Brick Mortar Color?
We want to remove the paint off our brick facade and re-point if necessary, but I want to make sure the mortar is the right kind. As you can see in the picture it looks like the mortar is a red/orange color. There are some houses in the neighb. with similar mortar, but I’ve never…
We want to remove the paint off our brick facade and re-point if necessary, but I want to make sure the mortar is the right kind. As you can see in the picture it looks like the mortar is a red/orange color. There are some houses in the neighb. with similar mortar, but I’ve never seen any newly re-pointed houses done like this. Anyone know if I can get the same color today.
Thanks
Glen-Gery, brick and mortar manufacturer, has a line of color coded mortar admixture(tint). I remember seeing a reddish color in their line. If not, I believe your contractor can either mix his own tint with given line or send a sample of the mortar to Glen Gery for them to match. This is a common procedure to obtain LPC approval.
http://www.glengerybrick.com/brick/mortar.html
Chemical tests to determine the exact concentration of sand, cement, lyme, and the type of sand is called historic conservation. It is done on buildings like AMNH.
This Old House had a series on a townhouse renovation in Washington DC.
One episode dealt with the mortar issue. I was surprised how involved it was. The mason said that he would take samples of the existing mortar and do some chemical tests on them to determine the exact concentration of sand, cement, lyme, etc. The type of sand was even discussed if I remember correctly.
All this was important because of moisture and curing issues according to the mason.
He also planned to match the mortar color for historical correctness.
Didn’t see Minard’s post before I posted mine, but we’re saying basically the same thing.
The tooling of most mason’s today is atrocious – I’m convinced most don’t even own a jointer, and they’re just using their thumbs.
Most masons who do new construction have no idea what tuck pointing is. They think they are “waterproofing” so they apply generous amounts of mortary goop to any nook and crevice. You would think that with all the old buildings here we would have the best restoration masons in the world but they are few and far between. People, especailly lawyers -who know about contracts but know nothing about buildings- have a knack for selecting the worst possible repointing masons who massacre their building facades although I’m sure all the paperwork is meticulously prepared and a thing of beauty.
the cream cheese on the bagel analogy is a good one Minard, and I’ve seen such work.
You should make it gold and sparkly… regular mortar is so boring.
Yes, you can get this mortar today – either as a premix from one of the mortar companies or as a custom mix by your mason.
Red-tinted mortars were very common in the late 19th century. You can determine the true original color by taking a chunk of the mortar out – the color will show better on an unworn surface. It is possible that there is a tan mortar deep the joints, but if the red mortar is more than 3/8″ or so, it is probably historic and original.
And yes, you should match the historic mortar color. When matching mortars, you want to match strength (Type N, typically on a post-Civil War 19th-century building), color (tint) and aggregate (sand) color and texture.
Equally as important, make sure your contractor does not widen the joints. Nothing looks worse than a nice pressed brick facade that has had the joints trashed and the wrong color mortar.
Pure white mortars are relatively rare, and usually only found on buildings with very, very narrow (aka “butter”) joints. Interestingly, the same joints are often tinted the same color as the brick.
I agree with m936bk. Many late 19th c. buildings, especially the Queen Anne and Romanesque ones had reddish or brownish tinted mortar. The tinted portion was usually just a “cap” about a quarter inch thick. If you scrape back the mortar joint, you will find untinted mortar behind doing the normal mortar job of gluing the brick courses together. If you find that this is the case, remove a section of the tinted mortar and ask your mason to match it. The trick is to get someone who knows what they’re doing. Fresh mortar needs to be “struck” with the proper tool once it is tucked into the joint. Many Brooklyn masons just shmear the mortar all over the place and deface the brickwork. They are not putting cream cheese on a bagel, they need to stay within the lines and carefully finish each joint.
Good luck. Re-pointing is one of the hardest things to get right.
Ive seen a couple of brick buildings with pinkish mortar that look very good – the mortar needs to be sufficiently light to maintain the defintion of bricks vs mortar, however.
Having ther mortar and the bricks the same color is just ugh. If you’re gonna go that route why not get a badly-fitting wig too.