Re-pointing a small retaining wall.

daivid

Some of the mortar in the retaining wall for the drive is in a terrible state. Some of this may be down to a poor job either first time round or patching up at some point. The house is about 50 years old and I imagine the wall is similar. My suspicion though is that some of the damage is due to water exiting (or trying to exit) through the mortar. I have attached photos showing where I have taken out the worst patches, the worst of these were most of the verticals where the mortar almost poured on prodding and has all gone to the depth of a brick. I am wondering if I should leave some of these verticals empty to allow water to escape during the wetter months? Or fit some sort of channels?

The wall is 1m at it's tallest with the maximum height of retained drive being about 85cm. The drive is almost level perpendicularly to the wall (rises by no more that 10cm over 5m). The wall is itself sheltered, the exposed side facing North East with a fence double it's height running parallel about 1m away.

FreeBear

You won't be able to do much about the mortar degrading - Indeed, it is preferable for the mortar to break up and fall out rather than the bricks spalling & crumbling. You could fit some vertical weep vents, but I doubt they would do much in a double thickness solid brick wall. Just repoint with a weak mortar mix and resign yourself to having to do it again in another 50 years or so.

But before you mix a bucket of mortar, have a look at this recent post - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77194923#Comment_77194923

The tool will make the job so much easier.

daivid

FreeBear said:

 Just repoint with a weak mortar mix and resign yourself to having to do it again in another 50 years or so.

  Ideal, I'm thinking of moving in 25-30 

FreeBear said: 

But before you mix a bucket of mortar, have a look at this recent post - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77194923#Comment_77194923

The tool will make the job so much easier.

That does look very nifty, whilst making it may increase the time taken on this job I can see it paying its way on the next one! Many thanks for sharing that!