Carl,

In all things architectural you need a structural engineer as a consultant to assess the danger of the current situation with the degrading bricks and to also help draft specs for any stabilization / restoration work that will meet all applicable building codes, etc. There are ASTM standards for bricks for construction and even if using reproduction or vintage bricks you may need to meet that standard. Usually with soft degrading bricks there may need to be a combination of structural support along with some replacement with bricks of the same size that match color and texture. Each situation is unique and there is never a recipe you can follow that applies to all situations.

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Senior Conservator and Museum Consultant - Objects and Architecture

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 10:00 AM, Rebecca Bush <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Another good resource is the National Brick Research Center at Clemson University. They study the physical and chemical composition of bricks and do testing/research on historic bricks. A couple of my colleagues worked with the center a year ago to make bricks that would approximate the bricks present at Fort Sumter. All of which is to say, there are people there interested in the structure of historic building materials, and they might well be able to provide some answers and recommendations. https://www.brickandtile.org/

--
Rebecca Bush
Curatorial Assistant, Historic Columbia Foundation
M.A. Student in Public History
University of South Carolina
[log in to unmask]
(620) 388-2232

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