Need Historic Brick Repointing
I’m looking for a contractor who can repoint soft 1820s brickwork on the exterior walls of my house. I’d need someone who knows how to work with an historic (soft, sandy and light-colored) mortar that would be compatible with the old brick. Any recommendations? Or horror stories? Thanks.
humboldt
in Brownstoner Renovation 10 years and 7 months ago
10
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10 replies
humboldt | 10 years and 7 months ago
Urbanchinchilla, thanks, that’s a great suggestion. I’ll probably get their color samples to see if they have an easy match. Who did the work for you, btw? Anyone you’d recommend? I’ll wait until the spring to do this in any case. Housenut, sorry to heat that. Their website has a great picture of a wall of old brick on which they matched the mortar that looks great. Over the years I’ve worked with a couple of inexpensive contractors that seem to fit a template: Pakistani-run, with Mexican or Central American labor. They generally do very solid work for the price, but it’s quick and generic, they’re not necessarily so good at customizing work for tricky, finicky old houses (or their finicky old owners – like myself). Still, that’s my price point, so I will shop around and ask questions to get a sense of who’s open to working with these materials.
HouseNut | 10 years and 7 months ago
I personally had a horrible experience with Excellent, but it was on Brownstone facade redo rather than brick repair. Meraz was polite and professional throughout, but the quality of the work and his ability to manage and deliver the quality he promised was not there.
urbanchinchilla | 10 years and 7 months ago
We came to the same conclusion that mortar analysis and matching is an overkill for this type of job, but you might consider a product like Ecologic from Limeworks http://www.limeworks.us/ecologic_more.html. It is a just add water mix, and it comes in different colors. It is made with NHL 3.5 and contains no portland. The cost is $24 per 38lb bag. I doubt you would need more than 5 bags for spot repointing. I’m not certain about the high lime content mortars like type k which some contractors pitched. Our concern was that most of the strength would come from the curing of the portland in the mix, and it would behave more like an ordinary portland cement, but I would be interested to hear other opinions. Given that it didn’t make much difference in cost, we used a pure lime product. Would love to hear anything you learn as you do this as we have several more re-pointing projects coming up.
humboldt | 10 years and 7 months ago
Interesting – I see that type K mortars are similar to historic mixes in terms of strength. This is a 1/3/10 mixture of portland cement, lime and sand, but I suppose the color would have to be matched, I have no idea how. House paint pigments? I doubt that such a watered-down portland cement would harm the old brick. I think the contractor could mix up a type K themselves. I don’t think I can afford to have a custom mortar made for me. The job isn’t really that big, just selected parts of a small building where the mortar has emptied out over the years before I bought it. I will try John McBride.
urbanchinchilla | 10 years and 7 months ago
We just completed a similar project. It was our experience that most(if not all) local contractors who work on brownstones are not familiar with portland free lime mortars and will recommend a type s or type n cement which is not really a good choice for your facade as it will cause spalling and present a poor appearance. However there is a market for this product and the good news is that it is not too expensive and will probably be much less than the labor cost for this job. We decided to use an NHL 3.5 product. Vendors we considered included US Heritage Group in Chicago, Limeworks.us in Allentown, and Edison Coatings in Hartford. I recommend you specify to your contractor exactly where you want the Lime mortar used because it will be pretty much impossible to remove a portland based mortar without damaging your brickwork. It probably makes sense to wait until spring to attempt this project since the lime will not cure well in the cold and may be damaged by freezing conditions before it has hardened. Good luck!
ventilated | 10 years and 7 months ago
Try John McBride @ Mulroy Masonry in Maspeth. You can also look through Traditional Building’s list of masonry restoration contractors: http://www.traditional-building.com/RTEmasonry_restoration.htm
humboldt | 10 years and 7 months ago
Thanks for your comments. Landlord, I saw Excellent Contracting’s ad and will try them. Bob, I agree. If I cannot find a mason already familiar with old mortar recipes, I’ll have to improvise something with him. I think some of the old recipes involved crushed shells, which might be hard to find! There are fair number of Federal-style (Adam) buildings in lower Manhattan from the 1820s, so there must be masons who know about this stuff.
landlord | 10 years and 7 months ago
I have used excellent contracting to redo the facade on my brownstone. They seem to have a lot of experience with historic properties. I would call them and ask them for a free consultation. They advertise on Brownstoner.
shadow01 | 10 years and 7 months ago
Hello Humboldt I know of a contractor that can help you out with your project his name is Dan he is very reliable and affordable you can try giving him a call he can be reached at 718 485-1044 Good Luck.
BobMarvin | 10 years and 7 months ago
Good luck; there aren’t that many houses that old here. You might have to settle for a mason who’s willing to learn. My situation is quite different, but when I needed repointing on my 1899 house I used someone who had done a neat job on similar houses nearby, but not quite what I wanted. My house has long thin “Roman” bricks, with very narrow joints between bricks. The mason I used hadn’t previously recessed the mortor joints, as was done originally, but listened to my concerns and agreed to do so. The highest complement I can pay to his work is that you can’t tell the bricks were repointed–perfectly what I wanted. . Your case is far more critical, since the wrong morter would cause a lot of damage, but perhaps you could do some research on the proper soft (lime?) morter and specify that, rejecting any mason who downplays your concern.