Control Joint Placement Examples

Technical profile #8A was an overview of the most important aspects pertaining to the placement of brick veneer control joints. This profile illustrates alternative approaches to their placement. There are a few points to keep in mind while reading this profile. First, the placement of vertical and horizontal control joints, CJ’s, creates panels of brick. Second, lintels are loose angles bearing on the brickwork while shelf angles are angles attached to the frame. When brickwork is supported by a shelf angle, the panel needs vertical and horizontal CJ’s to ensure that the brickwork is not supported by both the foundation and the frame. Third, control joints should not go through the lintels.

Figure 1 illustrates a two story commercial building with continuous or strip windows. Normally for this type of construction the brickwork over the windows is supported by shelf angles going from column to column. These shelf angles are good places to locate the horizontal CJ’s in the veneer. Since the veneer is separated horizontally by continuous angles, the vertical control joints can be placed anywhere along the length of the wall. It is best to place CJ’s at least at the columns and then, if desired, in between the columns. Figure 1 shows one possible arrangement for the control joints.

Figure 2 illustrates a two story commercial building with separate or “punched out” windows. Horizontal control joints are created at each floor by shelf angles while brick over the windows is supported by loose angles, (lintels) that bear on the brickwork on each side of the window. The angles do not need to be bolted to the frame. Since the lintels bear on the brickwork at the window jambs, it is not recommended that a vertical control joint be placed at the window jambs; instead place them away from the window, possibly in the middle of the brick piers between the windows as shown in figure 2. with a shelf angle at the roof line, it is possible to add extra vertical control joints on the parapet walls if the normal spacing of the CJ’s was too far apart for a parapet.

If the building shown in figure 2 has continuous shelf angles over the windows as shown in figure 3, vertical control joints can be placed at the window jamb. Also, the CJ’s could be placed anywhere between the windows.

There are instances when a building has walls of different heights as shown in figure 4. Since the short wall moves differently from the taller wall, separating the two walls by a CJ will prevent cracking. It is good design practice to place vertical control joints in the wall where the wall height changes as illustrated in figure 4.