Brick work for every part of Mobile, Alabama

Mobile sits at the head of Mobile Bay, where the Mobile River comes down out of the delta. Ships come up the river to the port, and the old city grew up along the west bank. That puts a lot of brick close to the water and close to salt air.

It is also one of the rainiest cities in the country. Rain comes hard and often, and in a storm it comes sideways off the Gulf. The air stays humid most of the year, and a hard freeze is rare and short. So brick here wears out from water, and from what the water carries, a lot more than from cold.

Mobile is an old city and you can see it in the brick. Downtown has old brick buildings with iron balconies. The neighborhoods around it, like Oakleigh, Old Dauphin Way and Midtown, are full of older houses with soft brick, lime mortar, tall brick chimneys, and raised cottages sitting up on brick piers.

Farther west the houses get newer. Off roads like Airport Boulevard and Zeigler Boulevard, most brick houses are veneer: one layer of brick over a frame wall, sitting on a slab. Spring Hill has some of both, with older houses near the college.

Each kind fails in its own way and needs its own fix. Old soft brick wants soft mortar. Veneer needs its weep holes open and its ledge sound. Donald looks at which kind you have before he says what it needs.

The work is brick and the mortar that holds it.

• Spalled brick, where the face has popped off, and brick that has cracked or worked loose, taken out and replaced with the closest match he can find
• Worn and missing mortar joints, cut out and repointed
• Chimneys with loose brick, open joints, cracked crowns or leaks
• Brick and block foundation walls, brick skirting, and the brick ledge on slab houses

Most brick trouble in Mobile comes back to water. A gutter that spills down a wall. A joint that has opened up. A cracked chimney crown letting rain into the brick from the top. Find where the water gets in and you are most of the way to knowing what the job is.

The ground matters too. Mobile's clay and sand shift as they soak up rain and dry out, and the live oaks that shade so many streets send roots toward foundations and walks. Settling shows up as cracks that step up through the mortar. Some of those are old and have stopped. Some keep moving, and a few call for a structural engineer or a foundation company before a mason should touch them.

The historic districts and West Mobile each get a page of their own, because the brick in them is so different. If you live in Oakleigh, Old Dauphin Way, Church Street East, the De Tonti Square area or Midtown, the historic districts page is the one for you. Out west or in Spring Hill, read the West Mobile page.

For permits on brick work in the city, ask the City of Mobile. If your house is in one of the local historic districts, ask the city about historic district review before you change anything on the outside. Brick piers, steps, retaining walls and concrete are around on a lot of Mobile properties too, and if one of those is your job, ask Donald about it when you call.

• Bienville SquareDowntown park on Dauphin Street
• History Museum of MobileThe city history museum on South Royal Street
• Colonial Fort CondéRebuilt colonial fort downtown, across from the History Museum
• Mobile Carnival MuseumMardi Gras museum in an old house on Government Street
• Magnolia CemeteryOld city cemetery on Virginia Street, established in 1836, under big oaks
• USS ALABAMA Battleship Memorial ParkBattleship park on the causeway, across the river from downtown