# What's Happening Here?



## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

House is 10 years old. First time we've seen this. Does not happen anywhere on the house - just the retaining walls, light posts and mail box.


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## Dan_Watson (Mar 1, 2008)

Efflorescence?

Is there soil behind the wall? Is that the only place with brick on top like that?


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

The house has a roof that prevents the penetration of water into the center of the wall, the other structures do not. They are probably not flashed or sealed, as they should be either.


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## Windycity (Oct 3, 2015)

happening to all of the unprotected masonry so its my guess water/moisture is causing the salts to come out of the masonry commonly known as Efflorescence

There is a product that you can apply to it to "speed" up the process and get rid of the white staining


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

Dan_Watson said:


> Efflorescence?
> 
> Is there soil behind the wall? Is that the only place with brick on top like that?


Thanks Dan :thumbsup: There is soil behind the wall, but not to that height. That does not explain the light posts and mailbox (unless they filled them with some extra soil before capping them). Everyplace with a brick cap like you see is doing this.


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

Tscarborough said:


> The house has a roof that prevents the penetration of water into the center of the wall, the other structures do not. They are probably not flashed or sealed, as they should be either.


Thanks Tscarborough :thumbsup: Short of tearing the walls down (there’s a lot of them) is there something we can do to fix the appearance – short term solution?

I’ll tell the homeowner that the solution came from a Monkey Scratching Cat Herder. That always instills confidence. 


Just kidding – I know who you are.


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

Windycity said:


> happening to all of the unprotected masonry so its my guess water/moisture is causing the salts to come out of the masonry commonly known as Efflorescence
> 
> There is a product that you can apply to it to "speed" up the process and get rid of the white staining


Do you know the name of the product?


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## NJ Brickie (Jan 31, 2009)

Tear off the brick caps. Properly flash the walls, including weep holes, overhang the brick, and slight pitch to shed water.


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

As a regular on this site wisely mentioned several times "any joints the birds look straight down on are better served with caulk than mortar. You cannot have efflorescence without moisture ".


I have posted this before,for your benefit,here it is again.



http://www.maconline.org/tech/design/masonrycapsandsills/masonrycapsandsills.html


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## NJ Brickie (Jan 31, 2009)

While I agree that many times caulk should be used instead of mortar. I think a tight, shallow (or flat) mortar joint would be ok in this situation. Either one will need maintenance in the future.


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## JBM (Mar 31, 2011)

If the walls with brick caps are holding back dirt, then its simply wicking in the wall. Remove dirt, tar, pipe, crushed stone, siloxaine pd on top of wall.


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

NJ Brickie said:


> While I agree that many times caulk should be used instead of mortar. I think a tight, shallow (or flat) mortar joint would be ok in this situation. Either one will need maintenance in the future.





As you previously mentioned ,flashing would play a crucial part to help out a bunch.:thumbsup:


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

The easiest solution is seldom the best, but if the mortar on the caps is intact:

Drill weeps into the joints just above ground level all around.
Use best practices to remove the efflorescence.
Use best practices to seal the masonry with a penetrating sealer.

(That is the easiest solution)

The efflorescence looks to be a lime run type, if it is soft and powdery, use something like 101 lime solvent, if it is hard you may need to test several different ones, I would start with the White Scum Remover.

Note that you will be adding a lot of water to the wall to remove the stains, so make sure the wall is thoroughly dry before sealing it, or you will see the problem come back even worse down the road.

Note also that sealers will not seal cracks in the mortar, that is why horizontal cap mortar joints work best as soft joints.


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

Tscarborough said:


> The easiest solution is seldom the best, but if the mortar on the caps is intact:
> 
> Drill weeps into the joints just above ground level all around.
> Use best practices to remove the efflorescence.
> ...


The efflorescence is soft and powdery. We’ll consider the “easiest solution” because at this point in time the homeowners would be very reluctant to spend a ton of money on a cosmetic issue.


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## brickhook (May 8, 2012)

It should go away when the weather gets warmer. But the problem will still exists and should be addressed the way others before me mentioned.


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## Tscarborough (Feb 25, 2006)

That does not make sense to me. The entire group of structures you are talking about are "cosmetic".


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

DaVinciRemodel said:


> The efflorescence is soft and powdery. We’ll consider the “easiest solution” because at this point in time the homeowners would be very reluctant to spend a ton of money on a cosmetic issue.





Wait a second,if they don't spend a bunch of money to correct the problem,the old saying will not continue to ring true. That saying being "there is never enough money to do it right,but always enough money to do it twice.

Tell the owners they have to spend the money to keep the saying alive.:laughing:


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

Maybe I misunderstood. Is the “lime run type” of soft powdery efflorescence on the driveway light posts and mailbox not cosmetic?


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## Calidecks (Nov 19, 2011)

My sprinklers are constantly hitting my block fence. The nieghbor on the other side keeps bitching that his side is turning white like that. The reason we know it's sprinklers, and I assume hard water, is it all started happening after I pulled all the ivy off the wall. The whole reason I'm growing it back. Mind you it's only his side, mine stays wet and continuously gets "sprinklered". So I think it's hard water.


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## MarkJames (Nov 25, 2012)

If I may side track:

How would one prevent that from happening on walkways and steps? I've seen two that had flagstone and /or brick applied in the last year, over concrete, and many joints are doing the same.


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