I am looking at purchasing an older stone building, its rather large(21k sq/ft) and I am concerned if it has not been maintained it may need to have this done. I have not actually seen the building yet, but I want to be prepared when I look at it, I have my "people" looking into it, but Acurazine never stops amazing me with the things some of you know.

 

Here's some info on it. Basically it's just re-doing the mortar joints between the courses of brick. Some is for cosmetic reasons, some structural.

http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/Family...0032&oliID=213

 

kind of off topic here but on the same subject. i was watching hgtv yesterday and they were putting up a brick wall. they were laying the mortar on top of the bricks. i understand some of it will go into the holes of the bricks. the question is, is there any advantage to filling those holes up completely with mortar(besides the cost factor) and then applying the normal layer on top?

i know it sounds like a dumb question but just something that popped into my head

 

I had a new building put up a little over a year ago and it was done in brick, they did not fill the bricks with mortar. It was just brick facade, i.e. there was a structural wall behind it, the bricks are just there for looks. Seeing how long it takes to build a brick wall the conventional way this would add a LOT of time to an already slow process.

I'd suspect it would be a bad idea to fill the holes, mortar is the weakest part of a brick wall and most vulnerable to water, ice, aging type damage and if moisture soaked into the the mortar(of course this would take many years) it could conceivably break the brick with hydronic pressure - large temperature swings or freezing could trigger this.

 

good call, now i know