Exterior Brick Cracking
I have a 3 story, semi-attached carriage house in Bay Ridge, no basement. I happened to look up at the side of the building yesterday and saw one long, large crack and a few smaller ones running through the mortar. They are between the 3rd floor and roof. I called two names from old posts…
I have a 3 story, semi-attached carriage house in Bay Ridge, no basement. I happened to look up at the side of the building yesterday and saw one long, large crack and a few smaller ones running through the mortar. They are between the 3rd floor and roof.
I called two names from old posts listed here to get repair estimates later this week. I also remember a man or compnay named Malik that was discussed in the past. Does any one know his contact info and if the reviews are positve/negative on him? Older forum posts no longer are coming up when I search.
Also I’d like some advice in general about this problem. Should I be worried about these cracks or are they just a normal part of aging? My house was built in the 30’s. When large trucks come up the block the whole house vibrates. Should I gat an engineer to assess the problem and is it OK to just go ahead and have a mason fill the cracks in the meantime?
Thanks,
Prema
Or you could go the poor man’s engineer route and get a small strip of glass, something around 1″x6″ and epoxy the ends to either side of the crack (use liquid epoxy, not the putty), making sure to only epoxy the last inch or so on the ends. Check the glass periodically. If the glass cracks, but still lines up, it’s vibration. If the glass breaks and one side of the glass is lower, it’s active settlement, if the glass doesn’t break, it’s either old settlement, or too wet of a mix when the basement was poured or a stress factor that is no longer occuring for whatever reason. If however the two sides of the crack on the wall are not on the same plane, that’s a problem because one side is either falling inward or outward which needs to be taken care quickly. In that case, skip the glass and proceed to an engineered approved remediation.
Rand Engineering
http://www.randpc.com/index.html
Thanks for all the replies. Does anyone have any recommendations for a structural engineer?
First, figure out if this is active settlement or cracks from old movement. You’ll need a structural engineer for that.
If you repoint the building, and the movement is active, in a few years, you’ll need to repoint again.
A. Malik is pretty good overall, although I do hear mixed things about him (and he’s expensive.) Progeny is another well-regarded company.
You need a structural engineer to look at this. You do not want a contractor specifying how to fix this issue. It might just be settlement, but you really need to know for sure.
defintley agree with BHS. Get an engineer to figure out why the cracks are occurring. If you don’t do that, fixing them will be a waste of money as they will just happen again. At the very least, if you don’t want to do that, get some crack monitors and watch what happens.
I think it’s A. Malek. Hear it is expensive, but they seem to have a corner on the market-? I seem to see them everywhere.
Unfortunately you need to figure out why the cracks are there and if they are getting worse or are stable. An engineer would look at the location of the cracks and be able to figure out where the movement was coming from and why. May not be a big deal at all but would be a shame to spend money and time repairing the mortar when the cracks will just resurface and there are more important issues at play.