Can fungus weaken bricks? The walls of my 1930s house show what appears to be fungus, although only up to damp course level. This is a very light, light grey in colour and irregular. The walls have never been covered, with the exception of a small south-facing section which has been obscured by a large fuel bunker, now removed, for about 30 years. Here the growth is also irregular but thick and white.
Wire brushing this leads to dust which falls, rather than spores which float away. There are also numerous hard, tiny nodules which turn into what looks like chalk when chipped off. Assuming all this is in fact fungus, can it be treated? I thought of brushing with Jeyes Fluid.
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I would imagine it's more likely to be minerals leeching out of the bricks by the flow of moisture, aka efflorescence.
Google some pics and see if it looks similar.
www.masonryinstitute.org/pdf/612.pdf
edit: put different link in - the wiki one is much more scary ;-)
Last edited by: Lygonos on Sun 28 Sep 14 at 15:03
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Had some quite bad dry rot in part of our old gaff in the Grove. Dry rot isn't essentially dry, it thrives on a bit of damp. Anyway to my surprise the thing was a huge plant, with a big branch or root that looked as if it was growing by the minute.
A lot of the surrounding brickwork was so rotten that you could just scoop it out in lumps with your fingers. Never seen anything like it.
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>> A lot of the surrounding brickwork was so rotten that you could just scoop it out in lumps with your fingers. Never seen anything like it.
The whole area of outside wall had to be chiselled back to sound brick, with wood and other - lead and zinc - elements also renewed and plentiful applications of highly toxic anti-fungals.
Cost a pretty penny but what can you do? The place had been occupied by army deserters during and after the war*, and squatted before we bought it. It had nice high ceilinged ground and first floors, but the upper floors needed work some of which I did if only to render the place more habitable. It had an ugly late Victorian flat front made worse by the frightful yellow paint job, with the mortar picked out in black, that the or a previous owner had imposed on everyone. I still miss it as resident unpaid handyman for 36 years. Of course this place is just as bad.
*One of the first floor french windows, onto a very narrow precarious balcony, was made of very thick plate glass pocked with many chips in a pattern suggesting that the deserters had mounted a dartboard there.
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Lygo's suggestion is sound. You can reassure yourself by sniffing it - (damp) fungi usually smell of …….fungi!
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It looks similar but is less dense and mostly light grey/green in colour. However the obscured section is dense and white. The brickwork all seems sound.
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The colour depends on the minerals being leeched out and crystallised.
Would explain why it doesn't transcend the dampcourse as no moisture = no efflorescence.
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I have been cleaning a conservative roof it is taken me a while.Hasn't been cleaned for a few years.I have used a mixture of Jeyes fluid and hot water.Also a stiff brush.I am getting there it looks a lot cleaner now.Sorry off topic.>;)
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>> I have been cleaning a conservative roof
Conservatory?
As opposed to a coalition roof, which is where you keep coal, and carry on.
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I suspect that you speak better Dutch than CP Dutchie, the rest of us knew exactly what you meant.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Thu 2 Oct 14 at 18:42
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Fungus and brickwork - Lygonos
