Metro Detroit’s Masonry Q&A Hub

Over the winter I started noticing gaps opening up between some of the bricks on the back of my house and now little chunks of mortar are ending up on the ground. Is that something that can turn into a bigger problem if I leave it alone?

Answer

Definitely. Once mortar starts breaking apart, water keeps getting farther into the wall every time it rains. We’ve repaired a lot of homes in Troy where the rear walls get hammered by weather year after year, especially on homes that don’t get a lot of sun on that side. We grind the loose mortar out, refill the joints properly, and seal everything back up before the bricks start shifting or loosening. If it sits too long, the damage usually spreads into a much larger section of the wall and the repair gets more expensive. Catching it early usually keeps it to a straightforward tuckpointing repair instead of brick replacement later on.

Why do cracks keep coming back in the mortar between the bricks on my porch after being repaired? I put some mortar in the cracks myself but the mortar I put in either cracks or falls out again…what am I doing wrong?

Answer

You’re not fixing the problem, you’re just covering it up. If the original mortar is already failing, packing a little new mortar into the surface won’t bond properly, so it either cracks again or pops right back out.

On top of that, if the joints weren’t ground out or properly prepared before you added new mortar so it has nothing solid to grab onto. We’ve seen this a lot in Royal Oak. Porches take a beating from weather and movement, and once that cycle starts, surface fixes don’t hold.

The right way to do it is to grind out the joints to a proper depth, remove all the loose material & clean it properly, and then repack the new mortar correctly, as well as tool it out at the right time or you’ll end up with messy smears all over. If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep chasing the same cracks over and over. We know people like to DIY projects at home but maybe masonry is something you might want to consider letting a professional take a look at it for you?