Crumbling Interior Brick Wall

4 years ago

I live in a brick building constructed in the 1870's. I have exposed brick on one wall, which is also an exterior wall. Both the brick and mortar are crumbling. I had it sealed a while back. I don't know what type of sealer was used, but it made the problem much worse. I was told this was because the exterior needed to be repointed. The exterior has now been repointed, so I'm thinking about trying to seal the interior side again. I've read that any benefit derived from sealing an interior brick wall is very short lived. It's a very large wall, so having it repointed on the inside would be cost prohibitive (the cost to repoint the exterior was split by all residents of the building). My options are probably to have it resealed or live with the crumbling. Has anyone had good luck with sealing a badly crumbling interior wall?

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Comments (4)

Debbie Downer
4 years ago
Ask someone at Limeworks.us - experts in antique and vintage masonry restoration and extremely helpful, willing to advise diy homeowners. Not sure what you mean by "sealer". You want to keep water (rain) out, but water VAPOR needs to be able to move in and out of a masonry house. If you prevent this from happening with interior sealer then humidity/vapor from outside will get trapped and condense inside the wall. If you seal the outside then same thing happens with humidity/vapor from cooking, laundry etc. I used clear potassium silicate paint (aka waterglass) on the eroding exterior of my 100 yrs old house -- it absorbs in and consolidates the surface - but I would ask them before proceding
Sigrid
4 years ago
If your mortar is crumbling, that's a structural issue. Sealing it does not solve the problem. I'm pretty sure This Old House has a video on repointing brick. Look it up. Basically, you scrape out the crumbling mortar and fill with fresh. You need the right kind of mortar, though.
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Debbie Downer
4 years ago
Sigrid you are correct - absolutely! I was addressing only the part of the problem which is the crumbling (spalling) of the brick itself and the need to figure out and address what is going on to prevent further deterioration.

Undoubtedly the deteriorated missing mortar was/is a big part of water getting in but at the same time need to look at all other possible factors e.g. moist air from cooking/inside the house condense on the cold exterior walls. Definitely talk to an expert! This is an exterior wall, correct? If it is solid brick and the brick is structural then it really is imperative to prevent any further damage, both inside and out.
kats737
4 years ago
Yes we had this in our cellar. Previous owners had painted it with your standard dry-lock type product, and there was water coming in from the exterior, water hits the paint, and just sits on the brick. Then efflorescence and spalling start to happen.

We thought it was beyond repair and we would have to take the bricks out and replace with new. BUT our mason ground the existing bricks down so that the surface was smooth, and he repointed where necessary. We also solved the water coming in from the outside. Fortunately I think our case wasn't that bad, so he was able to grind them without taking off too much material. I think if we had more significant spalling like you describe, bricks may need to be replaced.

We since have no more water intrusion, but we absolutely won't be painting the bricks again. They very much need to breathe.

https://hfsmaterials.com/restoration-preservation-2/a-guide-for-homeowners-2/#water