Brick Repair: A Guide to Repointing Brickwork

Many aspects to consider in brick repair, but in this article, we are going to talk about repointing brickwork.

Repointing brickwork basically means to check out walls from gaps, and prepare it to be packed with fresh pointing material.

Repointing is important to help the wall, especially; external ones, to stay water, moist, and other factors resisted.

What is mortar?

Mortar is the used material to attach bricks to get them into a one wall unite, moreover; to fill the gaps in bricks, when doing a repointing job.

There are five different types of mortar, that all made up from 3 basic materials: cement, lime, and sand, but with different measurements:

· Lime mortar: it works greatly with old properties.

· Type N: 6 parts Sand, 1 part Cement, and 1 part Lime, with a strength of 750 psi (pounds per square inch).

· Type O: with 350 psi (pounds per square inch).

· Type S: with over 1800 psi (pounds per square inch).

· Type M: with 2500 psi (pounds per square inch).

Using the right type will protect not only your bricks, but also your whole building, because if mortar has higher tolerance to weather from brick, then brick will be damaged first.

Moreover; each type of mortar, is better to use at some house location due to its own psi, on the first hand; type M is highly recommended to be used at foundations, on the other hand; lime mortar is the best for repointing jobs, and almost suits all building types.

That is why; you do not have to use one type of mortar for all the house.

When to repoint brickwork?

As we said brick repair, is both checking bricks, and bricks’ joining material, to keep the whole wall one fixed unite.

However; repointing is important, as it is about 15% of wall surface, but choosing the right time, and weather will make the work easier, and help you to get the best result.

Signs that you definitely need repointing:

· When you notice ageing signs in pointing, due to weather factors.

· Your bricks are continuously wet.

· Moreover; and this is a clear sign of needing repointing for external walls, when there is a white substance on brickwork, because of water, dissolved salts, and rising damp.

Step-by-step into repointing brickwork:

All of this repointing brickwork is kind of DIY friendly if you have patient, and remember it is always better and cheaper to repair brickwork, than having to do a brick repair.

Before starting, here is a list of needed equipment:

· Chisel.

· Cement mixer.

· Pointing trowel.

· Mortar board.

· Scaffolding.

· Soft brush.

· Wire brush.

· Lime.

· Sand.

· White cement.

To do this correctly, just follow the few simple steps below:

1. Clean the wall surface:
After deciding the wall area that need repointing, now; you need to clean the surface from dust, mould, or even unwanted growing plants.
And because repointing is an untidy task, then you need to laid plastic sheets over the floor, or even; old unneeded sheets, to protect the floor from stain and keep it clean.

2. Remove remaining old mortar:
With a chisel and a hammer, start removing existing old mortar, and be careful around doors and windows, so their opening and closing will not be affected.

3. Taking care of window and door ways:
When doing a repointing job, mortar could get stuck between wall and window’s or door’s frame, and after mortar dry, it could cause the frame to move from its place, making opening and closing process harder.

1. Mix the mortar:
Now, after exposing bricks edges, and cleaning wall surface, we can start mixing mortar materials evenly to have one colour, this will include building sand, white cement, and lime mortar.

2. Work from top down:
Start applying from the top downwards, by pushing pointing hardly in the gaps, and move it right and left to fill all the lines, now let it dry, then re do the process for 2 or 3 times.
Yet; sometimes when it is a solid wall, with no damp proofing, we can do the lower half meter first to give it the needed time to dry.

3. Fill the verticals:
After filling three courses, go back to vertical joints between them, and fill it as well.
Do not worry about neat-up the filling process, thou we are going to take care of them later.

4. Remove extra mortar:
you need to leave the mortar until nearly dry, the time here depends on the weather humidity, and the wall exposers to direct sun.
Now, with a wire brush remove any mortar recessed from the wall to keep it perfect, furthermore; a wire brush could be used to clean bricks surface from any mortar stains too.

Repointing benefits:

There are many brick repairs benefits, particularly; after doing a repointing brickwork:

· By repointing your brickwork, you are not only conserving your property value, but also helping to increase it, because buyers will always look after a well-looking, and took care of property.

· Repointing brickwork, is also a way to renovate an old property with expired brickwork, this will reduce the needed maintenance work for the property and its interior work, by make it stronger toward weather factors.

· Repointing, particularly; with new waterproof materials will help your house external walls to stand against weather conditions.

· Most important repointing benefit is to protect the house structure from damage caused by stacking water, leading mortar to cause cracks.

Our team of residential maintenance experts at MS Contractor has the skills and experience to deliver quality planned preventative building maintenance services to businesses, landlords, and homeowners across London.