Waxing bricks.

David Paste snipped-for-privacy@gmail.invalid wrote

You wouldnt normally get water coming thru normal bricks or mortar.

Much more likely to be coming thru cracks or failed mortar jonts.

Not sold on that idea. Water permeating through would be very very slow. And blocking damp from permeating out is liable to cause brick spalling/failure. Most likely the cause is something else.

I can give an example of that.

Back home, we had a rather tall chimney that rose up the side of the house.

And water used to come into the basement.

Pretty well everyone in the house, was convinced the water came in the opening at the top of the chimney. We fitted a cap.

Next, we were sure it was water coming through the brick. And we applied some sort of material in a can, to the chimney. (Some sort of water-proofer.) No change in symptoms.

This went on for years.

Then one day, I can't remember the reason, but there was some digging going on around the foundation of the chimney. The chimney had a poured foundation, then the brick was built on top of it.

When digging down, about two feet, some workman had placed a scrap of lumber into the form. The stick ran crossways, and the stick was embedded in the poured base. When the stick rotted out, that became an opening for water to enter.

What was happening then, is water pooled around the base of the chimney at grade (not a lot of water by the way, you'd never see a puddle), then needed to drain away. And it found that hole in the chimney base and followed it. Once the hole was plugged... no more water ingress. No more crazy theories about the chimney needing a cap and so on. What a relief.

Paul

You can buy some sort of liquid to paint on render or blockwork to make it waterproof.

Not sure whether its wax or not

Google Aquaseal Masonry Sealer

I'd be concerned about how permeable this/any brick coating is.

That said, I've a brick wall that seems to get unduly wet and takes a while to dry out as it's in permanent shade. There's some damp around the same area inside - so something needs to be done . . .

I used something like this on render on the north side of the house where water was staying and frost spalling the paint. It has worked so far.

It essentially isn't permeable at all.

AND it took paint well

so the water wasn't running in by soaking through the brick.

No, it was a hole in the foundation supporting the chimney. Once the hole in the foundation was plugged, there were no more issues. You could have rain storm against the chimney brick, and nothing came in.

You just don't suspect stuff like that, thinking that a responsible person would inspect the foundation after the form was removed, and before putting topsoil into the area around the foundation.

Paul

Indeed. But in the building game there is no shortage of head shaking at what some get up to. For the op, I've never seen water run in through bricks, fwiw. Methinks the wrong tree is being upbarked, and that applying wax is only likely to cause added problems.