How to repair a wall with failed mortar?

[perky416]

Morning all,

I have a narrow wall in my garden, its only 3 bricks wide and about 1.8m tall.

The mortar joint has failed along the entire course of bricks, about 3 courses up. I can literally rock the wall. The foundation and lower courses are fine.

I have a mortar sorta tool. I was going to use this to remove the mortar one side, re point it, then after it has dried, repeat on the other side of the wall. Due to the depth of the tool it will only go 1/3 in each side.

Im dubious as to how long this will last.

Are they any others takers with better ways to repair?

Thanks

 

[JohnD]

I have a narrow wall in my garden, its only 3 bricks wide and about 1.8m tall.

That is an unstable wall. It will fall over. Please show a photo so we can get an idea of what it is supposed to be.

 

[mickf9]

Morning all,

I have a narrow wall in my garden, its only 3 bricks wide and about 1.8m tall.

The mortar joint has failed along the entire course of bricks, about 3 courses up. I can literally rock the wall. The foundation and lower courses are fine.

I have a mortar sorta tool. I was going to use this to remove the mortar one side, re point it, then after it has dried, repeat on the other side of the wall. Due to the depth of the tool it will only go 1/3 in each side.

Im dubious as to how long this will last.

Are they any others takers with better ways to repair?

Thanks

Hard to visualise, but sounds like you should remove courses as far as it has failed, clean bricks and relay the brick.
You could repoint, and brace the wall with straps and pillars but it's not going to look good.

 

[perky416]

Picture attached. The highlighted line is the mortar that has failed. I can rock the wall from that line.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

You could hire a cargo helicopter, ask the pilot to hoist the wall up then hover above while you clean and re-mortar the joint before he lowers it. This would probably cost about £20k. The neighbours might not be too happy about being under the beating rotor of a hovering helicopter for a couple of hours though. But, as that course has failed, and the rest were built using the same stuff then any other course could be about to go the same way.

As you've already demonstrated, a single skin wall with no adjoining corners or pillars is probably going to head the same way the next time someone leans on it or slams the gate. If you were to make the current break super-strong then it would just snap at the next weakest point, which would be any other bed. Perhaps a complete re-design would be a better plan.

I'd use a couple of concrete fence posts - one with the gatepost bolted through the pre-drilled holes they usually have, the other next to the house, with a chopped-down 6 foot fence panel dropped in between them, and a chopped down concrete gravel board under it.

 

[JohnD]

the other next to the house

I think it's a prefab garage.

 

[perky416]

Yeah its a pre fab garage. And a double skin wall. I may strap the wall to the garage if needed. I just wondered if anybody had some other ideas as best to re-secure the wall to the lower level in the foundation.

 

[JohnD]

Knock it down.

 

[perky416]

Yeah im not doing that. Ill fix it to the garage if needs be.

 

[JohnD]

Next time it falls down, you could dig a deeper foundation and cast vertical rebar into it so they will be interlaced between the bricks.

It would also benefit from a pier at each end.

 

[Notch7]

. The highlighted line is the mortar that has failed. I can rock the wall from that line

it is a small panel of wall that has no returns to buttress it.

repointing might help stop it rocking but the gate only need to slam one day and it will make it rock again

also the wall + the gate together create a fair wind load


the best thing you can do is strap the wall to the prefab garage at the top and say middle. Its worth repointing, but after youve strapped it.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Yeah im not doing that. Ill fix it to the garage if needs be.

Were you looking for Botch-It-Yourself advice?

It wouldn't help, as you'd only be securing one edge. The other will still be flapping about unsupported.

It was a fundamentally bad idea to have ever put a single skin brick wall here. Knock it down and replace it with something suitable.

 

[mickf9]

The op said the lower courses were fine, but the lower courses are highlighted in pic, it's too short on length and tall to be unsupported by a pillar or unstrapped. You could rebuild and then strap it to the garage and strap it to a concrete post on the gate side or tie it in to post on both ends.

 

[perky416]

Were you looking for Botch-It-Yourself advice?

It wouldn't help, as you'd only be securing one edge. The other will still be flapping about unsupported.

It was a fundamentally bad idea to have ever put a single skin brick wall here. Knock it down and replace it with something suitable.

I was looking to see if anybody had better ideas, perhaps out of the box ideas, to repair it, as detailed in my op.

Im not ripping it down and replacing it and its not a single skin brick wall, its a double skin.

Thanks to those who replied with helpful advice that didnt involve helicopters or alpha builder do it my way or youre going to get a silly reply messages.

I will strap to the garage and deeply re-point. If it fails in the future ill replace the wooden gate post with a concrete one and secure the other end to that

 

[Old Salt]

I would rebuild it. It could potentially kill someone, a small child could be seriously injured and any come back would far exceed the cost of rebuilding the wall.

Sorry about that but cheaper than the helicopter option and safer than repointing the base of the wall. Alternatively get some angle iron and use that to strap it vertically on the wall