I remember my Uncle Elias standing over a pile of reclaimed clay units from an 1890s textile mill. He didn’t just look at them; he’d take a spray bottle of water and mist a sample. If the water vanished into the pores instantly, he’d call it a ‘sponge’—a brick that would drink itself to death if not stored right. If the water beaded, he knew it had been over-fired in the kiln, making it brittle but weather-resistant. He taught me that a salvaged brick is a living thing, still breathing after a century, and if you treat it like a dead piece of concrete, you’re just presiding over its funeral. I’ve seen $20,000 worth of reclaimed Chicago Commons turn into piles of red dust because some developer thought a plastic tarp in a muddy field was ‘good enough’ storage.
The Micro-Physics of Brick Decay
To understand why storage matters, you have to look at the capillary network of a historic brick. These aren’t the dense, machine-pressed units of modern modular masonry construction. Historic bricks were often hand-molded or extruded with a high degree of porosity. When you pull them from a wall, they are in a state of equilibrium with their environment. The moment they are stacked on the ground, they begin a process called moisture wicking. Soil moisture carries dissolved salts—nitrates and sulfates—into the brick’s core. This is the genesis of brick efflorescence removal nightmares. As the water evaporates from the surface, the salts crystallize. If those crystals form inside the pores (sub-florescence), the internal pressure can exceed 2,000 psi, literally shredding the clay structure from the inside out.
“Water penetration is the single greatest threat to masonry durability, particularly in salvaged units where the protective ‘fire skin’ may already be compromised.” – BIA Technical Note 7
The Ground Zero of Storage: The Pallet and the Base
Never, under any circumstances, allow salvaged bricks to touch bare earth. You are essentially creating a giant wick for groundwater. You need a stable, well-drained staging area. I’m talking about a six-inch compacted gravel base or a concrete pad. Use high-quality pallets, and don’t over-stack. A standard pallet of salvaged clay can weigh 2,400 pounds; if the bottom bricks are sitting in a puddle, the weight of the stack will crush the weakened, damp ‘mud’ of the lower courses. When I perform a historic mortar analysis on old structures, I often find that the bricks at the water line have half the compressive strength of those at the roof line. The same logic applies to your storage pile.
The Breathability Paradox: Tarps and Airflow
Here is where most ‘handyman’ types fail: they wrap the pallet tight in blue plastic. You’ve just built a greenhouse. The sun hits that plastic, creates condensation, and the bricks sit in a warm, humid bath—perfect for mold and accelerated salt migration. You need a breathable cover. I prefer heavy-duty canvas or specialized masonry shrouds that allow air to circulate while shedding rain. The goal is to maintain a constant state of ‘hygroscopic equilibrium.’ If you’re planning on historic brickwork repointing later, those bricks need to be bone dry when they meet the new mortar. If they’re saturated, they won’t ‘suck’ the bond, and your re-pointing services will be a waste of money because the joint won’t hydrate properly.
“The selection of a replacement mortar must be based on the physical properties of the masonry unit to ensure the mortar is sacrificial to the brick.” – ASTM C270 Standards
Chemical Warfare: Efflorescence and Waterproofing
If you see a white, powdery film forming on your stored bricks, don’t just blast it with a pressure washer. You’re just feeding the beast more water. Use a stiff natural-bristle brush to dry-brush the salts away. For stubborn cases, brick efflorescence removal requires a buffered acidic cleaner, but only once the bricks are staged and ready for installation. If you’re dealing with high-value reclaimed units, consider masonry waterproofing solutions like silane-siloxane penetrating sealants, but only after they are installed in a wall with proper chimney flashing repair and drainage. Applying a sealer to a stored brick can trap moisture inside, leading to catastrophic spalling during the first freeze-thaw cycle.
The Forensic Reality of Reinstallation
When it comes time to put these bricks back to work, your storage efforts will be the difference between a 100-year wall and a 5-year failure. I’ve been called to scenes of fire-rated masonry installation where salvaged bricks were used for aesthetic veneers. Because they were stored poorly and absorbed salts, they reacted with the high-heat mortars, causing the face of the fireplace to pop off like a cheap scab. If you are doing concrete masonry unit restoration alongside salvaged brick, remember that the two materials have different thermal expansion coefficients. You’ll need advanced masonry adhesives or flexible lime-based ‘mud’ to bridge that gap without cracking. Don’t let a ‘slicker’ or a ‘hawk’ touch your project until you’ve verified the moisture content of your salvaged stock. In this trade, patience isn’t just a virtue—it’s the only thing keeping the roof from falling in.