Brick and Stone Veneer

[Aaron Miller]

Stone veneer walls abutted against brick veneer walls are subject to mortar cracking and separation due to dissimilar materials and/or typical thermal movement. The Brick Manufacturers Association in Technical Note 18, Volume Changes - Analysis and Effects of Movement on Brick Construction, and Technical Note 18A, Accommodating Expansion of Brickwork seems to recommend the use of expansion joints at the junctures between brick and stone veneer.

Does anyone have first-hand experience of this practice in their area?

[Jim Luttrall]

Not me, but you already knew that.
I would dearly love to see that practice adopted here... not likely but I can dream!
I would be a pretty happy man if I just saw proper expansion joints in brick veneer.

[Gunnar Alquist]

AM,

Around here, we don't see nothin'! No weep holes, sometimes the foundation is not designed to accommodate brick veneer and the brick is on the soil.

[Jerry Peck]

Stone veneer walls abutted against brick veneer walls are subject to mortar cracking and separation due to dissimilar materials and/or typical thermal movement. The Brick Manufacturers Association in Technical Note 18, Volume Changes - Analysis and Effects of Movement on Brick Construction, and Technical Note 18A, Accommodating Expansion of Brickwork recommends the use of expansion joints at the junctures between brick and stone veneer.

Does anyone have first-hand experience of this practice in their area?

"recommends the use of expansion joints at the junctures between brick and stone veneer"

It does? I must have missed that in there.

Tech Note 18A does recommend bond break between brick veneer and bands of concrete masonry or cast stone. It also recommends recommends controls joints in the bands of that concrete masonry or cast stone. I doubt you would see a bond break if installed correctly.

I went back and looked, but I did not see where it calls for expansion joints between those materials.

It is always a good idea to install vertical expansion joints between brick and a different material as the brick will keep expanding for quite some time as it takes on moisture, brick will also expand and contract due to temperature changes, but the overall movement of brick over time is to expand.

[Steven Turetsky]

Aaron, I'm not sure what you are looking for. I see instance where it is done wrong for transitions between different materials, including other anomalies as others mentioned (weep holes, joints, etc). I see so many flashing problems. Through wall flashing is also a weakness... but that is not what you mentioned.

[Jim Robinson]

Did anyone read the nice article in JLC about brick veneer trouble shooting? It was pretty detailed. I'm sure that I've never once seen a house in my area that had any flashing done the way it was supposed to be done, according to the article. There isn't a lot of brick veneer done here, and apparently none of it done correctly.

[Aaron Miller]

Yes, I guess I was reading a lot into the BIA notes . . .

In my area they are fond of mixing veneer claddings, i.e. combining brick, stone, cast stone, stucco, etc. The mortar joints between these dissimilar claddings fail on a regular basis, usually within the first year. Isolation joints or bond breaks would cure the problem, but I can't find common sense codified anywhere:D . In Texas you can't just have that sort of reasonable conversation with a builder. You have to rub their nose in the code until the ink comes off the pages. And then they look at the blank page and say, "where does it say that?"

[John Dirks Jr]

Did anyone read the nice article in JLC about brick veneer trouble shooting? It was pretty detailed. I'm sure that I've never once seen a house in my area that had any flashing done the way it was supposed to be done, according to the article. There isn't a lot of brick veneer done here, and apparently none of it done correctly.

Yes, I read that article too. I write up brick veneer issues all the time. I've never seen anything like the detail in the article used in actual practice. It was a good atrticle.