Caught a cold joint problem before the wall inspection in Tulsa

I spent last Tuesday repointing an old retaining wall and found three spots where the previous crew just smeared mortar over loose brick instead of cleaning out the gap. That hidden moisture gets behind the face and pops bricks in two freeze cycles, which is how I got called back to fix a bowed section. Has anyone else seen this shortcut on older walls, and how do you tell a homeowner it's not a quick patch without sounding like you're upselling?

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milesp389d ago

Yeah I've run into that same thing on a few older walls around here, guys just butter the face and call it good because it looks fine from the street. The giveaway for me is usually a hollow sound when you tap it, or you'll see a hairline crack running along the mortar line where it's already starting to let go. I had one last spring where the whole bottom course was basically floating on a bed of crumbled mortar, pulled four bricks out by hand. With homeowners I just show them the loose stuff once I've got it opened up and let the wall do the talking, they get it real quick when they can wiggle a brick themselves. Telling them it's a patch now or a rebuild later usually lands better than any sales pitch I could come up with.

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