Does Your Home Need Tuckpointing or Repointing?

Many houses in Canada have stood for more than a hundred years. Extreme weather from our cold and wet winters lead to the gradual degradation and erosion of the bricks and mortar that form the walls of those houses. The warm days and cold nights of late fall, winter, and early spring lead to water saturating your masonry, liquid during the daytime, and then expanding at night once the water freezes. This loosens the masonry, bringing about a need for repairs.

What is Tuckpointing or Repointing?

Tuckpointing is the industry name for what is more accurately known as re-pointing. It is the replacement of eroded or deteriorated mortar on your masonry walls. Using a pointed bag with a small hole cut on one end, you can apply fresh mortar (mixed to a smooth texture) to the joints found in between the bricks. Once the mortar has dried, the mason will carefully pack the mortar into the joint ,with a wooden dowel or metal jointing tool, and shape the joint to blend in with the rest of the wall. Once this is done, brushing the small, loose particles of mortar off the wall finishes off the process, leaving the mortar to completely cure which usually takes twenty four hours.

Why do You Need Tuckpointing?

Masonry walls are made up of brick and mortar. The mortar is softer than the bricks and generally is found to deteriorate more quickly than the bricks on your wall. When this happens, it is necessary to get work done on your home so that the damage doesn’t worsen and lead to potentially more work at a greater expense.

 

Blending the Old with the New

Wilkens Masonry specializes in tuckpointing and in blending the new mortar with the old. There are dozens of mortar colour tints available, and our trained masons have become Toronto’s best at finding the right colour and tint when tuckpointing walls. Part of the method involves finding a blend that starts off dark enough so that it will dry to the best match. As mortar dries, it usually lightens up, so there is a certain aspect of guesswork involved with achieving the final colour.

More Benefits

The obvious benefits for your home, once tuckpointing has taken place, are an overall aesthetic improvement, as well as prevention of further deterioration of the mortar and bricks, which can incur much higher costs. However, if there is enough damage to your walls, tuckpointing can actual help the energy efficiency of your home. Heat in the winter and cold in the summer can leak out through the tiny gaps in your masonry and lead to drafts and overall higher cost to maintain the temperatures we have all grown accustomed to.

Get Your Toronto Home Tuckpointed or Repointed

Call Wilkens Masonry at 416 425 8055 or request a free estimate online. We will respond right away and have someone evaluate your masonry needs with a no obligation quote.