Rain filtering trough the walls

Submitted by jgarcias.cr on Tue, 12/06/2018 - 11:09

Good morning dear Geoffrey!

You know what? you were right about the bricks I bought. The rain made its way through the wall and the plaster inside the house revealed it. Well, the walls outside did not have any treatment as yet to make them waterproof so it was something I expected to happen.
We started to apply acrylic silicon to the joints and then the primer paint to all the exterior walls. This solved the problem but I was wondering, if these bricks had the cavities so that they were tangent to each other as you pointed out before, the grout would eventually fill those cavities and prevent rain to filter inside the house?
I wonder this because, even in a fired brick house, another friend had problems with the rain going inside through the cement joints. He applied some kind of water repellent enamel to solve the problem.
Also, the ICEB joints are not precisely closed. The water can always go in between the bricks and saturate the grout after some time.
How did you solve this for your ICEB?

Blessings and best wishes,

Joaquin.

Submitted by geoffrey on Tue, 12/06/2018 - 12:07

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As we can see from the photos of the top and bottom of your blocks, the interlocking dowels and cavities do not extend to and touch the grouting holes. This allows rain ro flow through a  wall. Your solution of caulking the joints is a fine one. Even caulking with cement /soil will work. As you point out, even mortared brick or concrete block walls will show weepage on the inside of the walls at the mortar joints.  This is due to the capillary and absrpti e properties of the mortar used.

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