Found this in the garden, looks like something used to key 2 bricks
together, but why is there a twist in the middle?

http://www.dalecu.co.uk/images/dscf0016.jpg


Dave

"Dave" wrote in message ...
Found this in the garden, looks like something used to key 2 bricks
together, but why is there a twist in the middle?

http://www.dalecu.co.uk/images/dscf0016.jpg


Dave


Its a vertical twist tie used to tie cavity and external walls.

They're laid on a slight slope. The twist is so that any water
or built up moisture or condensation drips off the twist in the
middle of the tie rather than running down to the end and soaking the
cavity wall.

michael adams

On Sun, 04 Jul 2010 12:37:44 +0000, Dave wrote:

Found this in the garden, looks like something used to key 2 bricks
together, but why is there a twist in the middle?

http://www.dalecu.co.uk/images/dscf0016.jpg



It's a wall tie. The twist is so that any condensation or moisture
leakage drips down the centre of the cavity rather than reaching the
interior wall.

--
Mick (Working in a M$-free zone!)
Web: http://www.nascom.info
Filtering everything posted from googlegroups to kill spam.

Dave wrote:
Found this in the garden, looks like something used to key 2 bricks
together, but why is there a twist in the middle?

http://www.dalecu.co.uk/images/dscf0016.jpg


Dave
It is indeed a brick tie. goes across a cavity IIRC.

Never did understand why the twist.

On Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:07:17 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Dave wrote:
Found this in the garden, looks like something used to key 2 bricks
together, but why is there a twist in the middle?

http://www.dalecu.co.uk/images/dscf0016.jpg


Dave
It is indeed a brick tie. goes across a cavity IIRC.

Never did understand why the twist.


The previous posts explain the twist.

Thanks for all the replies.

Dave

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Dave wrote:
Found this in the garden, looks like something used to key 2 bricks
together, but why is there a twist in the middle?

http://www.dalecu.co.uk/images/dscf0016.jpg


Dave
It is indeed a brick tie. goes across a cavity IIRC.

Never did understand why the twist.

The twist is so that whichever way up it gets put in, there's a low point in
the centre for moisture to drip off.
Prior to this, they had just a 'bump', and they were supposed to be laid
with the bottom of the bump at the underside, but dozy bricklayers often put
them in with the bump at the top.

The one in the picture is called a fishtail brick tie, these rust terribly
and push courses apart, usually every 6 courses and often near the upper
parts of the building.
Once they start going, they need isolating and new replacement ties going
in, they are isolated by chipping all around each one (found by metal
detector) and a plastic sleeve containing grease is slid over the end of
each one to prevent further corrosion, new ties are put through the face of
the brick rather than the beds.

Galvanised ones were used after this but they too were shunned in favour of
stainless steel and even plastic ones, which had a short lived popularity in
the early 90's.

--
Phil L
RSRL Tipster Of The Year 2008

On Sun, 4 Jul 2010 14:29:26 +0100, "Phil L"
wrote:


The twist is so that whichever way up it gets put in, there's a low point in
the centre for moisture to drip off.
Prior to this, they had just a 'bump', and they were supposed to be laid
with the bottom of the bump at the underside, but dozy bricklayers often put
them in with the bump at the top.

The one in the picture is called a fishtail brick tie, these rust terribly
and push courses apart, usually every 6 courses and often near the upper
parts of the building.
Once they start going, they need isolating and new replacement ties going
in, they are isolated by chipping all around each one (found by metal
detector) and a plastic sleeve containing grease is slid over the end of
each one to prevent further corrosion, new ties are put through the face of
the brick rather than the beds.

Galvanised ones were used after this but they too were shunned in favour of
stainless steel and even plastic ones, which had a short lived popularity in
the early 90's.


The things you learn on this group!

Dave

Phil L wrote:

Galvanised ones were used after this but they too were shunned in favour of
stainless steel and even plastic ones, which had a short lived popularity in
the early 90's.


It's the galvanised ones I grew up with. Are _any_ of them good long term?

Andy

Andy Champ wrote:
Phil L wrote:

Galvanised ones were used after this but they too were shunned in
favour of stainless steel and even plastic ones, which had a short
lived popularity in the early 90's.


It's the galvanised ones I grew up with. Are _any_ of them good long term?

Andy
Houses in the 50s were built with em, Houses in the 50s still standing :-)

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Andy Champ wrote:
Phil L wrote:

Galvanised ones were used after this but they too were shunned in
favour of stainless steel and even plastic ones, which had a short
lived popularity in the early 90's.


It's the galvanised ones I grew up with. Are _any_ of them good
long term? Andy
Houses in the 50s were built with em, Houses in the 50s still
standing :-)

Yep and they probably will be for another 100 years or so.
Galvanised ones aren't sold anymore AFAIK due to them not meeting building
regs, although there are probably several hundred million still knocking
about in people's sheds etc.
Stainless ones are fairly cheap nowadays anyway

--
Phil L
RSRL Tipster Of The Year 2008

Andy Champ wrote:
Phil L wrote:

Galvanised ones were used after this but they too were shunned in
favour of stainless steel and even plastic ones, which had a short
lived popularity in the early 90's.


It's the galvanised ones I grew up with. Are _any_ of them good long
term?
Andy

They all do exactly what they are supposed to do, and that is to tie the two
skins of brickwork together, or to keep them apart, whichever way you want
to look at it.

The only problems with any of them are sulphur attack, IE rusting and
forcing the brickwork apart.
Stainless ones will never do this and so they are obviously the best ties to
use.
Galvanised ones are the next best, but these were laid to rest by someone
sitting in an office somewhere who had nothing better to do than have
idiotic brainwaves....the story goes along these lines; the bricklayers
often rattle down the ties with their trowel, and this could chip off the
zinc, leaving the ties unprotected and so they were banned.
IME I've only ever seen brickies hit the ties in the centre, IE above the
twist and so if any damage did occur, it wouldn't be near any mortar beds it
would be in the centre of the cavity, and even then in only about 1% of the
ties.
I have them in my house, as do all the other properties around here, they
are all 50 - 60 years old and none of them have shown any signs of failure
or sulphur attack

--
Phil L
RSRL Tipster Of The Year 2008

Phil L wrote:
Andy Champ wrote:
Phil L wrote:
Galvanised ones were used after this but they too were shunned in
favour of stainless steel and even plastic ones, which had a short
lived popularity in the early 90's.

It's the galvanised ones I grew up with. Are _any_ of them good long
term?
Andy

They all do exactly what they are supposed to do, and that is to tie the two
skins of brickwork together, or to keep them apart, whichever way you want
to look at it.

The only problems with any of them are sulphur attack, IE rusting and
forcing the brickwork apart.
Stainless ones will never do this and so they are obviously the best ties to
use.
Galvanised ones are the next best, but these were laid to rest by someone
sitting in an office somewhere who had nothing better to do than have
idiotic brainwaves....the story goes along these lines; the bricklayers
often rattle down the ties with their trowel, and this could chip off the
zinc, leaving the ties unprotected and so they were banned.
IME I've only ever seen brickies hit the ties in the centre, IE above the
twist and so if any damage did occur, it wouldn't be near any mortar beds it
would be in the centre of the cavity, and even then in only about 1% of the
ties.
I have them in my house, as do all the other properties around here, they
are all 50 - 60 years old and none of them have shown any signs of failure
or sulphur attack

No. walls are designed mainly to not get soaking wet.

On Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:04:52 +0100, Phil L wrote:

Galvanised ones are the next best, but these were laid to rest by
someone sitting in an office somewhere who had nothing better to do than
have idiotic brainwaves....the story goes along these lines; the
bricklayers often rattle down the ties with their trowel, and this could
chip off the zinc, leaving the ties unprotected and so they were banned.
IME I've only ever seen brickies hit the ties in the centre, IE above
the twist and so if any damage did occur, it wouldn't be near any mortar
beds it would be in the centre of the cavity, and even then in only
about 1% of the ties.

I was always told that the whole point of galvanising was that it didn't
actually matter if the coating wasn't continuous.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

In article ,
Tim Streater writes:
In article ,
Andy Champ wrote:

Phil L wrote:

Galvanised ones were used after this but they too were shunned in favour of
stainless steel and even plastic ones, which had a short lived popularity
in
the early 90's.


It's the galvanised ones I grew up with. Are _any_ of them good long term?

Yerrss. Our house was built 30s, when we had DG recently I checked them
far as I could see into the cavity as each old winder was took out, they
all seemed in good nick, orright?

The damage happens to the part embedded in the outside wall.
If that starts rusting, it swells and can push the bricks apart
at the mortar lines with great force.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember (Dave) saying
something like:

Found this in the garden, looks like something used to key 2 bricks
together, but why is there a twist in the middle?

http://www.dalecu.co.uk/images/dscf0016.jpg

A cavity wall-tie, the twist is for moisture to drip off.