"Standing" Brick Foundation Wall

[JoshH726]

Has anyone encountered an instance where row of "standing" bricks is placed above a poured concrete wall? I was given this picture today and asked to review tomorrow. Can't say I've seen this before. But any thoughts would be appreciated. It's a single family, 2-story home built in the '30s.

 

[PEinc]

I have never seen this before; and I have been in many old building basements. Perhaps the original foundation wall was brick and someone poured a concrete wall or facing in front of the bricks in order to support the new floor framing? Looks like there are some vertical timbers bearing on top of a concrete ledge.

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[JAE]

Older buildings sometimes mixed concrete and clay brick units together like this - especially at the top of walls to fine-tune the top elevation of the wall.

This was prior to designers understanding how concrete(i.e. Portland Cement) and clay based units don't mix well together. (clay expands while concrete shrinks)

From your photo I think that the brick is indeed load bearing. The clay units can take some amount of load. The concern to me would be moisture infiltrating into the clay based units and causing expansion and/or deterioration in them over time. Depends on the exterior waterproofing system (which in the 1930's was probably just grout parging.



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[SLTA]

Around here, lots of folks would take their original crawlspace and dig out a vertical cut to create a basement. The soil would sometimes wash in, so they'd either parge coat it or pour a concrete wall to retain it. Is that concrete 1930s, or later? I'm wondering if that's a retaining wall built later.

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[focuseng]

Just last week I saw a foundation where there was a course of brick on top of the foundation just like so. A wood beam pocket had been filled in So I concluded the beam and floor raised to get more headroom for a new basement out of a crawlspace. The beam pocket was the give-away as the pocket was cast concrete and matched the beam (wood) perfectly except not being seated in it anymore. I was really there to look at where the foundation was still crawl with clean vertical dig of soil still exposed -no wall at all. Very common in my neck of woods -SE Wisconsin.

Can't say I've seen them in a soldier layup like that though -usually just running bond stack.
As long as the brick isn't mixed with concrete I don't see problem with straight gravity loading. Need to consider anchorage and lateral soil forces. The concrete wall needs to be retaining wall without top brace.

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[JoshH726]

Thanks for all the feedback. To close this one out, I observed the area yesterday. The brick and underlying concrete wall appeared fine. The rim joist and floor joist were separating as the rim joist was rolling away from the plumb on the sill plate and the floor joists didn't want to go along for the ride. Apparently we are one addition too many.