Wall Tie Replacement - Help

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Hello,

We have exposed the inner leaf of a 1970s extension by completely removing the outer leaf, and found the old galvanised steel wall ties. Most of them look fine but some are rusty. Before we build the outer leaf back up I am thinking it might be sensible to replace all the wall ties. Is this a good idea and how would you do this? The cavity is 50mm and I need to be able to get the materials ASAP.

If we pull the old ones out and point new ones into the inner leaf, there won't be much mortar holding them in place. What if we use these so it is easy to just screw them in to the mortar? Would you use resin as well?


Also, there are a generous number of wall ties in there, should we just leave the old ones and add new ones as well or is it best to remove old ones?

20260601_164534.jpg


Thanks
 
You don't need to remove butterfly wall ties, because they are too thin to damage the brickwork when they rust. It's only the thicker twist type that need removing.
Butterfly ones just tend to break and become ineffective.
 
Looking at the photo you have wall ties every course. The regs for ties back then with a 2 inch cavity were 3ft horizontal and 18inches vertical, or every block at openings. As you have so many I wouldn't worry. You could clean up the rusty ones and get some red oxide spray.
It's easy to forget the ties when building a wall, so they sometimes got stuck in a bit later by raking out the joints and pointing them in. They usually were a bit loose compared to being built in. The CoW's didn't like this practice.
 
Wall starter ties are not designed for the horizontal movement of cavity wall leafs, but for the vertical movement of extensions.
 
For adding new ones, would digging out the mortar and then using resin to hold them in place work?
 

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