How to Tuckpoint Brick

Water, snow and ice erode both brick and mortar. Perhaps the most damaging of the three is ice. Water that soaks into the mortar between brick can and does freeze. Water expands as it freezes and this expansion causes the tiny sand and cement paste particles to detach and fall away.

It takes years for this to happen, but over time, you'll see mortar joints that are crumbling, they're more recessed than you remember them to be years ago and they may be softer.

It's not too late to tuckpoint your brick before the bitter temperatures brought by Old Man Winter settle in. The best part is that it takes a minimum of tools and supplies to tuckpoint brick. Only attempt this job if the air temperature will not drop below 32 F for at least 48 hours after you place the new mortar.

Degree of Difficulty:

Step One: Go to the most remote part of your house, that place you rarely look at, to begin this job. You want to make any mistakes here, not near your front door. Use a narrow cold chisel and a hammer to tap out any loose mortar being careful not to chip the brick. Wear safety glasses, work gloves and work slowly. Brush out all loose mortar and remove all dust.

Step Two: Where the existing mortar is still in good shape, take a very close look at it. Use a standard 4-inch magnifying glass. You'll quickly notice the mortar is made up of tiny grains of sand of different colors. You may have red, orange, black, gray, and brown sand grains in the mortar. Try to determine a rough percentage of each color. Pay attention to the color of the mortar paste in-between each of the sand particles.

Step Three: Visit a local gravel pit that sells sand to bricklayers. If you don't know where this is, visit a brickyard and ask them. You want to get several five gallon buckets of clean sand that's not only the same size sand particle as is in your mortar, but you want the colors of the sand to be as close as possible. This step is the most important if you want your tuckpointing work to match your existing mortar as close as possible.

Step Four: Purchase a bag of brick mortar mix from the brickyard. Look at the sample color charts they have and get one as close as possible to your mortar color. Remember, here you're just trying to match the color of the mortar paste in between each of the sand grains in your mortar.

Step Five: Gather the needed tools to install the new mortar. You'll need a regular V-shaped mortar trowel, a narrow 3/16-inch tuckpointing trowel and some sort of jointing tool. Most mortar joints have some type of profile that was given to them while the mortar was still wet when your house was built. You want to match this profile and the brickyard store will sell all sorts of different jointing tools.

Step Six: It's time to mix the mortar. Mix two parts of the sand to one part of the powdered mortar. Do NOT purchase premade mortar mix from a home center. This is for new work and it will NOT match. Don't fall into this trap. Blend the sand and mortar dry and then add enough water so the mix resembles a not-so-wet applesauce. You want it wet, but not so wet it runs off the trowel.

Step Seven: Take a stiff brush and brush away any loose mortar from where you're going to tuckpoint. You want the area dust-free. Spritz the mortar joint with a fine mist of water using an old spray bottle. Don't get the brick and mortar joint too wet.

Step Eight: Get some mortar on the V-shaped trowel and hold it next to a horizontal mortar joint that needs to be filled. Use the narrow tuckpointing trowel to push the mortar into the joint so it's completely flush with the face of the brick. Wait about 15 minutes and use the jointing tool to smooth the mortar so it matches the existing.

Summary: It takes some practice to not smear the mortar all over the brick. Take your time as it's very hard to clean the mortar from the brick. Next spring wash the tuckpointed mortar joints with a muriatic acid solution - 1 part acid to 10 parts water - to wash off the mortar paste from the sand. Rinse with clear water. Once dry, your new mortar should match the old very well if you got the right sand and powdered mortar!

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