When the brick on your home cracks, the masonry is telling you the structure underneath it has shifted. Here is what causes cracked bricks across the Carolinas and what our free inspection looks at.
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Cracked bricks are fractures through the brick units, the mortar joints, or both, on the brick veneer outside a home or on a brick foundation wall. They can run diagonally, vertically, or horizontally and tend to gather near corners, windows, and doors, where stress collects when a wall racks out of square. Brick is strong in compression but weak in tension and bending, so when the foundation settles unevenly, the brick splits.
A crack that follows the mortar in a diagonal staircase usually points to differential settlement, while a long horizontal crack low on a brick foundation wall often points to soil pushing inward. The width of the crack, and whether its sides have shifted out of plane, shows how much movement has happened.
When settlement is the cause, the foundation is often stabilized with steel piers driven to firmer soil before the brick is repaired. A free inspection examines the foundation and measures how the structure has moved to confirm the cause.
Every repair method we install for foundation repair is on the foundation repair solutions page.
Across the Piedmont, including Charlotte, Huntersville, Matthews, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and the Triangle, the soil is rich in clay that swells in wet seasons and contracts as it dries in summer. That cycle loads and unloads the footings and over years can settle one part of a foundation more than another. The brick wall above the section that drops is pulled out of square and cracks, often diagonally through the mortar and the brick faces.
Cracked bricks are a common sign of differential settlement, meaning different parts of the home settle by different amounts. When the soil under one corner or length of footing compresses, or was never fully compacted, that part sinks while the rest stays put. The veneer absorbs the difference by cracking, often at the corners, widening toward the top or bottom depending on which way the wall rotates.
On a brick foundation or basement wall, saturated soil outside pushes inward. As that lateral pressure builds, the wall can crack horizontally along a mortar course and, in more advanced cases, begin to bow or lean inward. This differs from settlement, which pulls a wall down, and points to water and soil load against the wall. Telling the two apart is part of the inspection, because they are repaired in different ways.
Around Asheville and the mountains, many homes sit on slopes and hillside lots. Heavy mountain rainfall and runoff move down the grade and concentrate water and soil pressure against the uphill side of a foundation, while the downhill side can lose support to erosion. Uneven loading like this settles or pushes part of the foundation and shows up as cracked brick in the veneer or foundation wall above.
In the Sandhills around Fayetteville and Pinehurst, and in coastal markets like Wilmington, Leland, and Brunswick County, sandy soils shift differently than Piedmont clay. When fines wash out under a footing, from a downspout draining against the wall, a high water table, or saturated ground, the foundation can settle into the void. The brick above cracks along the path of least resistance through the mortar and units.
In the SC Upstate around Greenville and the Midlands around Columbia, foothill and Piedmont clay carries a heavy moisture load through hot, humid summers. The same swell and shrink behavior that drives Piedmont settlement is at work here, cycling pressure on footings and settling foundations unevenly over time, which the brick walls reveal as cracking through the mortar joints and brick faces.
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Articles from our team that go deeper on this topic.
Foundation Crack Repair
Foundation cracks range from thin vertical hairline cracks to horizontal and stair step cracks.
Foundation Crack Repair
Learn which foundation cracks can be repaired from the inside.
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If your home is showing cracked bricks, an inspector can find the cause. HydroHelp911 handles foundation repair and related structural and moisture work across North and South Carolina.
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For example, helical and push piers carry a lifetime warranty that no additional settlement will occur in the area of installed piers, once the final invoice is paid in full. Read the warranty terms.
Ask your inspector about financing when you get your written estimate. See financing options.
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Not every cracked brick means major structural trouble, but cracking often points to movement beneath the wall. A narrow hairline crack that has not changed in years is a different situation than a crack where the brick faces have shifted out of line, which can suggest active movement. Because you cannot tell from the surface alone how much the foundation has moved or whether it is still moving, an inspection that measures the structure is the reliable way to know what the cracks mean for your home.
How a repair moves from a free inspection to finished work once the cause is found.
An inspector looks at the areas showing cracked bricks, explains what they find in plain language, and answers your questions at no cost.
The repair is matched to the cause the inspector found, with the scope and price in a written estimate.
A HydroHelp911 crew carries out the repair plan you approved.
A free guide for homes in North and South Carolina: what can move a foundation here, the signs worth writing down, and how foundation repairs work, in plain language.
Homeowners across North Carolina and South Carolina describe their inspections and repairs in their own words.
A free inspection finds the cause: one visit, clear findings, and a written estimate at no cost.
