Mortar does not last forever. On older Milwaukee homes, the mortar joints between the bricks slowly wash out and crumble, especially up on the chimney where the weather hits hardest. Tuckpointing is the fix: grinding out the old, failed mortar and repacking the joints with fresh, matched mortar.
Signs you need tuckpointing
- Gaps, cracks or missing mortar between bricks
- Mortar you can scrape out with a key or screwdriver
- Sandy mortar dust collecting at the base
- Loose or shifting bricks
- Water getting in through the brickwork
Cream city brick
Milwaukee is known for cream city brick, the pale, cream-colored brick on many of its older homes. It is beautiful but it needs the right care. The mortar has to be matched correctly, both in color and in hardness, or the repair can do more harm than good. We tuckpoint cream city brick regularly and treat it the way it should be treated.
What we do
We grind out the failed joints to the right depth, repack them with properly matched mortar, and finish them to match the existing brickwork. The result holds up and looks right.