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Brick Spalling
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Jan 24, 2024
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View Video Transcript
0:00
In this video I want to talk to you about brick spalling. Spalling is a
0:06
technical term that refers to a certain kind of flaking of, well, all masonry
0:13
materials, but in this case we're talking about brick, and the cause of spalling
0:18
and this is a prime example of pretty disappointing spalling happening here
0:22
right now, the cause of it is is always the same, and that's moisture that has
0:28
been absorbed into the brick before temperatures below freezing. So if a
0:36
little bit of moisture is absorbed, it's not enough to cause spalling, but if
0:40
enough moisture is absorbed, then there's sufficient moisture within the pores of
0:46
the brick that that moisture expands when it freezes, as all water does, and it
0:52
exerts a tremendous amount of force. Water expands about 9% when it freezes
0:58
and that's a huge amount. So what we've got here are like little, little jack
1:05
hammers, or little hammers, or something working inside the brick, knocking off chunks, and this takes years to happen, but you don't want it to happen
1:16
at all. Now in this case, this kind of spalling is 100% the fault of the brick
1:23
manufacturer, and you can prove that to yourself because some of the brick is
1:27
fine, and it was all laid at the same time. So this is brick from different
1:32
batches, or different parts of the same batch, and for whatever reason, the brick
1:37
was not fired hot enough and long enough to reduce the absorbency of the brick so
1:44
that it could survive cold climates without a problem. Now the mortar joints
1:49
here have survived. They didn't absorb too much, and that's why they're sticking out, trying their best to do their job, but yeah, the brick is toast. There's
1:58
nothing that can be done to fix this. All you can do is understand the cause and
2:05
implement some sort of preventative measures when you're having your brick worked on. Another shot here. This photo was taken from the sidewall of the
2:16
bowling alley in Espanola, Ontario, Canada, and classic example of bricks that have
2:25
a manufacturing defect. Same thing here. You see this sort of thing, and it's
2:32
always a bit pathetic. I mean, look up here. Someone's tried to fix this, you
2:37
know, a stopgap, something or other. It's not going to do any good whatsoever. It's
2:41
just your full-blown train wreck right now, and replacement is the only option
2:46
I'm afraid. Now that's why this thing is so important. This is an upright freezer
2:54
in the testing lab of a brick factory. So modern bricks that are manufactured
3:01
properly and that meet certain standards have representative samples from each batch of bricks soaked in water for a certain period of time so
3:13
that it's as saturated as it's going to get, and then they move those bricks
3:17
into a freezer like this. This freezer is especially wired to go through many
3:23
freeze-thaw cycles, you know, dozens and dozens of them, far more than you'd
3:29
see in real life. And the idea is to stress these bricks to verify
3:35
with certainty that that particular batch of bricks is impervious enough to
3:40
moisture absorption that spalling won't be a problem. So essentially a test like
3:46
this is going to be subjecting bricks to what might amount to a hundred years of
3:52
freeze-thaw cycles in the real world, maybe even more, it depends on how they
3:56
test. But the bottom line for you is quite simple, and that's to use brick
4:02
that has been moisture tested like this, especially if you live in an area that
4:07
gets below freezing. So that's pretty simple. Not all bricks have been tested
4:12
this way, so you're going to want to ask about that. And well, this is what you're
4:17
trying to avoid. This is another classic example of poorly manufactured bricks
4:23
that will never last. And, you know, from the looks of things, you see up here, that
4:29
looks like the edge of a roof. That looks like a drip edge or something. So we
4:34
could have something else going on here other than just bad brick. And that has
4:41
to do with moisture control around a building. Now this is a classic example
4:48
of poor moisture control around a building, because these bricks, they're pretty good. I mean, they're cracked and they're chipped and they're old, but
4:56
they're not spalling, which means that they're not absorbing too much water and
5:00
having that water expand when it freezes and pop the bricks apart. But what
5:06
has happened here is a complete destruction of the mortar joints. So
5:10
clearly there's a moisture issue here, a water issue. And in this case
5:16
it's almost certainly caused by poor water control. I mean, first of all, the
5:22
bricks get close to the ground. That's a problem. They should never be any closer
5:27
than about six or eight inches. I prefer a foot above the ground, because that's
5:32
where there's splashed water. You know, rain falls, splashes up on the wall
5:35
repeatedly over the years, and it causes, it can cause problems. But in this case
5:42
as I said, the bricks are fine. You can't really fault the bricks. So this is an
5:47
issue of the builder or the owner of the of the building who didn't maintain
5:51
proper water control off the roof. You know, I don't know what's going on here
5:55
but it could be water pouring off the roof. It could be a bad eaves trough. We
5:59
do have the problem of the bricks being too close to the ground, so that's nothing much that can be remedied at this stage. But it's important to make
6:07
the distinction between bad brick and a bad owner or a bad builder. And this is
6:14
clearly a bad builder slash bad owner situation. Another one here. What we've
6:22
got is a deck floor that's bolted to some brick veneer. Now that's a problem
6:29
on two counts, because brick veneer is not rated to carry the load of a deck
6:34
There are other ways of fastening a deck to a brick veneered building that I
6:40
cover later in the course, but that's the first problem. The second problem is
6:45
that there was no, there were no spacers behind this wood. This wood was bolted
6:50
directly to the brick and it held moisture. You know, water would get in
6:55
there, it would be held against the brick, and the brick would absorb in a way that
7:00
it normally wouldn't, because it's not having water held against it. A better
7:05
option would have been to apply some spacers, maybe a half an inch thick or so
7:10
that move this piece of wood away from the brick. If that had happened, we
7:15
wouldn't be having this deterioration here. So well worth the trouble. You've
7:22
seen this photo before elsewhere in the course, and it's a, this is, this is a bad
7:27
builder thing, not a bad brick thing. Because I know the house, I know this
7:32
house, I've seen it, watched it over the years. It's probably 40 years old now, and
7:40
every single brick is fine, except the bricks that they actually buried. I
7:47
suppose when the mason was working here laying these bricks, the ground level was
7:52
lower than it is now, because they're building it right on the concrete foundation. But what with backfilling and installing these paving bricks for the
8:01
driveway, and one whole course of bricks came underground, and that's why that
8:07
brick is deteriorating. You just can't be close to the ground if you want your
8:12
bricks to last in a cold climate, or in any climate that receives, that gets
8:17
below freezing. So another, this is a builder error, not a brick layer error
8:23
not a brick factory error. Now this is an interesting photo here. There's nothing
8:28
wrong with these bricks because they're being installed right now. This building
8:32
is owned by a friend of mine. It's a commercial building in a small, in a small town. She bought the building, and it had brick on it before, but the brick
8:40
had been painted, just painted with regular paint. And unfortunately that paint held moisture, it held moisture against the brick, winter came, there was
8:51
all kinds of spalling and deterioration. And like I said before, the only solution
8:56
for that is replacement. So they knocked all the old bricks off, and this
9:02
mason is installing bricks in a, you know, a little bit of a traditional
9:08
style with the dark red and the light tan color. The bricks originally would
9:14
have been fine, and I know that because identical bricks in other buildings that
9:20
are neighboring this one were fine. The issue was painting, and painting with a
9:26
paint that didn't allow moisture to escape. I mean, the issue is really quite
9:30
simple. You might think, well, if I'm putting paint on the brick, and if paint can hold the moisture into the brick, isn't it going to keep all the
9:37
moisture out of the brick too? Well, the problem with that, and you see it all the
9:41
time in building situations, is that it only takes the tiniest little breach in
9:48
a waterproof membrane or a film like paint, it only takes the
9:52
tiniest breach of that to let plenty of water in. But once the water is in, almost
9:59
none of it can get out, because it can only get out through that tiny little
10:03
breach that let it in in the first place. So I guess in other words, it's easy to
10:07
let liquid water in. It's very, it's quite a bit harder, very hard, to let water
10:13
vapor come back out again through the tiny little breach that let the liquid
10:17
in the first place. So that's why regular painting is bad, and why you either don't
10:22
paint, or you paint with a breathable paint, or you stain your bricks, which is
10:28
another even safer option. It actually looks better than paint too, and of
10:33
course all the while making sure that you build with bricks that have been
10:37
verified and certified as being weatherproof and spall resistant
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