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Old House Stuff
3 Oct 2019 10:26My house is 95+ years old now, and that means that it can have ... um ... special needs when it comes to repairs.
I recognized this when I moved in, and so the first and only time I tuck pointed any brick, I made up a mortar mix using lime putty, sand and water, making use of the ancient Roman recipe of 3 parts sand to 1 part lime putty. Although my actual mortar work is pretty sloppy (me having had no prior experience in this!), I have been pretty proud that my mortar repair has held up fine for 20 years, and you can only tell some of the sloppier work if you look closely for it.
However, there were previous mortar repairs with modern, hard mortar. Even 20 years ago, I could tell that the mortar material was wrong, and indeed now that previous mortar has fallen out in spots and those bricks have popped.
Today was supposed to be the day I made the repairs.
I have had a hard time finding the materials that I used 20 years ago -- and really my memory is very vague as to how I did it. A few weeks ago, I ordered some natural hydraulic lime online, and mixed it up. Since I thought I needed to let it cure for a while before I used it, I let it sit covered in the bucket. But today I checked my mix and it has already hardened.
It's very possible that I could do this job with a 'type N' mortar from a home improvement store, but I don't know. I also found a recipe online for 1 part Portland cement, 2 parts mason's hydrated lime and 8-9 parts sand -- basically using Portland cement to provide hardness, but not too much. That might have worked also. Again, I just don't know.
So I just re-ordered that same non-hydraulic lime from online because I think it will work for what I need. I already have my sand, and I still have my mixing tray and brick layer tools from 20 years ago.
Here's a picture of the worst of it where the repair was made before I owned the house, where that mortar has fallen out. My goal is to fix this and few other spots next week!
Case in point
As I understand it, prior to the 1920s red brick was fairly soft. At some point during the 1920s, hard brick became available, but because of its age, my house has the older, softer type of brick. If you use regular "home improvement store" hard mortar with soft brick, the mortar will become very hard and not be flexible and over time will pop the faces off of the soft brick. That means that if I have to tuck point brickwork on my house, I have to be careful with the hardness of the mortar.I recognized this when I moved in, and so the first and only time I tuck pointed any brick, I made up a mortar mix using lime putty, sand and water, making use of the ancient Roman recipe of 3 parts sand to 1 part lime putty. Although my actual mortar work is pretty sloppy (me having had no prior experience in this!), I have been pretty proud that my mortar repair has held up fine for 20 years, and you can only tell some of the sloppier work if you look closely for it.
However, there were previous mortar repairs with modern, hard mortar. Even 20 years ago, I could tell that the mortar material was wrong, and indeed now that previous mortar has fallen out in spots and those bricks have popped.
Today was supposed to be the day I made the repairs.
I have had a hard time finding the materials that I used 20 years ago -- and really my memory is very vague as to how I did it. A few weeks ago, I ordered some natural hydraulic lime online, and mixed it up. Since I thought I needed to let it cure for a while before I used it, I let it sit covered in the bucket. But today I checked my mix and it has already hardened.
It's very possible that I could do this job with a 'type N' mortar from a home improvement store, but I don't know. I also found a recipe online for 1 part Portland cement, 2 parts mason's hydrated lime and 8-9 parts sand -- basically using Portland cement to provide hardness, but not too much. That might have worked also. Again, I just don't know.
So I just re-ordered that same non-hydraulic lime from online because I think it will work for what I need. I already have my sand, and I still have my mixing tray and brick layer tools from 20 years ago.
Here's a picture of the worst of it where the repair was made before I owned the house, where that mortar has fallen out. My goal is to fix this and few other spots next week!
