Brick Mortar / Gaps / Sealing

irri_tant

Just had the felt flat roof redone as we thought it was leaking due to it's condition. Turns out we have gaps between the bricks & mortar which is letting the water in. The mortar is in good condition. Never crossed our minds to look at the brick due to previous roof condition.

So, do I get the brick work re-pointed or find a suitable flexible building mastic to fill the gaps and do some DIY?

Like this but without the cracked brick and ours runs horizontaley
http://www.qualitypointing.co.uk/services/brick-repairing.html

cyclonebri1

You said DIY?
This is my field. You need to rake out the joints, several options:

The hardway with a lump hammer and chisel, or,

An angle grinder and a mortar rake disc, or,

An angle grinder with a mortar router bit.

All that is to cut the old mortar joints back to un-weathered material, and to give a deep enough groove to allow new mortar to be viable

Next, you but a repointing extruder gun, £25 from your local builders merchant.

Basically it just like the mastic tube gun that you would use for sealants, but comes with a re-fillable cartridge and an range of nozzles.

You need nothing special to fill the gaps, just a standard sand cement mix of 3:1.

It's a cheap but laborious process but ideally suited as a topic in MSE

ColinFishwick

You can do pointing yourself its not that hard tbh. I would also put some Thompson water seal on bricks if the bricks are fairly old

irri_tant

ColinFishwick wrote: »

You can do pointing yourself its not that hard tbh. I would also put some Thompson water seal on bricks if the bricks are fairly old

Think I'll be paying someone to do this rather than DIY then they can give the whole wall a good service.

Bricks, circa mid 60's and all look to be in good condition.

cyclonebri1

ColinFishwick wrote: »

You can do pointing yourself its not that hard tbh. I would also put some Thompson water seal on bricks if the bricks are fairly old

But lets make it clear, not until the dusty stuff is finished?

irri_tant

Pointing done and sealed the brick work with a silicon spray all for £450 by a builder

cyclonebri1

irri_tant wrote: »

Pointing done and sealed the brick work with a silicon spray all for £450 by a builder

Took him long enough, ;):D:D