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Brick wall frost damage © Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.comBrick Wall Damage Repair
Repair Approaches for Bulged, Cracked, Loose, Spalled Brick Walls

  • POST a QUESTION or COMMENT about the difference between a brick veneer wall & a structural brick wall & the significance of this difference when understanding cracks in brick buildings

Brick wall repair:

Brick wall repair methods for structural brick walls & brick veneer walls vary depending on the type of damage that is being addressed. Reinforcement or even reconstruction are required in cases of severe structural damage or unsafe buildings while other types of brick wall repair such as re-pointing or crack repair or lintel repair are often possible in-situ.

This article series explains types of damage to structural brick walls. We explain how to recognize, diagnose, & evaluate movement and cracks in brick walls and how to recognize brick wall bowing or bulging and cracking failures.

The article series includes identification of types of foundation cracks, crack patterns, differences in the meaning of cracks in brick structural walls or brick veneer walls and discusses cracks or movement as evidence of building movement.

InspectAPedia tolerates no conflicts of interest. We have no relationship with advertisers, products, or services discussed at this website.

- Daniel Friedman, Publisher/Editor/Author - See WHO ARE WE?

Methods of Repair of Brick Walls on Buildings

Steel tie back connetor in brick structural wall, Hudson New York © Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.comArticle Series Contents

In our photo of an antique building in Hudson, NY (at left) those three "stars" shown above the three windows of the second floor are probably functioning as giant "washers" securing a front-to-back anchor that secures the front wall of this structure against bulging or movement, possibly also securing the floor structure inside as you can see in the sketch at left.

[Click to enlarge any image]

This article describing repair approaches for damaged brick walls is a companion

to BRICK VENEER WALL DAMAGE ASSESSMENT - that you should review if your brick veneer wall is cracked, leaning, falling, or broken

Note: The different Types of brick wall damage, notes on distinguishing between brick structural & veneer walls, & brick wall damage assessment: bulges, bowing, cracking, construction methods, support, spalling, effloresence, etc. are addressed beginning

at BRICK FOUNDATIONS & WALLS - home

Repairs / Reinforcement of Structural Brick Walls: Connectors, Special Fasteners

The drawing at below left, from Carson Dunlop Associates, shows how a structural brick wall may be reinforced laterally using a steel tie rod.

Steel tie rod reinforcement for structural brick wall (C) Carson Dunlop Associates

For repair of deteriorated brick wall mortar joints

see TUCKPOINTING BRICK & RE-POINTING

For detection & evaluation of thermal cracking or expansion cracks in brick walls of any type

see BRICK WALL THERMAL EXPANSION CRACKS which includes brick veneers and types of veneer damage.

Structural Brick Wall Ties & Rods Secure Walls Against Bulge, Lean, Collapse

Wall ties for structural brick wall (C) InspectApedia.com

Above: This brick building, located in Wappingers Falls, New York, illustrates structural connectors fastened through the building's side walls.

To stabilize and secure structural brick walls against leaning and bulging outwards, common for centuries has been the addition of exterior plates fastened through a brick wall and connected either to the building's interior frame or to the opposite wall (by a steel rod or bar).

Partial Re-Constrution of Structural Brick Walls

When the owners wanted the roof raised to gain habitable space over the rear wing of their home, the author [DF] needed to re-build the brick gable end of this historic structure, the Seneca Howland house located in Pleasant Valley, New York.

Seneca Howland house during reconstrution of the rear addition (C) Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.com

When improvement or repair to an existing brick structure is limited in scope it can be resonable and economical to re-build that wall section; had this wall re-construction project not been at the very top of the structure we'd have needed to add temporary support for any overhead brick structure, and engineering advice may have been required.

Seneca Howland house during reconstrution of the rear addition (C) Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.com

Also see SENECA HOWLAND HOUSE - links to various photos of this home as they appear at InspectApedia.com

Below: repairs to the brick walls at windows of this home in Beacon Hill, Boston, are common in a neighborhood of brick structures built upon unstable soil or settling soils along steep streets.

Beacon Hill Boston structural brick wall repairs (C) Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.com

Below: extensive structural damage and repairs to a brick building in Brooklyn, New York confirm that at least for some valuable buildings these costly repairs were justified.

One would not undertake these extensive repairs without first having diagnosed the cause of building settlement and damage and without also having taken steps to stabilize the structure against further movement.

Diagonal crack repairs and reconstruction of a brick structure in Brooklyn  NY (C) Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.com

Re-Pointing or Tuckpointing Brick Walls

Brick wall tuck pointing bad job © Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.com

Brick walls that have lost mortar from the joints between bricks or brick courses may be repaired by re-pointing or "tuck pointing", a procedure that cleans and then replaces mortar that has been lost from joints.

Our photo of a tuck-pointed structural brick wall (left) shows by the colored mortar that the mason attempted to match the color of older mortar in the wall.

The repairs done at below right look good.

But a different tuck pointing repair job (in the upper left portion of the photo where we are pointing to a damaged brick) has not fared as well, possibly due to a poor mortar choice and frost damage.

 

 

Definition of Tuck Pointing:

Tuck pointing is the filling in with fresh mortar of cut-out or defective mortar joints; in masonry this refers to the filling of joints in old (or damaged) masonry with fresh mortar. - Masonry Design Manual.

Tuck pointing, which may be performed on both structural and veneer brick walls (as well as on other types of masonry) is performed for several reasons

Water damaged brick foundation © Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.com

Tips for Pointing, Tuck Pointing, or Re-Pointing Brick or other Masonry Walls

Bad brick repair © D Friedman at InspectApedia.com at left we show a bad brick wall repair, tuckpointed using a too-hard mortar mix for a loose brick mortar joint repair that also is not matched in the slightest to the original wall's mortar joint color, texture, nor tooling. This expedient repair invites further frost damage to the wall as well as to the brick surface.

More photos of this wall are

at BRICK WALL FROST & WATER CRACKS, EFFLORESCENCE, SPALLING and
also

at BRICK WALL LEAK REPAIRS

This wall was ultimately re-built over a substantial area damaged by water and frost.

So what is "tuckpointing"?

Working with a long narrow trowel whose width and shape are chosen to match the existing mortar joints, the mason first cleans the existing mortar joints of loose mortar and debris, then pushes fresh mortar into the open joints.

The mortar joint in the tuck pointed wall should tooled to match the existing mortar joints, and any mortar that has spilled onto the brick faces themselves should be cleaned before the new joints have fully hardened.

When I [DF] have done tuckpointing or re-pointing of brick walls I prepared (thanks to advice from Eddie Kondysar, a real mason) mortar of the proper color, texture, and hardness to closely-match the original building mortar.

After cleaning the very soft mortar from the bad brick joints I held my mud hawk against the wall surface at the bottom of the mortar joint and used the pointing trowel to push mortar into the joint, getting as little mortar as possible on the face of the bricks.

When the joint was filled to a proper depth I tooled the joint (flat, concave, angled in at the top of the joint, or special tooled or lined) using a trowel that matched the profile of the original brickwork.

When the mortar was set if there was a mess of mortar on the brick faces I used a bit of muriatic acid to clean the brick to leave a beautiful job.

Watch out: working with muriatic acid is dangerous and can burn you or put out your eyes. Use appropriate protective gear.

The most common errors we see in brick wall tuckpointing include

Brick wall tuck pointing bad job © Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.com

Methods of Repair of Brick Veneer Walls on Buildings

Brick wall veneer tie: traditional corrugated metal strapping (C) Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.comWhen a brick veneer wall's fasteners are found to be inadquate in original installation (by type, number, placement, or poor connection to the building's structure), or when a brick veneer wall is loose but deemed salvageable, there are special retrofit connectors that can be installed to secure the veneer to the building.

Typically the retrofit brick veneer connector is installed through holes drilled in the mortar joints, connected to the structure, and the hole repaired or sealed.

Shown here: the traditional and exquisitely-simple brick veneer wall tie: a corrugated galvanized steel strap that is nailed to the building's structural wall and bent outwards at a 90-degree angle to place the tie's strap into successive mortar joints as the veneer wall is built.

Metal wall ties such as the one shown have been used in the construction of load-bearing masonry walls in England and in North America since the 1850s.

These metal wall ties, used in brick and stone masonry wall construction served three purposes. All improvements and modifications to this very simple original wall tie must meet all of these objectives (and perhaps others).

  1. To provide a strong structural connection

    between the brick veneer and the struture - thus avoiding a precarious wall and its collapse
  2. To accomodate movement and differences in movement

    between the masonry or brick veneer and the structure to which it is attached; such movements occur due to changes in temperature and humdity in different building materials. If such movement is not accomodated the veneer wall will simply break away from the structure to which it is attached.
  3. To transfer lateral loads

    between the veneer wall and its supporting structure.

Besides the flat corrugated metal wall tie shown here, the two most-common other unit ties used in masonry construction were a rectangular tie and a "Z" shaped tie shown below.

Unit ties or wire ties used in masonry wall construction (C) InspectApedia.com adapated from BIA tech. cited & discussed in this article

Corrugated ties are typically used in low-rise, residential veneer over wood frame construction and are not recommended for construction incorporating brick veneer over steel studs, masonry-backed cavity walls, multi-wythe walls or grouted masonry walls.  (BIA 2003)

Repair of Brick Veneer Walls

Brick veneer walls that are not so loose, damaged, dangerous as to prohibit repair, can be secured to the structure using a variety of wall ties described here.

The brick veneer wall shown in our photos (below) was rebuilt after a partial collapse. You can see some of the original veneer bricks on the ground.

Rebuilt brick veneer wall © Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.com ... Rebuilt brick veneer wall © Daniel Friedman at InspectApedia.com

Brick Wall Construction References, Repair Fasteners, Bolts, Wall Ties

Here we provide links to industry experts, research on brick wall and brick veneer wall construction and repair products including restoration ties & connectors for masonry wall or veneer repairs,

Below: Insufficient number of brick veneer wall ties led to the collapse of brick veneer walls as described by FEMA in the document cited below.

Insufficient number of brick veneer wall ties led to the collapse of brick veneer walls as described by FEMA in Exterior Cladding Components & Best Practices - FEMA cited and linked to and disussed at InspectApedia.com ... Insufficient number of brick veneer wall ties led to the collapse of brick veneer walls as described by FEMA in Exterior Cladding Components & Best Practices - FEMA cited and linked to and disussed at InspectApedia.com

The first brick veneer wall tie illustration above notes that

What the FEMA document (below) does not detail is how long these improperly-constructed brick veneer walls stood before the veneer collapse and what exact loading conditions precipitated the collapse: presumably wind loading, wind-blown rain, or other stresses that occurred either over time or as a single event. The document describes the wall ties at a house under construction in Ocean Springs Mississippi observed after Hurricane Katrina.

Important was the FEMA inspectors' observation that the wall included only nine masoanry ties (the blue dots) while to comply with required standards 42 such ties (the + marks) would have been required. |

The second illustration of a home where a brick veneer wall collapsed is in the same document and was originally reported in the 2007 report FEMA 549 Hurricane Katrina cited just below.

TorkFix helical anchor for repairing masonry veneer walls adapted & expanded from illustration by Helifix (C) InspectApedia.com cited & discussed there

Hohmann & Barnard BLOK-LOK's SPIRA-LOK helical wall tie system diry-set hammer drill installed cited & discussed at InspectApedia.com

Above: Hohmann & Barnard's SPIRA-LOK helical wall tie system - a stainless steel wall tie installed into a pre-drilled pilot hole using a hammer drill.

Retrofit brick ties installed into brick / brick veneer wal lfrom building interior side wall cavity - MTI Masonry Technology Inc., cited & discussed at InspectApedia.com

Retrofit brick ties installed into brick / brick veneer wal lfrom building interior side wall cavity - MTI Masonry Technology Inc., cited & discussed at InspectApedia.com

Thor helical wall tie anchors cited & discussed at InspectApedia.com Thor Helical Crack Stitching bar cited & discussed at InspectApedia.com illustration adapted from Thor Helical cited herein

Above: Thor Helical's Wall Tie and Helical Crack Stitching Bar, excerpts from the company's documentation given below.


...

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