? for all the brickies out there.

[Bleedin Thumb]

Good morning Al,

I recall that you recently bemoaned the fact that people don't use fancier type bonds anymore for brickwork. (or at least I think you did).

At the time I thought...... well not much, I don't think about bricks all that often.

This morning however I woke up thinking about bricks.

In particular I was thinking about the old style bonds like Flemish, English and garden bond..... can't recall all their names.

It then occurred to me - in light of the robust discussion between Bricks and Pawnhead that these bonds must be a disaster as far a dampness goes.

If you have your perpend exposed to the weather it must act as a wick and that your internal wall would be constantly damp.
So my questions:

1. Is this correct, people lived in damp houses?

2. Was there a waterproofing technique that was used to counter this problem?

3. Were bricks that were laid with these bonds naturally waterproof due to high firing or salt glazing?

Now that I have these questions out of my head I can go back to thinking about more lofty matters like.........grocery shopping, washing etc.

[ozwinner]

Good morning Al,

I recall that you recently bemoaned the fact that people don't use fancier type bonds anymore for brickwork. (or at least I think you did).

At the time I thought...... well not much, I don't think about bricks all that often.

This morning however I woke up thinking about bricks.

In particular I was thinking about the old style bonds like Flemish, English and garden bond..... can't recall all their names.

It then occurred to me - in light of the robust discussion between Bricks and Pawnhead that these bonds must be a disaster as far a dampness goes.

If you have your perpend exposed to the weather it must act as a wick and that your internal wall would be constantly damp.
So my questions:

1. Is this correct, people lived in damp houses?

2. Was there a waterproofing technique that was used to counter this problem?

3. Were bricks that were laid with these bonds naturally waterproof due to high firing or salt glazing?

Now that I have these questions out of my head I can go back to thinking about more lofty matters like.........grocery shopping, washing etc.

A lot of old terrace houses in England are double skin with no cavity and the mortar is lime mortar, so yes they are damp inside.
We used to spray onto the outside skin some liquid silicon, this made them water proof, I dont know how long it would last but there was a 20 year guarantee on the tin.

One house we had, had no DPC in the brickwork at all and there was rising damp 1M up the wall, we had to inject silicon into it to stop it, then replace the plaster for 1M up the walls. The house was built in 1910.

Some of the old houses had slate as a DPC, but it still got breached, or tar was used, but that broke down after a while too.

With the fancier bonds I would use snap headers so the cavity could be maintained.

Al

[journeyman Mick]

Al,
what's a snap header? I'm guessing it's a removeable brick of some sort so you can access the cavity.

Mick

[ozwinner]

A snap header is just a brick snapped in half so it doesnt stick all the way though, a half if you like, or a bat.

Al

[rhancock]

A lot of old terrace houses in England are double skin with no cavity and the mortar is lime mortar, so yes they are damp inside.

Some of the old houses had slate as a DPC, but it still got breached, or tar was used, but that broke down after a while too.
Al

Yeah, Dad built our extension with a slate DPC, I got the job of getting the slates as even as possible - he reckoned that if a bump in the slate made the brick above wobble then itd end up splitting the slate and then its useless. We'd use broken roofing slate, so I had to match up the thickness and then split the slate to the width of a brick - ended up with lots of little slate splinters in my soft teenage hands!

We also spent a lot of time replacing timbers rotted out by rising damp.

The other problem was the number of houses where the soil level around the house had risen over time (we worked on houses up to 400 years old! and most were over 100 years old) so that the new soil level was above the DPC. There was no 'traditional' way to fix these - they just replaced the rotten stuff and hoped it didn't need doing again in their lifetime! The new injection systems and spray on silicon fixed it though.