Fixing a brick pier

[Martin Pentreath]

Hi,

In my front garden I have a brick wall ten courses high. At one end there is a little 'pier' built on top which is just three courses high and 9 inches (ie one brick's length) square. The pier has broken away, presumably because of someone leaning against it. It's broken very cleanly(with the mortar sticking to bottom).

Any advice on the best way to fix it back together? Is there some sort of resin-type substance I could glue it with?

I'm thinking that this is always likely to be a weak spot, and where the pier is just invites people to lean on it. Maybe I should reinforce it with some sort of steel rod? I could drill down into the wall and up into the pier and insert a rod, again with some sort of resin. I've actually got some heli bars and the resin lying about.

?id=26578&ts=55361What do you think?

Martin

[Phil L]

This would work but you'll have to go about 100mm into both, IE the rod should be about 200mm to be of any use. And you'll have to be carefull when drilling into the upper part or it might break up.

[meow2222]

and get the 2 holes either perfectly parallel or oversize :)

Re resin repair, this is a standard wall repair method, and either epoxy or the cheaper stuff will work. A fresh mortar joint would also work.

If your reinforcement only goes a small way into the full wall, it'll just snap the wall instead of the pier, or snap the pier higher up. I assume the OP means run a bar full length from top of pier down into the wall. Should be doable with an sds drill, but I suspect it may be less work to just glue the pier back and risk gluing it again in 10 years. Only if its a real problem would I want to either drill or rebuild the pier to accomodate bar. Theres also the fact that bar can rust and break the wall/pier up.

NT

[Martin Pentreath]

Thanks for the advice, maybe the steel rod would be overkill then. Can anyone point me in the direction of the appropriate resin for just gluing the thing back together?

[meow2222]

toolstation, screwfix and so on do 310ml cartridges. Any cartridge resin will do it. Epoxy is the best quality and is preferred for structural work. Using the special nozzles is a must.

NT