Home Masonry Repair And Maintenance Tips To Protect Your Home's Value

Posted on: 13 January 2020

The brick, mortar, stucco, or cement finish on your home's exterior lends a great deal to the appearance and physical condition to your home and can have a lasting effect on its value. When your home's exterior materials are not kept up they can deteriorate to the point that your home's exterior needs a large investment to get it back to good condition. Whether you are completing your home masonry repairs yourself or hiring a professional, here are some tips to help you more successfully repair and keep your home's masonry and mortar joints in great condition.

Clean Your Repair Area

The exterior of your home is exposed to a great deal of dirt, debris, and insect and bird droppings, so you will need to clean it before you can complete any repairs. The reason for this is because if you apply new mortar or caulk repair compounds to a dirty surface, the debris will prevent it from fully adhering to your home's repair area. 

Use a pressure washer with a tip that provides up to 3000 psi of pressure; a bit less if your masonry is quite old and prone to further damage. Otherwise, you can also use a plastic-bristle brush with a long handle and warm water combined with dish detergent to reach and clean all the surfaces of your brick's mortar joints. The brush bristles will also help remove any pieces of loose mortar cement from the joints. 

As you spray clean the surface of your home's exterior, work from the bottom of the area up to the top. This will keep all the surface area wet until you have fully rinsed it clean, which promotes adherence of your new mortar compound onto the repair surface.

Repair Cracks

After preparing the surface of your brick and mortar, you can begin to fill in any missing pieces of mortar with a new mortar mixture. Complete the repairs before the surface of the mortar dries, as this will help the new mortar adhere without drying out too quickly.

Be sure you match the mortar's color to your existing mortar so your patch repairs blend in with the rest of your brick exterior. Press the mortar into the cracked area with a metal trowel and smooth it over the surface within the space.

If you get any excess mortar on the surrounding brick, be sure to wipe it clean from the brick with a wet rag to fully remove all residue and prevent discoloration of your brick. Once any misplaced mortar speckles dry, they will be quite visible and can make your home's exterior look shabby. 

For more information about masonry repair, contact a company like A-1 Rooftop Chimney Sweep.

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