So we’ve got a little patio, which has a lovely old brick wall around it – but the wall is a little, um, wobbly. It’s a single-brick thick wall with a couple of buttresses, and the bricks are also flaking quite a bit.

I’ve just been around the back, and the back face looks in decent shape – there’s also a solid foundation with a base one brick wide extending out.

So my feeling is that it’s not going to collapse, but I want to stiffen it up and stop it flaking – would building another buttress up the back be a good idea? Do-able without knocking holes in the wall? I was thinking of using steel bolts or ties through the wall to attach it to the buttress.

To stop the flaking, I was thinking of repointing the biggest cracks and the top of the wall, and maybe some kind of coating for the bricks?

Am I on the right track with this?

Cheers 😉

If it’s wobbly it sounds like the mortar has cracked and it’s loose. Probably needs rebuilding. You can either use piers or go for double thickness. I had my front wall rebuilt double thickness a few years back:

The new wall takes shape by brf, on Flickr

Yeah, having a closer look at it I think that might be the best option – save as many of the old bricks as possible, but rebuild with new mortar.