Brick repair in Mobile, Alabama

Brick lets go in a handful of ways, and each one says something about what is happening in the wall.

• Faces popping off and leaving crumbly brick behind, which masons call spalling
• Cracks running through brick and joints, often in a stair step line
• Brick that has worked loose around a window, a corner or a step
• Brick missing outright, or a hole where a vent or pipe used to be
• A section of wall pushed out of line

Spalling is when the outer face of a brick comes off. Up north, freezing water does most of that. Here hard freezes are rare, so the usual causes are different. Brick that stays wet for long stretches carries salts in with the water. When the water dries out near the surface, the salts crystallize just under the face and push it off. That is why spalled brick is so often sitting right beside white salt stains.

Two other causes are common in Mobile. One is hard cement mortar used to patch old soft brick. The joint ends up stronger than the brick, so the brick takes the stress and the water, and its edges crumble. The other is pressure washing. A wand held close to old brick to knock off mildew can strip the face right off. Sealers that keep water from drying out of a wall do the same kind of damage over time.

A crack means something moved. Some movement is small and finished. Some keeps going. The pattern helps tell which.

Stair step cracks that follow the mortar joints up a wall usually mean one part of the house settled a little more than the rest. Mobile ground is wet clay and sand that swells, shrinks and washes out with the rain, and the big live oaks near so many houses pull water out of it in dry spells. A crack that runs straight up through the brick at a corner, or opens wider at the top than at the bottom, is a different story.

Cracks above windows and doors often come from the steel that carries the brick over the opening. When that steel rusts it swells, and it lifts and cracks the brick above it. Patching the brick without dealing with the steel means the crack comes back.

Donald looks for the cause as part of the job. If what he sees points to the house itself moving, some jobs call for a structural engineer or a foundation company first, and he will tell you that.

The damaged brick comes out first, along with the mortar around it, without disturbing the good brick beside it. The opening gets cleaned out. New brick goes in, set in a mortar that suits the wall, and the joints get tooled to look like the ones around them.

On older brick the mortar has to be softer than the brick. That way, if something has to give over the years, it is the joint, which is easy to redo, and not the brick. On newer brick veneer the weep holes along the bottom course have to stay open, so the water that gets behind the brick has a way out.

Nobody wants a patch that shows from the street. Donald looks for brick that matches yours in size, color and texture, and mortar to match the joints. On newer houses that can get close. On very old Mobile brick, made in sizes and colors you cannot buy new, an exact match is not always possible, and Donald will tell you that up front. Sometimes old brick from a hidden spot on the same house is the closest match there is. Ask Donald what makes sense for yours.

New brick and new mortar also look a little bright for a while after the work. Mortar especially takes some time to weather in and settle toward the color of the old joints.

Look at the parts of the wall that take the most water. The bottom few courses, where rain splashes back off the ground. The side that faces the weather. The brick under a gutter that overflows. Around the chimney. And the shaded north wall, where mildew and green growth keep the brick damp long after the rain stops.

Near the bay, salt air adds to the load on the wall. Downtown and in the historic districts, old soft brick shows wear sooner than the newer brick on houses out west.