Repointing? - Advice Please

[wytco0]

My house was built in about 1962 and is a town house and very square in shape. We currently have some scaffolding in place as some of the windows are being fitted with Lintels which were not put into the original outer shell as it had wooded window frame which supported the bricks (I assume) the original soft wood windows rotted and were replaced some years ago.

The builder doing the lintels has commented that our house need repointing as the mortar is very soft, he showed me some areas where the mortar has a powdery surface which can easily be rubbed off.

We have has a slightly damp inside wall in one of the areas where this soft mortar is however this may be due to problems with out flat roof or as advised by a surveyor by water being blown into a breather brick which is located on the outside wall near where the inside wall is damp.

I an not sure if this is really a problem and if it is a problem what the best solution is. I would be grateful for advise on the following :-

1) Does this sound serious?
2) Should the whole building be repointed? or can it be patched?
3) Could I seal the whole surface with something like "Thompsons Water Seal"
4) Are there better solutions?
5) If it dees need repointing is the a DIY job?
6) if Repointing is DIYable, any pointers would be appreciated.
7) As mentioned above a surveyor pointed out that water may be blown into the breather brick and he suggested that the breather brick could be blocked as it is not needed. Does this sound correct?


Many Thanks.

 

[oilman]

I (and every other poster will be shot down in flames by masterbuilder as we know nothing) but the steps would be to first cure what you know as the likely damp sources. Only repoint what's necessary, and if the mortar hasn't receded much in 40 years leave it. It can be done when it has receded by say more than 1/2 inch. Any less and it's not really a problem. I get concerned and call in the opinion of experienced craftsmen and they just say there's nothing to worry about yet. You can spend a lot of money doing unnecessary work.

 

[shaggy]

Masterbodger knows nothing about repointing and has obviously never done any himself as he said this on the previous thread about the subject.

....you can apply the mortar with a small length of hose pipe....

This is rubbish advice; you use a pointing trowel.
I agree with oilman about leaving the pointing. The flat roof may be the source of the water leak and the air brick should have a cavity liner across the cavity but if the builder left out the lintels then he may have left this out as well. Another source of damp patches is where the bricklaying mortar was dropped onto the wall ties and gave a route for damp to bridge across. This problem was often noticed if cavity was injected with insulation foam.

 

[oilman]

Shaggy, where I had deep joints to pack I made up a tool from 1/4 inch bar with about 2 1/2 inches each end cranked about 30 degrees. One end was bar width, and the other I reduced to 1/8 inch for the tighter joints. I formed a thin wedge of mortar on the edge of a small hawk, then picked this up on the pointing tool. This meant I could pack the joints with no risk of mortar on the face. I had some bother with a pointing trowel.

 

[wytco0]

Thanks for the advice, I think I will leave the repointing for now. Any advice about using waterseal? is it worthwile? its an easy job with the scaffolding up !

 

[shaggy]

Wytco, I've never used water seal, so sorry I can't comment but perhaps others can. Oilman, the advantage of using a pointing trowel is that with the trowel held vertical to the mortar on the hawk you can slice off the amount you want and pick it up with one movement. If your home-made tool works for you then that's ok if it does the job, but how you can pick up mortar on a round flexible hose I don't know. However, I'm not one to say you have to do a job a certain way because I do. You need to press the mortar into the joint and you need a stiff tool to do this. The best tool in my opinion for finishing the joint is the Marshalltown tool. If you need to fill in any you've missed, you can pick up a bit with this tool but you wouldn't use it to fill all the joint.

 

[oilman]

The tool I made was same as your picture just square bar instead. Some joints were over an inch deep and just over 1/8 high so I couldn't pack it to the depth without.

For the very wide joints The flexible hosepipe would work and for the really wide joints a piece of vacuum cleaner hose is ideal

As for waterseal, there is a waterbased equivalent available from screwfix, but I used it to stop rain soaking into very soft bricks and then the faces being blown off when it froze. If your bricks are sound there's not much point.

 

[goodadvice]

i have done loads of re-pointing using a small length of hose-pipe and trowel.