FAQ's about Brick Repair

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Why does my brick and mortar crack?

In Texas we have soils that are constantly changing due to the "Atterberg Limits."

The Atterberg limits are a basic measure of the critical water contents of a fine-grained soil, such as its shrinkage limit, plastic limit, and liquid limit. As a dry, clayey soil takes on increasing amounts of water, it undergoes dramatic and distinct changes in behavior and consistency. Depending on the water content of the soil, it may appear in four states: solid, semi-solid, plastic and liquid. In each state, the consistency and behavior of a soil is different and consequently so are its engineering properties. Thus, the boundary between each state can be defined based on a change in the soil's behavior. The Atterberg limits can be used to distinguish between silt and clay, and it can distinguish between different types of silts and clays. These limits were created by Albert Atterberg, a Swedish chemist. They were later refined by Arthur Casagrande. These distinctions in soil are used in assessing the soils that are to have structures built on. Soils when wet retain water and some expand in volume. The amount of expansion is related to the ability of the soil to take in water and its structural make-up (the type of atoms present). These tests are mainly used on clayey or silty soils since these are the soils that expand and shrink due to moisture content. Clays and silts react with the water and thus change sizes and have varying shear strengths. Thus these tests are used widely in the preliminary stages of designing any structure to ensure that the soil will have the correct amount of shear strength and not too much change in volume as it expands and shrinks with different moisture contents. As a hard, rigid solid in the dry state, soil becomes a crumbly (friable) semisolid when a certain moisture content, termed the shrinkage limit, is reached. If it is an expansive soil, this soil will also begin to swell in volume as this moisture content is exceeded. Increasing the water content beyond the soil's plastic limit will transform it into a malleable, plastic mass, which causes additional swelling. The soil will remain in this plastic state until its liquid limit is exceeded, which causes it to transform into a viscous liquid that flows when jarred. Soil mechanics is a specialty within the field of civil engineering. Soil mechanics deals with soil response to physical stress. The stress may be weight of a building, vehicle traffic, or various other forces. Various classification systems have been devised to evaluate soil suitability for engineering purposes. Those systems are complex and will be only briefly described here. Soil consistency refers to the soil's response to stress. Stress is pressure applied to the soil. In physics, pressure is force per area. The force applied to soil is normally weight. The response to stress is called strain. Engineers often plot strain as a function of stress to determine the point at which a material fails, called the yield point. Engineers are interested in both the deformability and firmness of a soil. A system called Atterberg Limits is used to describe the shrinkage limit, plastic limit, and liquid limit of a soil. As water is added to a dry soil, the soil changes from solid to semi-solid to plastic to liquid. The moisture content in the soil at the threshold between semi-solid and plastic is called the plastic limit. The moisture content in the soil at the threshold between plastic and liquid is called the liquid limit. Liquid limit is determined by forming a groove in a dish of soil and impacting the dish until the groove closes. The test is done using the apparatus in Figure 3-15 of the textbook, following the ASTM procedure D-4318. The plastic limit is determined by rolling a thread of soil on a glass plate until the 1/8-inch-diameter thread begins to crumble. This technique is also explained in ASTM procedure D-4318. A large liquid limit indicates high compressibility and high shrink swell tendencies. Subtracting the plastic limit from the liquid limit yields the plasticity index. A large plasticity index

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What is Cracked Mortar Repair?

Cracked Mortar Repair is the process of removing any damaged or cracked mortar from your existing masonry wall. Once all loose parts of the damaged mortar has been removed, we replace or repair it using our proprietary mortar matching system. 

The Champion Mortar Repair system is so accurate that finding our repairs are virtually impossible.

 

What is Brick Repair?

Brick Repair is firstly, the removal of the existing brick face. We do this because removal of the entire brick would in some circumstances compromise the integrity of the existing masonry brick wall. And secondly we replace the brick face using an epoxy bond. The new brick face is custom matched to your existing masonry brick wall, and as with the cracked mortar repair, we guarantee the repair to unnoticeable.

 

What is jointing or tuckpointing?

Jointing mortar in a masonry brick wall is basically the art of compressing the joint using a S-Jointer or other mortar joint compressing tools. This is done to prevent moisture from getting into the mortar joints. Depending on the various brand of mortar joint we can match any existing mortar joint during or repair.

Tuckpointing on the other hand is the art of pointing cracked brick walls, bee holes, decayed mortar, etc. After removing the decay or damaged area's of mortar from your brick wall to be repaired we typically custom match your mortar with our new mortar modified with a urethane to help increase the adhesion. This process is known as the Champion Mortar Matching System.

 

What is the Champion Mortar Matching system?

The Champion System of custom mortar matching and brick repair is proprietary to the Champion chain of offices located throughout Texas. Mortar matching is literally an art that many masonry contractor are not comfortable with.

Champion Brick Repair has perfected this art and backs it up with the only Lifetime Warranty in the industry. 

Here is how it works. We first examine the existing mortar on the home or brick structure for three points of control. 

1. Shade 1-16 this gives the Champion masonry tech a variation of 16 shades which make up the color of masonry mortar joints.

2. Sand Color and Texture by knowing the color and texture of the sand used to create the mortar joint when laying the original brick wall, we can recreate the exact color and texture making our repair invisible and seamless.

3. Dye Color we can custom blend any mortar shade with various dye's to generate an exact match to your existing brick mortar.  Anything from, Red to Black and all colors in between. We typically have 8 shades per color in our dye range.

How does your Lifetime Warranty work?

Our lifetime warranty is our guarantee that any repairs preformed by Champion Brick Repair will match as long as the house is standing.

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CHAMPION BRICK REPAIR