Sealing outside of brick on brick home

[TNprogrammer]

I have always heard, even when in the home building business 20 years ago, that you should never seal the brick on the outside of your house because the brick needs to be able to breathe. Common sense tells me I SHOULD seal it because brick is so porous. We just had several days of heavy rains here and even two days after the rains I see a bit of water seeping out of weep holes around my house. The weep holes are doing their jobs, but it bothers me that the brick soaked up so much moisture to begin with. My home is not brick veneer. It is a true brick facade with what should be a 1 inch gap, but who knows what the quality of the masonry job is really like. I WANT to seal my brick, but I'm just worried about causing more issues than I'm solving? I've researched several of the silane/siloxane based brick sealers, which is what I understand should be used because it still lets the brick expel water vapor that might be behind it. What do you think? Have any of you actually done this on your brick home?
Thanks.

 

[oldognewtrick]

What kind of shape is the mortar in? Cracks, Voids? Do you have a overhang of the roof? Are the gutters overflowing? Do you see any missing caulking around windows and doors? Is there any brick spalling occurring?

 

[TNprogrammer]

Just built the house 1.5 years ago. Brick, mortar and gutters are in excellent shape. But I do see areas on the brick where water runs down it thicker than other areas just because of the way the rain hits it. The gutter installers did not originally install kick-out flashing where the ends of some gutters met up against the brick, so I had that added because I would see water run off the roof and behind the end cap of the gutter and really saturate the brick in a few areas. I'm just nuts about water issues because of all of the issues I had with my last house, and was wondering if anyone had actually sealed their brick.

 

[nealtw]

I haven't done it but that is what a breathable sealer is for.

 

[slownsteady]

I sealed my chimney with a spray-on treatment. Not sure if it was a silane or another similar type. Bought it from the mason. It has been fine. It stopped some seepage that was getting down into the attic and is not showing any signs of deterioration on the chimney. And it doesn't change the appearance of the brick.
Thinking about it now, I should probably be resealing it this spring.

 

[missbolton]

we used siloxane pd to seal our chimney bricks. My husband brought it back from our contractor.

 

[mudmixer]

Usually any brick veneer with an air gap has a WRB (water resistant barrier) to shed any water and the brick have "weeps" at the first course to drain any moisture that is collected. - That is the common method. Brick is is not necessarily "porous" and depends on the clay used. The hard, non-absorbent brick are frowned on because they "float" during construction and the bond between the brick and the mortar is not as good.

Dick