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Mortar Repair

If you find yourself with mortar cracks around your home, your primary plan should not be to ignore them.  If you've experienced foundation shifting and you've had that corrected, or if the movement was so slight that no correction was needed, you certainly need to have the cracks repaired.  Many homeowners are unaware that the even have cracks due to either in out-of-sight areas, or simply too busy to notice. 

When your looking to purchase a home, many home inspectors fail to closely inspect the exterior of the home brickwork and many times the new homeowner unknowing buys a home that needs serious foundation repairs.  As a seller, the same hold true, don't scare off potential buyers by having cracks in your brick and mortar work.

The much-needed repair should not be left to a handyman or an inexperienced person.  Many mortar cracks have been repaired only to look much worse that before being repaired.  I've seen many times that we are unable to undo a bad repair and requires more extensive methods of repair. No one in the profession can guarantee a perfect match of mortar color, but an experienced technician mason can get so close that homeowners are impressed.  This is what we are all about and we pride ourselves on it.


Mortar Quality

Mortar quality is affected by a few factors.  The brand quality, ratio of sand mixture and viscosity.  Many homebuilders don't purchase the better brands of mortar due to cost concerns.  There is certainly a difference in the best to the worst but only a minor difference in cost.  For instance, brands that are considered in the industry as good are TXI, Lonestar and Alamo.  The amount of sand can have a great impact on mortar strength. Too little sand will make the mortar brittle.  Too much sand will make the mortar erode much faster. 

Causes of Cracks

Shifting in wall, or building structure and vehicle impact are the two primary causes of mortar cracks.  Eliminating vehicle impacts can be made quite easily in most cases, but how do you stop wall or building shifting.  Soil movement can result from many factors.  Other than earthquakes, the primary ingredient for soil shifting is water content.  The expansion and contraction of soils can best be controlled by controlling the water content in the soil.  The goal should be for every homeowner to “not let their soil get too wet and stay wet, and not let it get too dry and stay dry”.  When soils go back and forth between these stages, there will always by shifting of the soil under and around a home. The best way to help in this battle is rain gutters, good functional rain gutters all the way around you home and French drains to control and divert the water away from the home.