It’s important to avoid home management practices that lead to extra water absorption
The deteriorating brick here didn’t meet Canadian standards for weather resistance and water absorption. Canada has some of the toughest standards for bricks made to withstand all the freeze-thaw cycles we get each winter. (STEVE MAXWELL)
There’s a reason brick is the oldest building material on the planet. Nothing else combines the enduring good looks, classiness and efficiency of home construction like brick does.
Some of the most beautiful houses in the country with the highest resale values are made of brick. The thing is, our Canadian climate also presents special challenges that affect how exterior brick is made in this country and how you care for brick that’s already part of your home. And it all comes down to one peculiar property of water.
Water is one of the few substances that expands when it freezes. Like most other things in the world, water shrinks as it cools. But when that cooling progresses enough to make water freeze, it quickly expands by a whopping nine per cent. This is why ice always floats, but expansion is also why Canadian brick makers are particularly diligent about one characteristic of brick.
If a brick absorbs too much water in the months leading up to winter, that water will expand from the inside out, causing flakes of brick to pop off from internal pressure. This process is called spalling, and though it never happens all at once, spalling can result in considerable damage over the years. But as troublesome as it can be, spalling can be avoided entirely.
Canada has some of the most extreme freeze-thaw cycles in the world. Depending on where you live there could be dozens of weather events each winter where water moves from liquid to solid and back again. This is why Canadian brick manufacturers constantly test bricks to ensure they withstand the test of time.
The Clay Brick Association of Canada publishes minimum durability standards for what’s officially called “exterior grade” brick. This is based on testing that comes at the matter from several different angles.
First, brick samples are measured to see how much cold water is absorbed over a 24-hour period. Water absorption rates are also measured after five hours of boiling the brick. As a final test, loss of brick mass from the soaked and boiled bricks is measured after 50 freeze-thaw testing cycles in the lab. If bricks can pass these tests, they’re awarded the CSA Standard A82-06 and they’ll last for centuries, even in the Great White North. Any reputable builder understands the need for exterior bricks to be made specifically for Canadian weather, but it never hurts to know and check this for yourself.
It’s even more important to avoid home management practises that lead to extra water absorption. This is where you come in.
While the ability to resist absorbing water is key to long brick life in Canada, so is the ability to allow moisture to dry from bricks. No matter how impervious bricks are, small amounts of moisture will get below the surface. If it’s allowed to dry naturally, there’s no problem, but paint can change this.
Never paint exterior brick, no matter how cool you think it’ll look. Paint will almost certainly prevent drying to the point where spalling will occur in otherwise durable brick. Gardening and landscaping practices around your house can affect brick, too.
Any home built to code will have brick elevated above the level of the soil to prevent it getting splashed by rainwater. The danger comes in when you add soil to a garden or build up the ground to suit a pathway or driveway so the brick is less than 30 cm above the earth. The additional splashing this causes leads to extra moisture that could lead to spalling. Same goes for failure to keep water away from exterior brick walls with eavestroughs.
Canadian brick is some of the best in the world because our climate demands quality. Treat brick right and it’s one of the few exterior wall treatments that’ll last nearly forever.
Source Thecronicleherald
The deteriorating brick here didn’t meet Canadian standards for weather resistance and water absorption. Canada has some of the toughest standards for bricks made to withstand all the freeze-thaw cycles we get each winter. (STEVE MAXWELL)
There’s a reason brick is the oldest building material on the planet. Nothing else combines the enduring good looks, classiness and efficiency of home construction like brick does.
Some of the most beautiful houses in the country with the highest resale values are made of brick. The thing is, our Canadian climate also presents special challenges that affect how exterior brick is made in this country and how you care for brick that’s already part of your home. And it all comes down to one peculiar property of water.
Water is one of the few substances that expands when it freezes. Like most other things in the world, water shrinks as it cools. But when that cooling progresses enough to make water freeze, it quickly expands by a whopping nine per cent. This is why ice always floats, but expansion is also why Canadian brick makers are particularly diligent about one characteristic of brick.
If a brick absorbs too much water in the months leading up to winter, that water will expand from the inside out, causing flakes of brick to pop off from internal pressure. This process is called spalling, and though it never happens all at once, spalling can result in considerable damage over the years. But as troublesome as it can be, spalling can be avoided entirely.
Canada has some of the most extreme freeze-thaw cycles in the world. Depending on where you live there could be dozens of weather events each winter where water moves from liquid to solid and back again. This is why Canadian brick manufacturers constantly test bricks to ensure they withstand the test of time.The Clay Brick Association of Canada publishes minimum durability standards for what’s officially called “exterior grade” brick. This is based on testing that comes at the matter from several different angles.
First, brick samples are measured to see how much cold water is absorbed over a 24-hour period. Water absorption rates are also measured after five hours of boiling the brick. As a final test, loss of brick mass from the soaked and boiled bricks is measured after 50 freeze-thaw testing cycles in the lab. If bricks can pass these tests, they’re awarded the CSA Standard A82-06 and they’ll last for centuries, even in the Great White North. Any reputable builder understands the need for exterior bricks to be made specifically for Canadian weather, but it never hurts to know and check this for yourself.
It’s even more important to avoid home management practises that lead to extra water absorption. This is where you come in.
While the ability to resist absorbing water is key to long brick life in Canada, so is the ability to allow moisture to dry from bricks. No matter how impervious bricks are, small amounts of moisture will get below the surface. If it’s allowed to dry naturally, there’s no problem, but paint can change this.
Never paint exterior brick, no matter how cool you think it’ll look. Paint will almost certainly prevent drying to the point where spalling will occur in otherwise durable brick. Gardening and landscaping practices around your house can affect brick, too.
Any home built to code will have brick elevated above the level of the soil to prevent it getting splashed by rainwater. The danger comes in when you add soil to a garden or build up the ground to suit a pathway or driveway so the brick is less than 30 cm above the earth. The additional splashing this causes leads to extra moisture that could lead to spalling. Same goes for failure to keep water away from exterior brick walls with eavestroughs.
Canadian brick is some of the best in the world because our climate demands quality. Treat brick right and it’s one of the few exterior wall treatments that’ll last nearly forever.
Source Thecronicleherald
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