New brick design center

I have the pleasure of bringing you an inside shot of our new Brick Design Center in Williamsburg. This is the state of the art design center for choosing brick and stone for your home. We have work stations to lay products out along with your home plans to help the home owner to see what their new home design will look like. I can not think of a better place to sip a fresh cup of coffee and remove the stress of choosing exteriors for your home.

Outdoor Fireplaces, FireRock

This product is probably the best thing in the masonry world since sliced bread in the kitchen. This is a full masonry fireplace that can be used internal and external. This fireplace can be assembled in one day by two people. Assuming footer has already been poured. FireRock is the manufacture of this product. I assembled this fireplace in our brick gardens at our Williamsburg shop. I left sections of the fireplace uncovered so you can see the fireplace. Also, I left a cut away in the fire box to show how the fire brick line the box. If you use this product in doors, you would add a damper, for outdoors leave the damper out. You can set the fireplace up for gas use as well. The stack on top can be extended up to a height needed to clear a roof line. The best thing about this product is the time needed to assemble and the cost. For a typical brick and block fireplace the cost will be around $15,000 to $30,000 and higher. You will need around 8,000 to 15,000 brick and flue liners and filler brick. It will take around 1 week to assemble. Oh yah, make sure the mason has experience in building the fireplace. I had a customer who designed a 2 sided fireplace in the middle of his home, the mason did not design the smoke chamber correctly. The fireplace would not draw and the smoke filled the home with smoke. This is not a problem to have. In order to correct the problem, they will have to tear the chimney down to the smoke chamber and redesign and then rebuild the chimney.

Brick Complaints

On my travels today I passed this building. Do you notice the off color between the windows? If you don't, stay out of the brick business. Just kidding. Everytime I have encountered a brick complaint like this job, I spend half the time convincing the customer that nothing is wrong with the brick, the problem is with the mortar. This is a great example showing this situation. Mortar accounts for roughly 18% of the color your brain receives from the building. Mortar colors change from several reasons. One reason could be the quality of the mortar. A couple of other reasons could stem from the manufacturing process, wrong bags, changed the process, different person mixing the batches..... Things on the job that could change mortar color are, Initial rate of absorption (IRA) of the brick, change of people who mix the mortar on job site, strike mortar too soon, strike mortar too late. These factors could change the color of the mortar drastically. There are ways to tell which of these cardinal sins have been violated.

Brick Quoins

The accents you see on the corners of the home are called "quoins." These are raised quoins, some quoins are flush with the wall and the joints are raked out. This will give a depth perception. Be careful when raking the joints, this could be a possible water leak. Because you are removing mortar from the joint. One way to avoid this problem is to use solid brick for the quoins. Keep in mind when doing quoins, you can use the same color of brick and still get an accent. Or you can use another color, like this home, to help with the accent. Either way, this adds character to a home. Around the windows is called a single batt. Some homes you will see a double batt around the windows. You could rake the joints a little to add to the accent, and you could use a different color of brick and add to the accent. These are simple things that do not call for special shaped brick and still give added value for your home. When I see items like this on a home, it tells me the homeowner and or the builder took time to think about this detail. Good job Wilmik Homes.

Efflorescence

Here is another example of efflorescence, but on split face block. This building is about 2 years old. I would be checking the top edge of the roof. It does not look like a lot of water, but it will not get better.

Brick stains, efflorescence stians

The white stuff you see is efflorescence. You will see this on new construction typically. In a simple term, this is soluble salts. Water is getting behind the structure and is weeping out through the mortar and the water evaporates from the surface and a layer of salt is left behind. This is a new structure and I would not be too concerned, "yet." However, if this continues, the efflorescence can be your friend. What this tells me is that water is entering behind the wall and could lead to bigger problems if it is not addressed. See how the white is on the mortar joints, this means the efflorescence is coming from the mortar. If the white was on the center of the brick, the efflorescence would be from the brick. Another place you will efflorescence is on chimneys. If it is an older home you need to check the top of the chimney for water leaks. A good quick fix is to cap the top of the chimney with metal flashing or cap. Some people think to blob mortar on top to seal the top of the chimney, the mortar will crack after a time and the leaks will continue.

Stains on brick

Here is the front entrance of of home with an awful stain on the brick. Most people have know what the stain is, but for those who don't, it is an iron stain. This is caused by the sprinkler system. In our area most people use shallow wells for irrigation. This adds to the problem with the increased iron from the ground. Most people do not filter or treat ground water for irrigation, and why should they? The first line of fix is to make sure that sprinklers are not hitting brick work or any other item that you do not want iron stains on. To remove this iron stain one should check with your local brick person and ask for brick cleaners to remove stain. If this is not an option try u

sing CLR, this is Calcium Lime Rust remover. This is usually in local hardware stores or Lowe's or Home Depot. If you go this route, treat a small area to make sure the result is desired. Keep those sprinklers off the brick!!!!

I forgot to add, " DO NOT USE A PRESSURE WASHER!!!!"

Remember the previous post, the color layer is a very thin layer of color, the pressure washer will wash the color off the face of the brick. Then the brick would be a wire cut red. Blah!!!