Episode 026 1995 - 96 Season
| House Inspector | Linseed Oil Uses | Tuck Pointing Brick | Homemade Potting Soil | Fixing Stuck Door | Cracked Grout | Caulking Windows | The CLOSING | |
To order a Video Tape, call 1-800-TO-BUILD and ask for Episode #026.
Al Carrell: If your new house is a brick house, at some point you're going to end up with cracked or loose mortar joints. It's real easy to replace those. Michael is taking out the loose material and we're going to mix up some mortar patch and it's real easy for you to do. It doesn't cost very much. You can buy a little bitty bag and you just add a little water to it and then you start mixing. And, you know, it's just like instant mortar mix. You want to be sure you don't put too much water in there, cause you don't want it to be soupy. When you're mixing the mortar, if you want to make it match a little bit better, if it's a little too dark, you can add chalk dust and if it's a little too light, you can add lamp black. You can get lamp black at the paint store.
Michael Holigan: Now you can go to the expense of buying a trowel or you can just use your finger.
A.C.: It's sort of like mud pies, isn't it? Actually, it's better if you're going to use your finger to put on a rubber glove.
M.H.: But, just go around your house, clean out the bad mortar and just stick in the new stuff.
A.C.: Now it looks dark up here now, but when it dries it's probably going to be pretty close to the same color. Nobody's going to notice the difference. You do want to make the joints match the rest of the joints around there, and that's not difficult to do, even if you just use your finger.
M.H.: And if a neighbor comes up and asks what you're doing, this is called tuck pointing. You're tuck pointing the brick on your house.
A.C.: There's one place where you don't want to do any repairs though. Look at the bottom course of brick down here and you'll notice ever so often there is a hole open down here. This is done on purpose. It's not a goof up. It's called a weephole. Now the reason the weephole is there is twofold. First of all, you don't want to trap any moisture inside these walls. If there is any moisture that's in there it will come on out. Also, this allows ventilation to go up and keep that area ventilated. So it's very important.
M.H.: A second place you don't want to add any mortar is on your expansion joint. Now you can see this is cut all the way up. The brick is actually sawed apart. Now we need to add some caulking in here, but we do not need to add mortar. You need to keep it caulked. It's just like in a sidewalk where you have an expansion joint. The house ought to be able to shift here. If you don't have this you could get cracks all throughout your brick. And that weephole Al was showing you, if you notice here, is right at ground level. We don't want that. We actually need to come in here and pull this sod away and lower the dirt. We want to see about four (4) or five (5) inches of foundation before we hit dirt, and then we want it to slope away from the house. We don't want water to ever run back inside that weephole. On this house we have similar type of water problem. We have our downspout right here and when the water comes out it hits this little trench. Now this is probably where a cable or a pipe was i nstalled when the house was built and it never has been filled up properly so the water will drain away from the house. So we need to come on in with a splash block.
A.C.: Fortunately, I always carry one of these around with me, Michael.
M.H.: Builds up your muscles, doesn't it Al? Now that's going to help get the water out away from the house, this one's 30 inches long, that's a good size for them. But we still need to come back to this trench and fill it up with sand, let the grass grow through it and make sure that everything leans away from the house. Remember, never trap the water against the house.
A.C.: Okay, so we're talking about a foundation and here this guy's going to show us how to water the lawn? I don't think so. Actually, water has a lot to do with your foundation because moisture can effect it. For example, if you live on clay soil, it can be this thick when it's dry and swell up to this thick when it gets wet. What you want to do is maintain a constant moisture level, and you can do that by putting a soaker hose out. Now the soaker hose you put flat down against the ground. You turn it upside down with the holes facing down and you turn it on very gently. Let it run for about an hour and then move it on around. Do this all the way around the foundation. What this is going to do, it's going to maintain a moisture level so if you do have a rain, it's not going to any big effect.
Episode 026 1995 - 96 Season
| House Inspector | Linseed Oil Uses | Tuck Pointing Brick | Homemade Potting Soil | Fixing Stuck Door | Cracked Grout | Caulking Windows | The CLOSING | |
To order a Video Tape, call 1-800-TO-BUILD and ask for Episode #026.