Re-pointing

[whatsthenews]

Don't render bricks or you'll be forever a slave of fixing cracks and repainting every few years.
Repointing is done once every 50 years at most, but many houses have over a century old mortar on them and still ok.

it's the porous bricks I'm more concerned about. Husband went up and did a bit of patching on the gable end (actually it's not the gable as our 60's house has gable end front facing) but we've got water coming in in the garage and doorway between the kitchen and utility where we're just about to put insulated plasterboard. It's when the rain blows onto the end of the house (from the NE)
The bloke we got out for a quote, his lads definitely didn't rake out to 25mm next door. We keep asking people we have come to do other work and they don't know anyone who does repointing. Terrified we'll end up with a cowboy and having to get it redone.
Does self coloured render still need painting after so long? Is the breathable render less likely to crack?
We don't plan on being here in 5 years time anyway.

 

[johnny2007]

All bricks are porous and I don't think they built your house with some sort of special spongy bricks.
A repointing job at 25mm depth is all you need.
Some advice:
1. All wall joints must be thoroughly brushed and hoovered after removing old pointing.
2. Sand and cement mix on 4:1, plasticiser helps, any colour added to the mix won't make any difference.
3. New mortar must be pushed into the 25mm gap, not rested on the edge of the bricks. (This is a typical no **** sherlock comment, but you never know)
4. A week after pointing the wall can be cleaned if dusty. A shower hose mimicking rain it's all you need.

 

[whatsthenews]

All bricks are porous and I don't think they built your house with some sort of special spongy bricks.
A repointing job at 25mm depth is all you need.
Some advice:
1. All wall joints must be thoroughly brushed and hoovered after removing old pointing.
2. Sand and cement mix on 4:1, plasticiser helps, any colour added to the mix won't make any difference.
3. New mortar must be pushed into the 25mm gap, not rested on the edge of the bricks. (This is a typical no **** sherlock comment, but you never know)
4. A week after pointing the wall can be cleaned if dusty. A shower hose mimicking rain it's all you need.

OK no need to be sarcky! Just what people have said to us. Maybe they meant that our bricks are more porous. They're the very dark, rough bricks. No way could we do it ourselves and , as you say and sx turbo's posts show, it's not easy to find good tradesman these days.
Besides, there are some 60's homes similar to ours that have been rendered or clad or mixture of both and they look far better than with the original dark bricks.

 

[sxturbo]

OK no need to be sarcky! Just what people have said to us. Maybe they meant that our bricks are more porous. They're the very dark, rough bricks. No way could we do it ourselves and , as you say and sx turbo's posts show, it's not easy to find good tradesman these days.
Besides, there are some 60's homes similar to ours that have been rendered or clad or mixture of both and they look far better than with the original dark bricks.

Have a Google of rendering over brick. It can be done needs various steps and someone decent to do it

but you need to be sure that the cause of your damp is the pointing and not something else

 

[johnny2007]

OK no need to be sarcky! Just what people have said to us. Maybe they meant that our bricks are more porous. They're the very dark, rough bricks. No way could we do it ourselves and , as you say and sx turbo's posts show, it's not easy to find good tradesman these days.
Besides, there are some 60's homes similar to ours that have been rendered or clad or mixture of both and they look far better than with the original dark bricks.

Wasn't being sarcastic, was stating opinions.
If you like the rendering look and you're sure you'll be gone in 5 years time, by all means render the walls.
But it needs to be done by someone who knows what they're doing and from what you're saying there's a shortage of such tradesman in your area.
Repointing is still easily repairable if there's some imperfections, rendering is something that when goes wrong needs taken down and redone.
Last thing, some people like the clinical clean and grey look of modern properties and many are decorating their home to this spec (grey, grey, grey).
Someone else likes the rustic look of bricks.
It's only personal preference, but mind you, i'm sure this grey craze will come to an end soon and there will be lots of work for decorators.

 

[whatsthenews]

Have a Google of rendering over brick. It can be done needs various steps and someone decent to do it

but you need to be sure that the cause of your damp is the pointing and not something else

Cheers. Pretty sure it must be. It only happens when we have heavy rain with the wind blowing onto the end of the house. It's happened 3 times in the last 18 months. Always in the same 2 /3 small places along the length of the util/garage.

At the moment we've got the cavity exposed in the "external" doorway between the kitchen and utility, and there it drips down from the top of the reveal.

In the garage there's a batten where ceiling boards have been attached and it just seems to appear there in 1 or 2 spots and run down the garage wall. We've cut some of the ceiling boards away so we could put brackets up for storage and there's no sign of any water on the underside of the garage roof.
Above one of the spots there's a window (landing) and the UPVC sill sits on top of the original tiles of which there's 2 layers with mortar between, so the rain might be managing to get in there, although the UPVC sill sticks out about 50 mm further than they do and is obviously sloped downwards.

We've had a new main roof and flat roof on the garage utility. On the flat roof there's a double layer of felt let into the brickwork on the side of the house with a good, solid amount of mortar. Minimal water collecting on the flat roof. There's a gutter running the full length of the side of the house and it's clear and water is running out of the downspout on the back of the house.

 

[whatsthenews]

Wasn't being sarcastic, was stating opinions.
If you like the rendering look and you're sure you'll be gone in 5 years time, by all means render the walls.
But it needs to be done by someone who knows what they're doing and from what you're saying there's a shortage of such tradesman in your area.
Repointing is still easily repairable if there's some imperfections, rendering is something that when goes wrong needs taken down and redone.
Last thing, some people like the clinical clean and grey look of modern properties and many are decorating their home to this spec (grey, grey, grey).
Someone else likes the rustic look of bricks.
It's only personal preference, but mind you, i'm sure this grey craze will come to an end soon and there will be lots of work for decorators.

"I don't think they built your house with some sort of special spongy bricks" I think that's pretty obviously sarcasm

Everyone has opinions regarding what makes a house look attractive, but not sure anyone could say our brickwork was pretty or even rustic, and the size of the windows gives it a very "distinctive" look. We won't be changing the size of any windows
If we don't opt just to repoint we'll probably go for a mix of the original brickwork and render and maybe some cladding. As you can see we've already got nasty pebbledash on a lot of the front anyway (photo is from before we bought it)

 

[^woody^]

Pointing apart from the weather protection does have an aesthetic function, and so certain pointing lends itself for certain bricks and situations/design.

Raked out for sharp edged and dead rectangular bricks looks very different to when used with rough edges and irregular bricks, for example. Even for the generic half-round and weathered pointing, they change the appearance and feel of the whole wall.

Flush always tends to look nice when the joints are a similar colour to the bricks, or even when combined with raked out joints. But flush can make joints look 50-100% wider, so be careful with existing wide joints.

That house is a 70's design which works well with flush or raked out, but its wrong to think of the joint finish in isolation, as the impact is significant.

 

[johnny2007]

I personally find those dark bricks very nice.
If the pebble dashing was painted white it would look very nice imo.

 

[stuart45]

I personally find those dark bricks very nice.
If the pebble dashing was painted white it would look very nice imo.

That is very satirical

 

[whatsthenews]

Pointing apart from the weather protection does have an aesthetic function, and so certain pointing lends itself for certain bricks and situations/design.

Raked out for sharp edged and dead rectangular bricks looks very different to when used with rough edges and irregular bricks, for example. Even for the generic half-round and weathered pointing, they change the appearance and feel of the whole wall.

Flush always tends to look nice when the joints are a similar colour to the bricks, or even when combined with raked out joints. But flush can make joints look 50-100% wider, so be careful with existing wide joints.

That house is a 70's design which works well with flush or raked out, but its wrong to think of the joint finish in isolation, as the impact is significant.

Must be a 70' design built in the 60's then. The pointing on the front and back of the house isn't too bad. The back looks a bit of a mess because of the waste pipe changes that have been made over the years, but repointing wouldn't change that. It's the side and the garage wall, especially the garage. It should be fairly sheltered by the house next door which is also at a higher level and never gets any direct sun.
I think we have fairly wide joints and someone has had a go at doing some repointing at some time (funnily enough where it rains in in the kitchen doorway) and its very grey (the original mortar is a light sandy colour and very soft in places -can be rubbed out with a finger) and looks bloody awful, which is another thing that's worrying us about repointing.

 

[23vc]

I personally find those dark bricks very nice.
If the pebble dashing was painted white it would look very nice imo.

I thought the same to be fair. Except lose the dashing and render the middle

 

[johnny2007]

That is very satirical

De gustibus non disputandum est