Help With Masonry Pointing Cost.

dennis

Need some advice here. I have a old brick house, 1908, with deteriorating mortar joints. Problem is they are scattered around the house. Mostly around the lower 6'. 6 inches here, 12" there, 5 x 6 bricks loose over there.
The previous owner had some pointing work done and it does'nt match.

I would like to get everything cleaned up and taken care of, repoint the joints and re do the mismatched mortar, but I don't know what or how I should expect to be charged. Would this be a square foot job, or time and material?

Any idea on what an average / fair price for good work would be, either square foot or time and material?

Nac

I ran A job in NYC we did 500,000 sf of repointing on a 100 year old school. If I recall correctly it cost about 10.00 a sf but that is union job. It is very difficult job you have to grind the joint with a tuck pointing blade on a grinder then wash the building then point the building and then acid wash the building when your are done. just a lot of work when you are done. If the building is not to bad I would recommend try to find as close as possible a mortar that matches and do sections. Just have to be very consistent.

stacker

when i am called to re tuck and replace brick like that,it falls under repair.i charge $65.00 for repair for me,my laborer,and equipment.if the ho buys material thats great,if i buy it,i add 10-20% depending on how much material is needed.

__________________
life is short,do your masonry naked!!
http://ok.local.yahoo.biz/knabemasonry/index.html

1over2

If the house is that old, it may have been built using lime mortars, if the repointing was done using portland based mortars it would explain the color difference. Good luck.

dennis

Thanks for the replys.

If the mortar is lime based, will the mason know that. And should I expect to pay more ?

Tscarborough

Given that they are around the lower 6', you probably have a lime mortar. That is not a bad thing, but I would bet that any repairs since then have been done with portland blends. That IS a problem.

The proper way to fix it is to remove all of the portland patches, grind out all of the joints in the areas that need to be fixed and use a lime based tucking mortar. The price will have to be determined onsite, but insist that they confirm the type of mortar before doing ANY repairs.

lukachuki

i've just rebuilt a historical wall built in the late 1800's using usheritage.com to exactly match the lime mortar. I got this tip from this group sometime ago...so thank you to whoever passed that on....JVC maybe.

Tim

lukachuki

The mason won't nec. know that unless he has some experience....many masons...like the guy who originally did the tuckpointing...are creatures of habit and as such will treat your wall just like the last 250 they have done....with no effort to match mortars at all. That is the way many masons around here are.

Here's to breaking the stereotype.

Tim

1over2

US Heritage is a great site, You should try to make it up to Chicago for one of their lime workshops.

dennis

lukachuki,

I think "stacker" said $65 an hour + materials. Is that average for just modern masonry or does that include working on "historical" walls? Or how do you charge for the " historical" type work.

It's nice to see there are craftsmen out there . I've seen a lot of crappy looking masonry repairs in my neighborhood.

Thanks again for the help.

stacker

i havent had to do any historic buildings.around my part of the state,there arent that many here anymore.

__________________
life is short,do your masonry naked!!
http://ok.local.yahoo.biz/knabemasonry/index.html

lukachuki

Thanks for the nice compliments. I still have lots and lots of things to learn.

Let me give you a 2 second background of what I do so you can understand how I charge. I am an ornamental mason specializing in hardscapes and ornamental brickwork although we do some underpinnings as well. I started out the business doing all of the work but out of frustration with how little one guy can get done I have proceeded to hire about 6 people including 1 mason who actually has much better brick laying skills than I do. The other 5 guys are prep guys and mudtenders. I spend almost all of my time dealing with customers, submitting bids and basically running the business. I tell you this because when we show up it is not just me and a mudtender we have a little larger operation going on.

If we lived in the same town and you gave me a call I would meet with you and carefully evaluate your situation. This means that I would try to determine exactly what needs to be done and get a feel for how long it would take to do the work you desired. I would write this information down and proceed to work out a bid for doing your work. In the bidding process I would basically figure out how long it would take us to do the work multiply that by the hourly figure we charge for 3 guys on the job ($120.00 or so), and also add in the price for material used. I would type this up all nice and neat and give it to you to do with what you want.

I prefer bidding jobs as the customer knows upfront what he/she is paying and it makes it easier for the mason as the customer is not breathing down his neck wondering if he is "milking the clock". This is esp. important in the case of tuckpointing becaues it is slow tedious work.

Now in the below 3 pictures you can see the little historical wall that we fixed. I don't yet have any pictures of the completed wall but I will try to get some and post them later this week so you can see how well the mortar matching service of usheritage works. You also notice how poor the original masonry was. It almost killed my mason to lay in such a sloppy manner to match the existing

In the bottom 2 pictures you can see the fresh lime mortar right after it was laid. After curing for a couple of weeks...(no pictures) the customer couldn't tell me which joints were the new joints and which were original.

For this job I charged about $7,000 which is excessive but I factored in a couple of things. 1. Usheritage is not cheap i think after everything is said and done I spent $1400 to $1600 to get the analysis done and the special mortar shipped to me. (To cut down costs we laid it the wall up in traditional lime mortar scraped out the joints and then tuckpointed with the usheritage mortar.) 2. This job was an insurance job. 3. Much of my work is done for wealthy clients who are willing to pay for quality and getting to deal with someone they trust...as opposed to many of the masons around here who are somewhat unsavory. (I hope no one takes the previous comment the wrong way,there are also other professional masons here who I have working relationships with and respect. Professionalism goes along long ways to getting more business and being able to charge higher prices.)
4. I knew that this job would be a long drawn out job which it prove to be. Usheritage was relitvely quick about doing there analysis, but they had a bunch of stipulations with their mortar. They suggested that the mortar not be laid until the temperature stayed above 40 degrees at night...which made us wait a couple of months to actually do the job.

Anyway...i think this is the most I have ever typed in one sitting but I hope that helps you. Please ask if you have any other questions.

Tim
abcmasonry.com

Tscarborough

It is always harder to "make it look old and crappy" than it is to do it the proper way. Why do you import your lime mortar instead of making it yourself?

lukachuki

This lady absolutely insisted on the color and texture match exactly. I don't have enough experience custom mixing and matching lime mortars to do it myself. Again a little short in the information dept.

I figured I would charge her to send it to the professionals. They break it down and copy the ingredients proportionally using the same sand etc and send it back as you know of course. I think this all started before you were around Tsc or else maybe you could've helped me do it myself. We did mix our own lime mortar for the majority of the project and then tuckpointed with the high dollar stuff.

Tim

Tscarborough

Gotcha. So long as they are paying for it, it no big deal. I have done some historical matching, here in Austin and in New Orleans, and it isn't that difficult, and is my kind of fun.

I have had an architect make me provide submittals proving that the sand used for a historical building was, in fact, genuine Colorado river sand (as though there was any other place to get sand around here), and that the lime was produced in the Austin area, even though you can not distinguish double hydrated lime from a given area with a spectroscope, much less by color. They sure didn't like it when I told them the binder used in the Capitol crown moldings and interior plaster was asbestos, though. Surprising how fast the restoration nazis backed off on that one and allowed the use of horsehair as an alternate.

lukachuki

Dennis where do you live? I just realized that I might be the guy you talked to about your house...assuming you have a home in Aiken SC... now that would be a coincidence.

The HO, first name Dennis, that I built the pierced brick wall lives in a house built circa 1908 and we are discussing the possibility of tuckpointing his poorly tuckpointed house. If you are the Dennis T. then i do feel a little like an idiot but at least you can see I hang out with knowledgable helpful masons. Surely though the world is not that small.



Tim Newcome

dennis

Tim,

Those three bricks in the top / middle / corner of the pillar in the second picture, looks like a typical repair around here. But the mortar would be a bright grey next to the old tan.

That's a good looking wall in the other thread too.

Thanks for the explanation on how you charge. ( such a long winded explanation qualifies you to be the boss )

BTW, I'm in Ohio

1over2

We have had to make our own lime mortar by building a lime kiln and burning down the local limestone or oyster shells into lime putty. Any one ever laid brick or stone with a hot lime mix? Very cool.

Tscarborough

That is what most New Orleans lime mortar was made from: Oyster shell lime.

Hot lime is what pretty much all of the old mortar was made from. To make it, just take double hydrated dry lime (type S lime), cover with water for a week and you have hot lime. So long as it is kept covered with water, it will store for as long as you need it. The best way to do it is to put the dry lime in 5 gallon buckets about 3/4 full, cover with paper to avoid disturbing the lime, and add water to the rim. Do not stir it, as you will get lumps and globules (unless you are trying to match those lumps and globules in poorly made old mortar). Just let the water soak on in.

As I have said before, however, there is no reason whatsoever to try and "match" the lime part of the mortar. Any double hydrated lime is indistinguahable from any other, modern or old. All you have to match are the other ingredients of the mortar:

Sand/other aggregate
Brick dust or other materials intended to gauge the mortar
Binders like asbestos, horsehair, or manure

After you ID the materials in the makeup, you have to put the hoe to the mud to adjust the porportions to match in color, if not in compostition.

1over2

Actually we made the hot lime mix by putting quick lime in a mud box, coverd it up with sand and fly ash, added water. It was over 200 degrees in less than 10 minutes. Perfect for laying cold damp stones on a dreary morning in Ireland.