Brick pointing in San Angelo TX - tight joints that keep your original brick

Maybe sand comes off on your hand when you brush the wall, or you can see daylight where a joint used to be. If the bricks themselves are cracked through or loose, that's more of a brick repair job, and we can handle both. The price of repointing mostly follows how much of the wall needs new mortar, how high it runs and whether scaffolding goes up, and how stubborn the old mortar is to cut out. The schedule turns on the weather on the wall and, if your house is in a historic district, on the city's approval. You get your own figure at the on-site estimate, once I've had my hands on your joints.

I start by walking the wall with you and scratching joints to see how far back the mortar has gone and how much of the wall is worn, and when a big share of it is, I'll lay out whether doing the whole wall beats patching spots. Then we cut the old mortar out to an even depth, and on older brick we take our time with it, because preservation guidance says hand removal with chisels and mash hammers takes more labor but usually carries the least risk of damage to historic brick and gives the best result. We mix new mortar to suit the old, pack the joints full in layers so there are no hollow pockets behind the face, tool them to the profile your wall already has and clean the brick before we pack up.

Worn joints are sometimes the symptom and not the problem. Cracks that step up through the mortar can mean part of the house is moving, and that calls for foundation repair before any fresh mortar goes in. If the bad joints are up on the chimney and water is getting in around it, that's chimney repair, and I can look at both when I come out.

If your house sits in one of San Angelo's historic districts, the city requires a Certificate of Appropriateness before any exterior alteration, restoration or rehabilitation, and the same goes for changes to a landmark or district building that show from the street and affect the district's look. That certificate comes from the Design and Historic Review Commission or the Planning Director, and like-for-like work that uses the same material and design as the original, with no structural changes, can be reviewed and decided by the Planning Director or a designee. Outside the districts, ask the city's Building Permits & Inspections office whether your job needs a permit, and when it does, we handle the paperwork with them and plan our work around the inspections.

On jobs across San Angelo and the cities around it, the joints we find worn deepest are usually on the low courses near downspouts and sprinkler heads, and around chimneys where water runs down the brick. I check those spots first, because they tell me how far behind the rest of the wall is.