Rebuilding a Brick Arch

[bear pickles]

I am in the middle of rebuilding a 35-year-old brick arch that was failing. The old caulk repairs had broken and the arch had dropped by over an inch.

When I started taking it apart, I found that it only had two wall ties up high in the gable. They were just put in with one-inch roofing nails and I could pull them out by hand. There was no other reinforcement or flashing. Luckily, the 30 lbs felt base and the sheathing were still in good shape. The walls on the sides of the arch also look like they did not move. The gable framing was flimsy, so we reframed it to get better support. All the original bricks were saved and cleaned and I plan to reuse them all.

What kind of flashing or reinforcement should I use to make sure this does not happen again?

 

[Mary_Goodwin]

You did the right thing reframing because the flimsy gable was half the problem. When you rebuild, run a stainless steel angle iron lintel under the brick course for support... it'll carry the load instead of relying just on mortar and ties. Add flashing above it with weep holes so water has somewhere to go. That combo will outlast caulk patches by decades.

 

[Fort Kilmaurs]

Good job saving the bricks and fixing the framing. To keep water out, I agree with the comment above, use metal flashing with small holes above the support so water can drain. Are you using a steel bar under the arch or building it with just bricks? That changes how you need to support it.

 

[bear pickles]

I am just using bricks and I also made sure that there is a proper keystone and tight joints to distribute the load evenly. Thanks! I was just making sure that it was the right thing to do.

I'm considering using a masonry cream to protect the bricks. Would that actually help and what brand can you recommend?

 

[Alan]

Interesting project. Have you complete dit?