Repointing Brick: The Basic Techniques of Safe Mortar Removal

Comment by Rob Wozniak on November 16, 2009 at 7:30pm

For anyone who watched my first video and has been waiting for the next... well it seems I am slow. The project was on my own building and not a paying project so I was in a bit of a hurry to finish and get to something that would help pay the mortgage. My neighbors finished the entrance in the back, not my taste but it does look better than it did. I still have one more video for this project to show putting mortar in the wall but I am not sure what I did with the video... I may have forgotten to record this part since I was putting in some very long days... But I'll keep on looking. Again, thanks!

Comment by John Leeke on November 19, 2009 at 6:59pm

Rob, good video. This is the first time I've seen that mortar saw in action. Thanks.

But, repointing doesn't always have to be considered expensive. In fact it's misleading to characterize this kind of good maintenance and preservation as "expensive," since doing it saves money in the long run. What truly is expensive is not doing it, then paying for major repairs. If only a small area needs it that's not going to cost too much. Also, the cost could be thought of as spread out over the service life of the repointing. If it costs $10,000 and lasts 100 years then the cost is "only" $100/year. If a building owner can't put up the $10,000 when its needed then you could always prioritize the work using the available funds and doing only a percentage of the work that returns the highest benefit, or do stabilization to slow down the deterioration until more funds are available to do more. And, there is always financing, volunteer labor, etc.

Comment by Rob Wozniak on November 19, 2009 at 10:47pm

John, Thank you for your comments, I totally agree with you although I did not get into it in the video. What I was trying to say was that careful and correct repointing with lime mortar is time consuming and therefor it can be expensive as compared to cheap quick solutions like painting over the masonry to hide the problems, filling problem areas with caulk, plastering with cement plaster, scrub pointing and so on... Much of which I see happening daily and labeled restoration. Certainly, the initial cost in making cheap repairs will cost someone else much more in the future. I will work on explaining this better in a future video. Again, thanks. By the way, the mortar saw is great for lime... but not really very good for cementitious materials.

Comment by Red Queen on November 29, 2009 at 12:16am

Thanks for posting the video...whoa, I have a lot to do with getting out some of that old portland cement, with which someone had parged over some of our basement masonry. Fortunately no one had done anything with most of our basement, which apparently is better than doing the wrong thing by using portland cement.

Comment by ben rogan on May 16, 2010 at 4:43am

Thank your for clarifying your video. As a professional in brick pointing I would totally agree with John that pointing is not at all expensive when you consider the costs associated with major repair due to neglect. It's the same in all aspects of life, prevention is always better than cure. You wouldn't say don't bother servicing your car it's too expensive because we all know the consequence would be a dead engine which would cost more in t he long run.
Thnaks for your coments john.

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