Replacing Bricks and Pointing

Strangely, I'm feeling a Pink Floyd moment coming on...

Actually, this weekend was a chance to REALLY get my brain around the mortar, pointing up, and historically appropriate mortar thing.

See, we had some deteriorating bricks on the un-painted side of the house and we were thinking that we needed to get on the worst of those bricks. You can see one of the ones I left un-done this weekend below.


Why did I leave that poor "water damaged" brick when I was right there working on two others? Well, I'll tell you why. Those bricks are TOUGH. I mean, HARD. SOUND. You'd think that a spalled brick such as that would have been soft and crumbly. You'd be wrong. There was damned little wrong with the bricks that they built this house from.

So what was with those deteriorated brick? Mortar. HARD mortar. HARD to chisel out.

Mortar used to be sacrificial. That is, it was meant to to fail before the brick does. Mortar is easy to replace. Brick is not so easy to replace. An old brick home is designed to aspirate an water that gets in. BUT water, brick, and mortar expand and contract at different rates as we go through freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw cycles.

So what happened, as far as I can tell, is that some time long ago, maybe 40, 50, or even 60 years ago, someone did a bunch of brick work and really packed the mortar in around these bricks. And they used very hard mortar. As a result, when the brick got moist and then froze, there wasn't any place for it to expand to, and so the front of the brick cracked and then crumbled.

That's the bad news. The good news is that a lot of those bricks look bad but are just fine--very hard and sound. Of course, if I care about how they look, then I've got a very tough task ahead of me if they are all as sound as these three were. I spent 4 hours cutting out 3 bricks and replacing them. I hit my hand with a brick hammer at least 2 dozen times. I can bring in a hammer drill, and I will, I suppose, but this task is not the cake-walk I expected.

In any case, onward. So we don't have this problem again in the future, I made doubly sure that my mortar was soft enough. I came to the conclusion that my prior mix was still way too hard for what I want to do. The trick is to use less than 20% portland vs. your portland+lime mix. Here's what I used:

1 Part Type N Mortar
2 1/2 Parts Lime
5 Parts Sand
Dye to taste



Why dye? Well, lime and Type N are both rather grey. This doesn't look much like the existing mortar and is thus unaesthetic. A little bit of putty colored concrete dye really makes the mortar almost invisible and if you use sand that is close to what is already there, it completes the illusion.

So, here's the step by step.

To replace bricks

1) chisel out as much mortar as you can,
2) using a small or even pointed chisel, break the brick and pry out pieces.
3) chisel out any remaining mortar and make sure the cavity is clean and sound.
4) size the cavity vs. the replacement brick. All bricks are not the same size.
5) either spray the brick with water or use a wetter mortar mix--those bricks suck up water.
6) don't over-pack the cavity with mortar. You want to seal the brick in, but you don't really want mortar between the inside and the outside course of bricks. It's Ok to leave a pretty good air pocket behind the mortar and the brick.
7) smooth the mortar with a pointing trowel. If you need to, you can lightly spray the mortar with water to create a neat finish.
8)After the mortar sets for a bit, come back with a brush and a spray bottle and knock off any excess mortar on the face of the brick.

The tools I used were a standard triangular trowel, a pointing trowel, and a rectangular trowel. The latter was best for mixing mortar in the bucket. The pointing trowel was great for getting into the gap between the bricks and for pushing mortar off the triangular trowel and into the wall.

One last tip: if you are pointing, start someplace that's hard to see. You'll be messier when you start, and will get better as you go.

Bricking up the superfluous livingroom door

OK, last post for the day, then we go play *house*

The living room (which used to be the old kitchen) has two exterior doors. The intention was to be able to have external access to the second and third floors so that the house could be rented out as a two-unit. Since we are making this a single family home once again, we just don't need a fourth door on the first floor, nor two doors in a modest sized living room.

OK, now the funny *look what the previous owners did* moment:

The original kitchen, awful as it was, was in the rear (North) of the house. The kitchen sink and cabinets were seated on the East and North walls.

In the picture above, what you're looking at is the Northeast corner. The exterior East wall.

Guess what's on the other side of this wall.

I'm betting you didn't guess an exterior door and window, but there it is.

Yes, the old owners just drywalled straight over top of the door and window, stuffed the space with crappy insulation and left it that way.

With the broken window, you could reach in and pull out the insulation. That also is how the stray cat got in to claim this house as his own before we fixed that. (the hole, not the cat.)

It's also where some of the rain came in.

I rarely say things like this, but what a freaking %$#@*& moron.

Whew. OK, now that THAT is off of my chest, back to bricking up the door you see in the image above.

It was nailed shut. One nail. Freaking %$#@*&.... no... no, stay focused.

We had already purchased a new sill from Tate Building Supply in Erlanger, Ky. It was cut to spec and cost about $60. It took a day for them to cut it. Nice work, fellas. :-)

I knocked the door out, DH pried off the transom (anyone need one?) and removed all of the excess trim. We measured the height of the new window sill from the window closest to it, measuring down from the top of the frame to the edge of the existing sill and marked this height (from the top of the doorway frame) down. This is where we cut the door frame off.

Then to get a level line, we used a string and a line level to set the first course of bricks over the existing door steps. (We decided it would be easier just to keep them than remove them and open a whole new can of worms.) The top step was really worn, and in order to keep with the existing g level of bricks, the first course had to be half-height. So with our trusty brick hammer and brick chisel, we scored each brick all the way around lengthwise, then wonked on the brick to cut it in half. This worked about half the time, laying waste the remaining bricks in a pile of devastated rubble.

The cement mortar mixture was about a 2-1 ratio of cement to coarse sand with a bit of lime, and since we were using the old bricks from the fireplace, old bricks are VERY moisture absorbing. The first mixture I made was far too dry. It needed to be the consistency of melted milkshake, and I needed to move fast. Once set in place, the bricks wicked off all of the mixture within about 40 seconds. This means that you dry fit everything, measured for plumb and level, and moved quickly or you were scraping mortar off of a lot of bricks to start over. I did that a lot at first, but I really wanted the new bricks to match up to the existing bricks on the exterior.

Once the first course was down over the steps (the half-height course) then the remainder just needed to be level, and using approximately the same height of mortar as the existing wall.

It took a lot longer than I expected it would. After finishing the first side, we called it a day. I finished up the inside wall (who cares what THAT looked like anyway) the following day.

The inside run went a lot quicker, since it didn't need to be visually attractive as it would be covered with foam insulation, drywall, etc. We'd never see it. The one important key here is that we did need to have a small gap between the two walls for wicking air and moisture away from the the historic bricks (just like the other walls were built). Cementing them together would have just caused problems. I gave it about a 1/2" gap between the walls.

Once we had the inside run, we needed to connect the two walls with a course of bricks turned 90* to add strength. We matched this run with the existing run along the house.

Once the perpendicular course was in place, we were ready to insert the sill and give the whole thing a dry fit.


We planned for a 10-15 degree tilt towards the outside for rain runoff and gave ourselves a 1/4" of mortar to seal it in. We didn't want to set it on the uncured brick wall, so we decided we'd set it in place on the third day.

The next day, we returned to the site to set the sill in place. We thought this would be the easiest part.

WRONG.

We needed to make several little cuts to the brick in order to fit the sill in place correctly, as the sill is about 2" wider than the actual opening for the window. Four bricks (two on the exterior and two on the interior) needed to have just the corners cut out. Hubby went to work on the cuts with the grinder. Like butter, I tell ya.

At first I was trying to use the brick hammer and the chisel to cut the bricks but it just knocked out a few bricks I didn't want to knock out and caused havoc on the rest.



Anyway, the grinder worked like a charm, the cuts were nice and even, and the sill fit in beautifully. We layered in a big glop of milkshake mortar and slid the sill in place.

There were still small gaps underneath the limestone sill, which we just pushed the mortar underneath with our fingers until it was packed in. (Note from DH: latex gloves are cheap by the box and they really save the hands from caustic lime and abrasive sand, brick, and stone).

Then we set the rest of the cut bricks on top of the sill at the corners, then set the OSB plank in behind and secured it in place until the new windows arrive.

Not too bad, and should look just fine once it's painted, which is also coming along nicely... but that's another post and I've reached my daily limit.

Before:
















After.
:-)

Stop by later to see a better "after" shot. We'll add it to this post.

Also, DH thought we should try to pad the budget, (becasuse we NEED it!) so we're entering this post in a contest at Houseblogs.net, so here goes the gratuitous plug so everyone else can play, too:

www.StartRightStartHere.com “This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by True Value.”

That was easy enough. Heck, the easiest project all week!

What happens when you use the wrong mortar on brick

Hubby previously mentioned 'spalling' of brick caused by using a mortar mix that was too hard for the bricks to expand and contract, causing the surface of the brick to shatter, and eventually disintegrate. I took some photos of our brick and of a brick house built within 6 months of our home in the same neighborhood.

Ok, kids, let's play 'Bad Mason/Good Mason'.

Bad Mason:













Up at the top of this wall, the sparrows have dug small nests into the brick where they've dug out the soft brick.














Below: good Mason: Puuuuuurdy brick. :-)

Pointing Up and Mixing Mortar

Old brick is soft. We have old brick. We are repainting, so any pointing that should be done needs to be done now. Because the brick is so soft, we cannot use standard, "Type N" Mortar. It won't give and when the brick expands and contracts or takes on water, the mortar will hold fast and brick will spall. So, we need a more historically appropriate mortar, like "Type O" or even "Type K"

"Type N" mortar (i.e. what Quikrete sells as Mortar) should consist of six cups of sand, one cup of lime and one cup of Portland. A "Type O" mortar should consist of 2 1/4 to 3 times as many cups of sand as portland and lime. "Type O" should have 1.25-2.5 times as much lime as portland. "Type K" should have 2.5-4 times as much lime as cement.

What I did was take 2 cups of "type N" mortar and added 1 cup of lime and 3 cups of sand (of a fairly coarse and thus similar to original variety) to the mortar. Then, to toughen it up just a tad, I add another 1/2 cup of portland, or perhaps a bit less. So I end up with:

3/4 cup portland
1 1/4 cups lime
4 1/2 cups of sand

IMPORTANT ADDENDUM:

After doing more research, we've found that you can use lime in much greater quantities if it is finer. Not only that, but it's both easier to work with AND plenty tough. We also found that we were using WAY TOO MUCH PORTLAND. Fortunately, it was just shallow pointing and protected from water. The key thing to remember is no more than 20% portland to portland+lime.

Here's the recipe I used much later when replacing bricks:

1 part Type N Mortar
2 1/2 parts Lime
5 parts sand

We also added a teaspoon of putty colored dye. This makes the mortar almost invisible next to many older mortars. You can use a little less lime or a little less sand just watch that ratio of portland to lime.

More portland adds strength, but loses flexibility. There's a delicate balance. Too hard, and you damage your brick or worse. Too soft and you'll be doing the whole process again soon. I probably could have skipped the additional portland but I fear that it would take far too long for this relatively weak "type K" mortar to set up and we need to paint soon.

I'm pre-mixing the dry ingredients first, and keeping them in a left over kitty litter bucket with a lid. Then the painter can take out what he needs, add water to that, slake, and then go to town.

I did a test and with the larger, browner sand and the lime, this looks almost identical to what I have in there from 100 years ago. Not bad. Of course, the proof is in the pudding. We'll see how it looks prior to paint and after.

If you try to do this yourself, you'll want to read up on technique and get a few tools, but from what I've seen, getting the recipe down is probably the toughest part.














Below are pictures of the mortar only a few hours after application. The image above was of the same mortar mix, but which has cured for 24 hours.