten years. That pride is real and it's the right pitch, but it only lands with people who have been close enough to masonry to imagine themselves in it. Which is why the second initiative matters more.
Fixing the pipeline from high school forward
AMI's workforce response has three moving parts. The first is a redesigned program at NSCC. A trade advisory committee worked with the college to stretch the masonry pre-apprenticeship from 22 to 35 weeks — long enough to qualify as a government-funded core program. "they dropped their tuition from about 9 000 to about 3 000" . At the same time, the program was rebuilt to embed the safety certifications employers actually require before putting someone on a live site. Graduates arrive with their tickets. "do you have this this this and this for your safety that i can put you to work" — that line comes from employers who turned away willing recruits because they couldn't legally step on site. The redesign closes that gap.
Darim adds its own layer: CPR certification required for every employee, beyond what Nova Scotia regulations specify. "everybody has to have cpr it's not what the rule is in in nova scotia" — redundancy built into the crew so no single absence leaves anyone exposed.
The second part is high-school outreach. AMI donates masonry toolkits to schools in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick — Hants East, Bridgewater, Shediac, Bouctouche — with a single condition: run the program every year. "we'll give you guys five toolkits you can keep them as long as you run this program every year" . The bet is exposure: a teenager who has laid three courses of block knows what the trade is. That's the whole gap to close.
The third part is the demonstration project at Fox Creek. If the Moncton study moved designers intellectually, a finished building moves them practically. A developer willing to stake a multi-residential project on load-bearing masonry is the proof of concept the next architect can point to.
Where this leaves a specifier or a builder today
The Moncton numbers are published. The CMDC's load-bearing resources are available at no cost, and the Atlantic/AMI office in Dartmouth provides technical support — structural calculations, code questions, design reviews — free to members and specifiers. The MASS structural design software for masonry elements is available through the same channel.
For a developer or a specifier evaluating a four-to-eight storey multi-residential project in Atlantic Canada, the cost comparison is no longer theoretical. It has been priced, published, and is now being built. For a mason contractor, the pipeline of load-bearing work depends directly on whether the design community starts specifying it — which is exactly what the institute exists to accelerate.
And for the trade itself, the demographic math is unforgiving. Fifteen years from now, today's 53-year-old bricklayer is 68. The buildings that get built with load-bearing masonry will depend on the students in those high-school toolkit programs and the NSCC graduates who show up on site with their certifications already in hand.
The numbers make the case. The buildings prove it can be done. The rest is a pipeline problem that the trade is solving the only way it can — from the ground up.
Guests: Andrew Smith, Masonry Design Engineer, Canada Masonry Design Centre / Atlantic Masonry Institute; and Darrell Jerrett, part-owner and PM, Darim Masonry Limited. Episode 5 of the Atlantic Construction Podcast, published April 26, 2021. Watch the full episode.
Featured businesses: Atlantic Masonry Institute — masonry education, technical support, and workforce development for Atlantic Canada contractors, manufacturers, and suppliers, with a shared CMDC Atlantic office in Dartmouth, NS. Canada Masonry Design Centre (CMDC) — free technical advice, design software (MASS), and research for architects, engineers, and contractors across Canada. Darim Masonry Limited — family-owned masonry contractor in Bedford, NS, specializing in brick, block, stone, restoration, and waterproofing across commercial, industrial, and residential construction.
Receipt sources: CMDC load-bearing resources page (4.1% cost premium vs wood frame); CCMPA Atlantic Canada Load-Bearing Masonry Cost Study (16-week schedule advantage vs cast-in-place concrete without underground parking).