Front layer of my house bricks is falling off

[guiltynetter]

I'll try and attach a pic and just wondered if anybody had this problem, and whether I needed to do anything about it. There's around 6 bricks like this all around the house. Thank you!

We had this!

It's because water has got inside the bricks and mortar and when it freezes it expands and breaks the bricks.

We got our house repointed and the damaged bricks taken out and replaced. It's been fine ever since.

It's called spalling.
I know it well!

They do need attention as they will absorb water once the face has sheared off.

Yes definitely spalling. Freeze-thaw action. The brick was probably already defective with a crack, water gets in and you know, water expands when frozen. The face then falls off like this during the thaw. Looke like you will also need repointing looking at joints around the spalled brick.

Also being quite low down the wall, ensure that they don't use frogged(with dip filled with mortar) bricks to replace the defective ones. In my line of work these are notorious for cracking and starting off the soalling process all over again.

Where is the DPC in relation to these bricks?

Do the gutters drip?

Does the paving hold puddles against the wall?