Hello, i have a 4 year old house and i have a paver walkway along the side of the house and basically the contractor gave me the house at grade and left me no room to add soil, etc even though i had no landscaping done and had to add tons of earth everywhere just to level out my land. Anyway my landscaper basically did a paver walkway with stone dust, crushed rock etc, but it came above the stucco the contractor painted on the wall for decor and now i have the dreaded salt stains wicking up the whole side of the house. They basically put stucco all the way to the raw dirt of backfill instead of leaving me 7-8 inches. My basement window is maybe a few inches above grade along this same wall. They wick up about less than foot from vertical from the pavers? Apparently its a common problem in the area and the builder said it was cosmetic and worse case it will break off. It isn't stucco over a wood frame so im not worried about rot, but if i cut a line right above the pavers to get the stucco off, would that allow the moisture to breath and not wick up anymore past that point? Sorry for the length but nobody knows much and it took to figure out why i was getting in the first place as noone even understood the problem really. Thanks, Mike

OK, so I've never worked with brick and mortar before, but I get the basic concept. It might be sloppy for my first time, but Im sure i can build the basic three walls. (this is for an outdoor patio enclosure by the way...). What I don't get is how to do the top part of the fireplace??? How do you get the bricks to stay put while the mortar drys? Can I just put a piece of sheet metal on my three fireplace walls and then brick over that? Whats the trick for making a hole for the metal pipe/vent? Is there a rule of thumb as to how large in diameter the vent pipe should be according to the area of the fireplace base? Thanks!!