Masonry That Protects the Brick in Winston-Salem, NC
The mortar is supposed to be the soft part. We match the mix to the brick, grind the joints out to depth, and tool them to the profile that was there before.
The Mortar Is Meant to Be the Soft Part
If you take one thing from this page, take this: mortar should always be softer than the brick it sits between.
A masonry wall moves. It expands in July, contracts in January, settles over decades. The mortar joint is the sacrificial component — the part designed to absorb that movement, crush a little, and be replaced in fifty or eighty years. That is a cheap, ordinary repair.
Repoint a soft old brick with a hard modern Portland-cement mix and you invert the relationship. The joint no longer yields, so the movement has to go somewhere, and it goes into the brick. The faces spall off. And unlike a mortar joint, a spalled brick face cannot be put back — the brick has to be cut out and replaced, or the wall lives with it.
This is not a fringe opinion; it is settled practice among conservators. It is simply not what a homeowner gets told, because the lime-rich mix and the extra care cost more than a bag of standard mortar and a quick afternoon.
- ✓We ask what the brick is before we quote the mortar
- ✓Lime-rich mixes on pre-1930 work, as a matter of course
- ✓Colour, sand and profile matched to the original joint
- ✓Portland-cement mortar where it belongs — and only there
What We Do
We don't lay block for new foundations and we don't do concrete flatwork. Brick, stone and the repair of both is the whole trade here.
Around Winston-Salem and the Triad
The Direction of the Crack Is the Diagnosis
Masonry is unusually legible. Where a crack runs, and whether it goes through the brick or around it, narrows the cause down a very long way before anyone opens a wall.
Stair-stepping along the joints
A crack that zig-zags down the mortar lines usually means one part of the building has settled relative to another. Follow it to the low end and you are normally looking at water — a downspout discharging at the footing, a grade falling toward the house, a failed drain.
Straight through the brick faces
A crack that splits brick rather than following joints means the force beat the strength of the unit itself. That is a bigger conversation, and it is the case where we bring in an engineer rather than guess.
Vertical, near a corner or a long run
Often thermal. Long masonry walls need somewhere to expand, and if nobody built in a relief joint the wall makes its own at the weakest point. Frequently stable, frequently cosmetic — but worth confirming rather than assuming.
Horizontal, low in a foundation wall
The one to take seriously. A horizontal crack in a basement or foundation wall suggests lateral pressure from saturated soil pushing in. Ring somebody. That includes ringing somebody who isn't us if we're a fortnight out.
Fine cracks radiating from a window head
Usually a lintel doing less than it used to — steel angle rusting and swelling behind the brick, or a segmental arch that has lost its mortar. Repairable, and better repaired before the head drops.
Send Us a Photo of the Wall
Half the questions we get can be answered from one good picture and the age of the building. If it needs a visit we'll say so, and if it doesn't need anything yet we'll say that too.
White Powder, Flaking Faces, Crumbling Joints
These look related and get treated as one problem. They are three different things, with three different levels of urgency.
White powder — efflorescence
Soluble salts carried to the surface by water moving through the wall and left behind when it evaporates. The deposit itself is harmless and brushes off. What it tells you is that water is travelling, which is worth understanding — but it is not damage and it is not urgent.
Flaking faces — spalling
The brick's fired outer skin breaking away, exposing the softer body underneath. Water got in, froze, and expanded. Once the face is gone the brick absorbs water far faster, so spalling accelerates. This one matters, and hard mortar or a sealed surface is very often why it started.
Crumbling joints — mortar erosion
The joint doing exactly the job it was designed to do, at the end of its life. Normal at fifty to eighty years. Repointing is routine, unalarming maintenance — as long as it is done with the right mix and ground out properly.
Damp inside an exterior wall
Rarely the brick's fault. Usually a blocked weep, absent or failed flashing, a cracked sill, or a gutter putting water somewhere it was never meant to go. Cheap to fix once correctly identified, which is the hard part.
Painted or sealed brick
A wall that has been given a vapour-impermeable coat can no longer dry outward, so moisture leaves through the brick body instead and takes the face with it. Stripping it is slow, genuinely tedious work and there is no shortcut we know of.
A stepped crack that stopped
Old settlement that finished moving is common and often needs nothing but repointing. Whether it is still active is the question, and the honest answer sometimes needs two looks a few months apart rather than an immediate quote.
Brick Veneer Is Built to Let Water Through
On a house built in the last sixty years the brick is usually not holding the building up. It is a rain screen with a gap behind it, and it is designed on the assumption that water will get through.
The system is: water passes the brick, runs down the back face, lands on flashing at the bottom of the cavity, and exits through the weep holes — those deliberate gaps in the bottom course of mortar joints that look like sloppy work and are not.
So when a modern brick wall is damp inside, the brick is rarely the culprit. Someone mortared the weeps shut for tidiness. The flashing was never installed, or was cut short, or was lapped the wrong way. Mortar droppings filled the cavity and bridged it. And the instinct to fix damp brick by sealing or painting it makes it worse in every case, because it stops the one drying path the wall had.
This is usually a cheap repair. It is just an invisible one, which is why it gets missed.
- ✓We check weeps and flashing before quoting any damp wall
- ✓Blocked weeps opened; missing flashing installed properly
- ✓We will talk you out of sealing or painting brick
- ✓Cavity checked for mortar bridging where we can reach it
Slower Than You'd Like, and That's the Point
Repointing is priced by the square foot and paced by the weather. This is the honest sequence.
Look, and identify the brick
We work out what the brick is and how old, test a joint, and decide the mix from that rather than from habit.
Sample panel first
A small area done and left to cure so you can see the colour and profile dry before we commit to the whole wall. Wet mortar lies about its colour.
Grind out to depth
Roughly two and a half times the joint width, by hand where the brick is soft. This is the slow part and it is the part that decides whether the work lasts.
Point, tool, cure
Filled in lifts, tooled to match, then kept damp and shaded while it cures. Lime mortar in full August sun is a wasted week.
What's Written on Every Quote We Send
Masonry bids are notoriously hard to compare because the differences are invisible once the scaffolding comes down. These are the lines to look for on ours and on anyone else's.
The mortar mix, named
Type and proportions, and the reasoning — not just 'mortar'. This is the single line that most determines whether the work helps or harms the wall.
Grind-out depth in inches
Not 'repoint'. A number you can check with a screwdriver before we fill, which is exactly why we put it in writing.
Joint profile and colour match
Which profile, matched to what, and a cured sample panel you approve before the wall goes ahead.
Square footage and the area
Measured and described, so partial work is clearly bounded and nobody argues later about where the scope stopped.
Replacement brick, if any
How many, where from, and how matched. Salvaged units of the right size and colour on historic work, stated up front.
Access, protection and cleanup
Scaffold or lift, how windows and plantings are covered, and who takes the debris. Small lines that turn into arguments when they're absent.
Mostly About What We Talked Them Out Of
Two of the three masons who quoted our 1911 house wanted to repoint the whole front in a standard bagged mortar. Redmarle was the only one who asked what the brick was and explained why a hard mix would take the faces off. Four years on there is not a spalled brick on the wall.
Our chimney had a stair-step crack and I assumed the worst. They showed me it was following the joints, not through the brick, traced it to a downspout dumping at the footing, and rebuilt the top eight courses instead of the whole stack. A fifth of what I was braced for.
I had painted my brick before we moved in — nobody told me not to. They were honest that stripping it properly is slow, unglamorous work, gave me the real cost, and did not pretend there was a shortcut. The wall is breathing again.
They found four weep holes mortared shut by whoever built the addition, which is why the interior wall had been damp for six years. Opening them and flashing the sill cost almost nothing and fixed the thing three other trades had guessed at.
What Homeowners Ask Us
How much does repointing cost in Winston-Salem?
Most residential repointing lands between $12 and $28 per square foot of wall, and the spread is real: how hard the old mortar is, how soft the brick is, whether joints can be ground with a tool or have to be raked by hand, and how you reach the wall. Historic soft brick sits at the top of that range because it has to be worked by hand, slowly. A single chimney or a small patch is usually a day-rate job instead.
Do I have to repoint the whole wall?
Usually not, and we would rather you didn't. Repointing is normally done in areas — the weather elevation, the chimney, the parapet, the courses above a failed sill. Wholesale repointing of a sound wall is unnecessary work and it removes original material that didn't need removing. If a bid is for the whole house, ask why.
Should I seal or paint my brick?
Please don't. A brick wall dries outward, and a vapour-impermeable sealer or paint film closes that path. The moisture then leaves through the brick body instead, taking the fired face with it, and you get spalling that wasn't going to happen. If a wall is damp the answer is almost always flashing, weeps or a gutter — not a coating. There are breathable mineral coatings for specific cases, and they are not what's usually being sold.
What's the white chalky stuff on my brick?
Efflorescence — soluble salts brought to the surface by water and left when it evaporates. Harmless in itself; brush it off dry, or let a few rains take it. On new work it's very common in the first year. What it does tell you is that water is moving through the wall, so if it's heavy and persistent it's worth finding out from where.
My chimney has a crack. Does the whole thing come down?
Rarely. Most chimney work we do is the top few courses, the crown and the flashing — the parts taking weather on all sides. A top-down partial rebuild is a fraction of a full stack. We'll tell you where the sound masonry starts, and if it genuinely does need coming down to the roofline we'll show you why.
Can you match brick on an old house?
Usually, with salvage. Modern brick is a different size and a different colour from most pre-1930 units, so a new brick set into an old wall shows for decades. We source salvaged brick by size, colour range and texture, and we'd rather relocate original brick from a hidden elevation and put the new material where nobody looks.
How long does new mortar take to cure, and can you work in winter?
Lime-rich mortar wants weeks, not days, and it wants to stay damp and shaded while it does. That's why we keep walls covered and misted, and why a hot dry week is as much of a problem as a wet one. We stop pointing when nights are near freezing, because mortar that freezes before it sets has no strength at all.
Do you work on Old Salem and other historic properties?
Yes, and it's a good part of what we do. Historic work means lime-based mixes, hand-raking joints, matched profiles, salvaged replacement units and photographic records. If a property is under a preservation review we'll prepare the mortar analysis and sample panels that process expects.
Tell Us How Old the Building Is
That one answer decides the mortar, and the mortar decides whether the repair helps the wall or slowly damages it. A photo helps too.