Saw a dangerous brick wall repair at a church in Memphis last weekend

I was driving past a church on Poplar Avenue and noticed they had some guys redoing a section of brickwork near the entrance. Got out to take a closer look and spotted they were using dry mortar mix without any proper bonding agent, plus the bricks looked like recycled demolition scrap with old glue still on them. That wall is going to start crumbling within a year, maybe less if we get a hard freeze. Has anyone else run into crews cutting corners like this on repair jobs?

2 comments

2 Comments

campbell.tara21d ago

Oh wow, I actually need to gently push back on something here. The dry mortar mix thing isn't quite the problem you're describing. Dry mortar mix is actually fine for brickwork as long as you're talking about the pre-blended bagged stuff (you know, just add water). It's the whole "no bonding agent" part that's got me worried. Mortar isn't supposed to use a bonding agent like you'd use for concrete or stucco, it relies on the portland cement and lime in the mix to create the bond with the bricks. The real nightmare is if they're using old, dirty bricks with glue residue and no cleaning, because that means the mortar won't grip the brick surface at all. That, plus any freeze-thaw cycles we get in Memphis, and you're looking at loose bricks within a couple of years for sure. But the dry mix itself isn't the shortcut there, it's the dirty bricks and probably not wetting the bricks down beforehand.

zarab2421d ago

Oh man, you totally nailed it with the dirty bricks thing! (That's honestly the contractor's worst nightmare in my book). It's like trying to get glue to stick to a dusty countertop - it just won't hold no matter what you do. I've seen people try to scrub old mortar off bricks with a wire brush but they skip the step where you actually have to soak the bricks in water first, and that makes the bond super weak. And you're right about the freeze-thaw cycle, especially here in Memphis where it's like 70 degrees one day and freezing the next. Those temperature swings will just pop any weak mortar joints right off, especially if the bricks were dry when they laid them.