Brick Repairs

What are our brick repair services?

As bricks and mortar are a naturally porous building materials, they are susceptible to degradation from a variety of factors including their age, who was the brick maker, what type they are and exposure to weather among others.

Fretting of brickwork and mortar are the most common result from those factors and cause irreparable damage that can compromise a building’s structure if left untouched.

We can also repair brickwork that while the bricks themselves have not been damaged, the footings may have been affected by nearby bushes, plants or trees that have displaced the footings and caused the brickwork to no longer be in the correct position.

Brick fences in areas where trees or large plants are growing are the most common example of this, brick piers with no adjoining brickwork to other piers are the most likely to be affected due to their relatively small footings and (generally) taller construction.

In those situations it is usually recommended to deconstruct the brickwork, repair the footing or replace it and rebuild the brickwork,

Original bricks can be reused providing they have not been damaged in those circumstances.

To rectify these problems and any other requests we receive, we offer the following services;

• Brick replacement

• Brick restoration

• Crack repairs

• Mortar pointing

• Tuck pointing (including render tuck pointing)

Brick replacement

When bricks have started to degrade, they will start the ‘fretting’ process whereby the bricks start breaking apart and losing their face edges and in some cases, losing it entirely.

When bricks start fretting, it is recommended to replace the bricks with the closest possible matches as when a brick starts to fret, there is no repair option available to prevent further fretting from occurring.

To replace brickwork, we use Arbortech’s to cut out the mortar joints surrounding the brick and pull it out once it can be removed. In circumstances where the brick has only lightly fretted on one side (generally where weather has been the worst), it is possible to remove the brick, turn it around and reinstall it in the same place.

When replacing the cut out mortar, our process is to remove all the mortar from the surrounding area from the footings (or lowest point) up to a certain height to create a consistent appearance.

Brick replacement is not limited to damaged brickwork however and can be applied to areas where cracking has occurred and split the brick.

What about corroded steel?

Corrosion of steel is one of the leading causes of damages to brickwork.

When steel corrodes, it expands and causes cracking in mortar and bricks.

This can cause compromises in a building’s structure and is often not noticed if the steel has been painted, due to corrosion not always bubbling paint until it has become heavily corroded.

Homes in coastal areas are most vulnerable to corrosion, the extra salt content in the air is one of the main triggering elements that can cause steel to corrode.

Items on homes that can corrode include but are not limited too;

• Lintels

• Steel brackets

• Bolts inserted into walls or posts

• Metal fixtures that were not galvanised (such as gate brackets, metal fencing etc.)

• Form work inside concrete (leading to concrete cancer)

• Columns inside piers that were not galvanised

Thor Helical Wall Ties

Thor Helical Wall Ties are a retrofit wall tie solution in situations such as when original wall ties have failed (or corroded) or when wall ties were not installed during construction.

Wall ties are an important part of brick construction as they connect the inner and outer leaves of the brick walls together, counter acting each other’s movement and preventing one of the leaves from moving away from the other one.

Thor Helical Wall Ties are not limited to double brick construction however and can also be used on on brick veneer buildings to tie the brick leaf into the stud walls, the standard installation method for this type of construction is 4.5 wall ties per square metre.

The retrofit wall ties are also used in situations where a leaf of brickwork was removed and reinstated, tying the new brickwork with the original structure.

The Thor Helical Wall Ties work by tying the two walls into each other at the recommended rate of 2.5 wall ties per m2, the spacing method is called the ‘staggered domino five’ pattern where the the wall ties are installed at 900mm centres vertically and 450mm horizontally.

They are installed by drilling through the brickwork (preferably mortar) from either side and into the other with an SDS drill.

If they are installed through the mortar, the wall ties can then be covered with new mortar to hide the ties and achieve a seamless appearance.

Thor Helical Wall Ties are made of 316 grade twisted stainless steel, 9mm diameter and lengths ranging from 180 to 350mm for uses in cavity widths of up to 190mm wide (assuming that the leaves are the standard 90mm in thickness).

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