diff --git a/jjb/defaults.yaml b/jjb/defaults.yaml
index 819cfdf..e6940a7 100644
--- a/jjb/defaults.yaml
+++ b/jjb/defaults.yaml
@@ -38,6 +38,9 @@
     cord-repo-manifest: manifest.git
     cordqa-manifest-repo: qa-manifest.git
 
+    # default email address to send job failure messages
+    failure-email-address: 'cord-dev@opencord.org'
+
     # regexp for gerrit triggers
     # list of supported branches, for branch-regexp
     supported-branches-regexp: '^(master|cord-6.0|cord-5.0|cord-4.1|cord-4.0)$'
diff --git a/jjb/imagebuilder.yaml b/jjb/imagebuilder.yaml
index f9f185d..d26d7f8 100644
--- a/jjb/imagebuilder.yaml
+++ b/jjb/imagebuilder.yaml
@@ -61,6 +61,10 @@
           default: false
           description: 'Force remove obsolete tags/images (same as "docker rmi --force")'
 
+      - string:
+         name: failureEmail
+         default: '{failure-email-address}, $GERRIT_PATCHSET_UPLOADER_EMAIL'
+         description: 'On job failure, send an email to these addresses'
 
     project-type: pipeline
     concurrent: false
diff --git a/jjb/pipeline/imagebuilder.groovy b/jjb/pipeline/imagebuilder.groovy
index deee937..a8636ea 100644
--- a/jjb/pipeline/imagebuilder.groovy
+++ b/jjb/pipeline/imagebuilder.groovy
@@ -75,5 +75,10 @@
       archiveArtifacts artifacts: 'ib_actions.yml, ib_graph.dot, ib_logs/*', fingerprint: true
       deleteDir()
     }
+    failure {
+      emailext (
+        to: "${params.failureEmail}"
+      )
+    }
   }
 }