Dayton Tuckpointing Bowing or bulging brick wall: what it means and what the repair costs in Dayton
A brick wall that bows, bulges, or belly-outs is past repointing. The brick face has lost its connection to whatever is behind it: the inner wythe on a solid pre-1930 wall, the wood frame on a postwar veneer wall, or the soil pressure has won on a basement wall. The fix is to restore the connection with helical ties and repoint at $8 to $20 per square foot, or to take the bulged section down to sound brick and relay it at the $20 to $40 per brick scale, priced per job from photos and a look. A bowed basement wall is a foundation contractor’s problem, plain and simple. Send a photo down the length of the wall and one straight on, and you get a straight answer about which one you have.
Check this first
- Sight down the wall. Stand at a corner and look along the face with one eye. A bulge shows as a belly in the line of the brick, usually between the first and second floor or below a window band on a solid wall, and anywhere on a veneer wall.
- Run a string. Tack a string line from top to bottom of the wall over the bulge and measure the gap at its widest. Write the number and the date on the string tack. That measurement is the single most useful thing you can give a mason.
- Look for the separation. On a solid wall, look for a horizontal crack or open bed joint at the top or bottom of the bulge, where the outer wythe has hinged away from the inner one. On a veneer wall, look for the same thing at the lintel line or at a floor line.
- Look for what is pushing. A bulge below a rusted lintel, next to a downspout, under a gutter that overflows, or beside a chimney that leans has a water source above it. A bulge at the foundation with cracked block joints has soil behind it.
- Check the inside. Cracked plaster on the same wall, a window frame out of square, or a gap between the floor and the baseboard on a solid-wall house means the inner wythe has moved too, which changes the repair.
What is usually wrong
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix and cost |
|---|---|---|
| Belly in a veneer wall, brick sounds hollow, horizontal crack at a floor line | Corroded wall ties, veneer separated from the frame | Helical ties set through the joints, then repoint at $8 to $20 per sq ft |
| Belly in a solid pre-1930 wall with an open bed joint above it | Outer wythe separated from the inner; headers or collar joint failed | Take down and relay the section in matched brick and lime mortar, priced per job |
| Bulge directly over a window with a stepped crack | Rusted lintel lifting and pushing the brick above | Lintel replacement $400 to $1,500 per opening, relay the bulged brick |
| Bulge at a corner with diagonal cracks | Footing settlement on wet clay | Drainage and assessment first, then relay and repoint |
| Basement block or stone wall bowed inward, horizontal crack | Soil and water pressure | Foundation contractor; repointing at $10 to $25 per sq ft only after it is stabilized |
| Parapet or chimney top leaning outward | Water from the top, freeze-thaw | Rebuild from the roofline $2,500 to $7,000; see the leaning chimney page |
These are the pricing page ranges. A relay is quoted as a count of brick and square feet of wall after the take-down line is marked on site, because nobody can see behind a bulge from the sidewalk.
Why Dayton walls bow
Solid brick walls of the kind that fill the Oregon District, St. Anne’s Hill, South Park, Huffman, Dayton View, and Grafton Hill are two or three wythes of brick tied together with header courses and a filled collar joint, all in lime mortar. Water that gets in from a failed parapet, a leaking gutter, or an unpointed wall top saturates the collar joint, and Ohio’s roughly 110 freeze-thaw cycles a year break the bond between the wythes a little more every winter. Once the headers have sheared, the outer wythe stands on its own footing with nothing holding its top, and it leans toward the weather. Dayton’s 41.33 inches of normal annual precipitation, spread through the year, keeps the collar joint wet long enough for the freeze to find it.
Veneer walls on the postwar houses of Kettering, Beavercreek, Huber Heights, and Centerville are a single wythe of brick standing an inch or so off a wood frame, held to it by corrugated metal ties nailed to the sheathing. Those ties were thin galvanized strips, and water behind the veneer, especially where a lintel has no flashing, rusts them through. A veneer wall with no ties is a free-standing brick sheet, and it bows.
Under both kinds of house is the Miamian clay, with a spring water table 2.5 to 3.5 feet down and a subsoil of 35 to 45 percent clay that swells and shrinks with the season. A footing that rides that movement tilts the wall above it a little each year, and the wall records it as a lean at a corner.
When it is structural, not cosmetic
A bow is structural. The only question is how urgent. A bulge that has grown since the last time you looked, one that has opened a horizontal crack you can put a coin in, one over a doorway or a walkway, or one with brick that move by hand is a shore-it-now problem, and a mason who quotes it without shoring is not the right mason. A slight, stable bow with a dated string measurement that has not changed through a spring and a winter is a scheduled repair for the mortar season. A basement wall that bows inward is outside masonry repair altogether until it is braced or excavated, and the foundation page says so.
The repair
On a veneer wall, helical stainless ties are driven through the mortar joints into the studs behind on a grid, pulling the brick back to the frame, and the joints and any cracked units are repointed and replaced. On a solid wall, the bulged section is marked, shored, taken down course by course to sound bonded brick, and relaid with new headers or stainless ties into the inner wythe, in matched brick and lime mortar, with the wall top or parapet that let the water in fixed at the same time. Either way, the water source is corrected first, because the National Park Service’s Preservation Brief 2 is right that repair without fixing the water is wasted.
What to expect on the call
Give the string measurement and the date, say whether the wall is solid or veneer if you know (a pre-1930 house is almost always solid; a post-1950 one is almost always veneer), and send the two photos. You get an honest read on urgency, a repair type, and, for a relay, a site visit before the number because the take-down line has to be marked on the wall. Rebuilding follows the mortar season, mid-April through October, but shoring does not wait for the weather.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my brick wall bulging outward?
On a solid brick house built before 1930, the outer wythe of brick has separated from the inner one because the header brick or the mortar tying them together has failed, and the outer skin is standing on its own. On a postwar brick veneer house, the metal wall ties between the brick and the wood frame have rusted through. In both cases water and roughly 110 freeze-thaw cycles a year did the work, and the bulge is the wall telling you the connection is gone.
How much does it cost to fix a bowing brick wall in Dayton?
It depends on whether the wall can be tied back or has to come down. A veneer wall with rusted ties is retrofitted with helical ties through the mortar joints and repointed at $8 to $20 per square foot. A solid wall whose outer wythe has separated is taken down to sound brick and relaid, which is priced per job from photos and a site visit against the $20 to $40 per brick and $8 to $20 per square foot scales. A basement wall that has bowed inward is a foundation contractor's job, not a repoint.
Can a bulging wall be repointed?
Not usefully. Repointing seals the joints on the face of a wall that is no longer attached to anything behind it, and the bulge keeps growing under the new mortar. The tie or the rebuild has to come first; the repointing is the last step and is included in the repair.
Is a bulge dangerous?
A bulge you can see from the street on a wall above a door, a walkway, or a neighbor's property is dangerous, and a bulge that has grown in a season is urgent. A slight bow measured with a string that has not changed in a year is a scheduled repair. Either way, get it looked at before winter, because a wall that is holding water in the separation gap fails fastest in freeze-thaw.