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December 19, 2006
Slumping brick wall
I am looking a brick building to buy. The top rear wall
in an area about 6 vertical and 6 feet wide - has a bulge
when looking from the outside, and a concave on the interior.
The outside is totally coated with cement that looks maybe 20
years old - no cracks, not even in slumped area.
Anyone out there have experience with this?
Our inspector thinks it will cost $50,000 to
take it apart and rebuild.
My idea is to drill 3 -1/4 holes
and tie with sizeable Airline cable back into a good size "beam"
attached vertically to the floor and ceiling joists would use a steel plate
or plates on the outside. Iwould not put any pressure inwards - the
cables and plates would be there to prevent further movement...
Thoughts? Anyone tackled this problem before?
Comments
the back of our house had a big bulge -- like yours -- under a window on the top floor. we had to have the bricks taken out and put back in. call Malek, their estimate was considerably less than $50K.
Posted by: Anonymous at December 19, 2006 10:36 AM
The walls were overbuilt to a degree in old houses, but a bulge quickly decreases a brick wall's ability to carry load. Have an engineer look at it. If it the bulge is big enough that you notice it looking at the wall it probably needs to be rebuilt. I'm sure a 36 sq ft area will cost less than $50k to fix.
But that concrete sealer will have to be removed and the brick underneath repointed on the rest of the wall. This may cost a lot more to do. The concrete sealer sometimes takes a layer of brick with it, which means you need to rebuild that layer for the whole wall. Thuraseal is a cheap to apply and expensive to remove material which is used to delay a needed repointing to the next owner.
Posted by: danielk at December 19, 2006 10:53 AM
We had this problem too. Some buildings were stuccoed rather than repointed because it was cheaper. When there is no mortar left between the bricks and then they are sealed, there can be this bulging. We fixed it twice: once for about $3,000 but it didn't work. The next fix was about $25,000 and was done properly. They need to take off the outer layer is patches and repair the brick work underneath. Do not take all the coating off the back at the same time - our neighbor did this and her entire back wall collapsed from the weight of the fire escapes. Your contractor should be able to tell you if the ties work or if it needs to be rebuilt.
We used Sean Dineen for this and they did a fabulous job, including resodding the grass that was trampled.
Posted by: Anonymous at December 19, 2006 11:03 AM
Aircraft cable is a bad idea. The wall bulges when the mortar is worn and crumbling. It needs to be rebuilt and pointed.
Posted by: Anonymous at December 19, 2006 4:45 PM
That is ususally caused by debris acumulating over the years.
I suggest gently remove the brick ,remove the debris and reinstall the brick back up.
And for 50G's you should be able to do it with 4" thick Granite slabs.
Sincerely; that should go for 12 or 15G's
Best regards
Posted by: Anonymous at December 19, 2006 9:31 PM
We had a similar issue at our 1833 building on State St. $80k was for about half a dozen bumps over the entire side of a full corner lot. Basically brick guys took out the bricks from the bulge, attached to te wall to the cross beams better, and then put the same bricks back.
The scaffolding and some internal hassles in the apartments that were affected were downside. But relatively easy process all things considered.
I'd recommend getting it done tho.
Posted by: John at December 20, 2006 10:26 PM
I'd be very cautious with this. Unless you can get an engineer to inspect the entire front or rear of the wall (with no stucco or sheetrock or lathing) it's hard to tell how solid the wall is. After we did demo we found out we had to take our rear wall down and rebuild it entirely. and this is a job that has been overseen by a structural engineer and an architect. With these old ext. walls it's hard to say what shape they are in. And odds are I think it's always in worse shape then you think. I'd budget as much as you think it would cost to take the whole thing down and replace it just in case. We didn't even have a bulge. Just stucco that seemed to need to be redone. Good luck.
Posted by: Anonymous at December 21, 2006 9:25 PM
you're on the right track. but not with cable. the job is called a "tie in". the brick wall can be stablized using steel bar, threaded rod, etc.
check out www.aylcon.com
Posted by: Anonymous at December 27, 2006 3:40 PM
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