13
EZTHE WASHINGTON POST.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2021Te chnical Notes talk a bout t he
spacing, but I told K aren to do it
every eight inches for extra
strength.
The thickness of the brick
foundation walls is i mportant. I f
the f oundation w alls a re over
six f eet, personally I ’d h ave the
walls 12 inches thick. You only get
one c hance to get this r ight. I f the
walls are long, every 12 feet I’d put
in a brick buttress that’s eight
inches thick and i s two feet long.
Cathedral builders in Europe
hundreds of y ears a go d iscovered
the b enefits o f buttresses. They’re
easy to install, a nd t hey add
enormous s trength to the walls,
preventing t hem f rom failing.
The last piece of advice I gave
Karen w as to build a short
experimental wall s o she gets
comfortable laying brick. It’s not
that hard to do. It just requires
the t hree Ds: d iligence,
determination and discipline.
You can do it, t oo. I ’d l ove for you
to send me p hotos of a ny b rick
wall you decide to build.Subscribe to Tim’s’ free newsletter
and listen to his new podcasts. Go to:
AsktheBuilder.com.to i nstall b rick o f all types.
You should do the same i f you
are planning on building a brick-
veneer home. A vast m ajority of
brick-veneer h omes in the United
States, based on my o bservations,
are not built correctly.
Homeowners c omplain o f water
leaks. T he B IA knows h ow to
capture and c ontrol water that
gets through brick a nd mortar.
One of the things I
recommended to Karen w as the
use of steel i n her brick walls. You
can buy affordable p ieces o f
reinforcing steel that a dd
enormous s trength to brick w alls.
This f abric comes in d ifferent
widths a nd i s made using two
parallel p ieces of thin wire t hat is
just about an inch less i n width
than t he brick w all. In between
the two pieces of wire is m ore
wire t hat looks like a continuous
strip of the capital l etter W with
the tips o f the letters touching o ne
another.
This s teel is o nly about^1 / 16 -inch
thick, and you lay it directly o n
top of a course o f brick. You then
put the mortar for the next row o n
the wire just as y ou would a
course w ithout t he steel. T he BIAIt i s important to realize not all
bricks are the same. Different
varieties can have different
hardness d epending on t he
length of time the b ricks are in
the kiln a nd what the firing
temperature is. You can make
bricks so h ard and durable that
they are suitable f or paving in
streets. Just v isit Athens, O hio, to
see their wonderful brick s treets
that have survived heavy trucks
and brutal winters for decades.
Karen should use a nice strong
brick. I told her t o go t o the Brick
Industry Association ( BIA)
website and download
“Specifications for and
Classification o f Brick,” one o f the
series of Te chnical Notes o n Brick
Construction that t he BIA
publishes. This s imple-to-read-
and-understand free document
shares the b est brick t o use in a
structural situation such as her
foundation. She should use a
brick that is rated for severe
weathering.
I then s hared w ith K aren that
she should look at t he entire list
of f ree Technical Notes PDFs
offered by the B IA. They c ontain a
wealth of information about h owabout foundation types, you
might come to the c onclusion
there are just two ways t o build a
foundation.
But travel to other parts of the
United States or the w orld, and
you’ll quickly discover that there
are quite a f ew o ther ways t o build
foundations that l ast generations.
Each time I go into town to get
groceries, I pass at l east five o ld
houses that have stacked stone
foundations with no mortar
between t he stones. T he b uilder
just filled the g aps between
stones with smaller stones. Most
of these houses were built in t he
mid-1800s, a nd t hey look to me as
good as t he day they w ere built.
In A shland, N.H., the r estored
railroad train station, b uilt
around the 1860s, sits on top of a
distinctive b rick foundation. The
foundation d ates from 1891, w hen
the station was m oved a bout
100 feet.
The train depot foundation is
in fantastic shape t o this day with
no signs whatsoever o f structural
cracks or failure. It could use a
little tuckpointing, but t hat is a
minor repair. Karen’s d ream is
going to come true.A few weeks ago, a
visitor to my
AsktheBuilder s ite
wanted to know
about brick
foundations.
Karen has an ambitious d esireto build a small 9 00-square-foot
house by herself. She is well aware
of her physical limitations and
asked m e if it was p ossible for h er
to construct t he foundation using
standard brick. S he had tried to
lift an 8-by 8 -by-16-inch concrete
block and discovered those were
too heavy. S he feels she c ould
handle brick. Karen a sked me
what she needs to know to build a
strong brick f oundation.
From t ime to time, y ou’ll hear
me say, “ You don’t k now what y ou
don’t k now.” When you apply this
to your l ife experience about a ll
things b uilding, it’s e asy to fall
into a trap where you feel there
are just one o r two ways t o do
something.
Ta ke h ouse foundations, for
example. You may live in a part of
the country where the b uilding
contractors u se concrete or
precast concrete block. If you
don’t t ravel at a ll or do research
DIY
How to build a house’s brick foundation that’ll last generations
Ask the
Builder
TIM CARTER
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