On the concrete outside a cavity bay window, 3 brick mortar perpendiculars have what appears to be distinct mortar powder mounds.
I can only think these are formed by insects - ants (not seen any)?
First one...
yellow wasps that parasitise them too, by following them into the hole and laying their own eggs in the developing grubs.
Don't think there was any mortar in there - insects have just cleared out the dirt which has washed/blown in.
Mortar was probably washed out by splashback from the hard concrete surface. The missing mortar should be replaced. Ideally, you should have a ground surface up to the wall which won't splash water up the brickwork such as a gutter filled with stones (lookup a french drain) or grass. Unless the bricks are low absorancy (engineering bricks), they will also be damaged by splashback in the long run.
In article , Andrew Gabriel scribeth thus
Perhaps if you left them a small bag of readymix mortar and some incentive;)..
Looks to me like porous lime mortar which has been washed out. Perhaps render the bottom few feet of the wall with a waterproof mix.
[g]
of the debris chris
So a bee... !
I was surprised at the size of the debris too.
The area is sheltered by the eaves. The water ingress is from a window cill lifting up from the mortar of the bay window wall to leave an 18mm air gap. There are 3 telephone lines nailed to the underside of the cill by various kitchen fitters who have hammered the cill upwards. The telephone cables hide the gap until you get right up to it.
Moving some of the dirt it re-appears without rain so there is indeed a little inhabitant.
Will move the now defunct telephone cables and redo the window sub- cill, then point after he has cleared off.
Typo: cable fitters.
replying to js.b1, jdc wrote: I have a similar problem, but the debris pile is below a single vertical board of 2x4 wood trim mounted on a stucco wall and is composed of stucco "sand," not sawdust termite frass. I haven't seen any masonry bees, but maybe I'm not keeping close enough watch. Any other ideas?
What? its the ants mate. Of course being from stupid shower club its probably forum 15 years ago. Brian
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.