Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Right Mortar and Brick Patches

I was wrong! I'll always admit when I am wrong, and wrong I am. I'm VERY happy that I am wrong this morning.

The new mortar is NOT cement based mortar. It IS a premixed lime and sand mortar, so it does look slightly different. It SHOULD cure to the same color... funny how 1 day of curing in 100 degree weather ages it faster than 3 days of 40 and 50 degree weather. Our mason was very nice and walked me through their whole process again.

I wanted to show off the brick patches he's done on the house. Remember all of the nail holes?

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We tried many different patches, and settled on a patch made by mixing the mortar with brick dust, patching, and dusting the patch with brick dust. There are two patches in the picture below:

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I'm quite happy with them. From more than 2 feet away, you can't see them at all, and from the street it looks like a different house!

3 comments:

NV said...

Jennifer -- I am SO happy that this is the case! And, I have to say I wondered about this. After all the mortar I used over the summer on the porch and the walkway, I can tell you that the color definitely does change!

StuccoHouse said...

Looks great! Glad the it turned out well.

Anonymous said...

Hooray! I'm so glad this turned out for you. It somehow restores my faith that any of this is possible at all.