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The brick wall at my kid's school in Grand Rapids is holding up better than the new one they built in 2019
I was dropping my daughter off at school over in Grand Rapids last month and actually stopped to look at the brick on the old wing of the building. Somebody laid that thing back in the 20s and the joints are still tight as anything, barely any spalling, no step cracks, nothing. Then there's the new addition they put up in 2019 and I swear the mortar is already washing out in spots and I can see a stair step crack running up by the gym entrance. I'm not a mason by trade, I do fencing, but I work alongside bricklayers plenty and I know what a bad bed joint looks like when I see one. What got me was the old wall has that nice even flush-ish joint and the new one looks like it got buttered by somebody in a hurry with a hangover. Maybe it's the mortar mix, maybe it's the brick itself these days, or maybe everybody's just pushing so hard on schedule that quality takes a back seat. Curious if the masons here have noticed the same thing on newer commercial jobs, or if I'm just looking at one bad crew on one bad building.
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shane_fisher3724d ago
Did you get a close look at whether the new wall is veneer or full brick? I ask because a ton of 2019 school additions are brick veneer over steel studs, and that changes everything about why it's cracking. The old 20s wall is probably solid multi-wythe brick, three or four layers thick, so it moves as one big mass and the joints stay put. The new one is a single layer hanging off the frame with ties, and if they didn't put enough control joints in or the flashing and weep holes got skipped, water sits in there and eats the mortar from the inside out. Stair step cracks by a gym entrance usually mean a footing or lintel issue too, not just bad buttering. Did you notice if the crack was wider at the top or pretty even the whole way up?
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