Tried that old lime mortar mix my grandpa swore by on a 1920s chimney repair

I was fixing up a chimney on a house down near Frederick last month and figured I'd give it a shot. The mix was way softer than what I'm used to and it crumbled a bit when I was pointing it up. Learned that you gotta wet the old joints way more than I thought or the new stuff just won't bond right. Any other old timers out there still mess with lime mortar or is it just me?

2 comments

2 Comments

cole_davis478d ago

lime mortar's a whole different beast lmao. Grandpa knew his stuff but that mix is basically mud compared to modern stuff. You really gotta soak those old bricks first or it'll suck all the moisture out before it even sets. I tried it on a 1800s stone foundation once and learned the hard way when half of it fell out in chunks.

charles_coleman7d ago

Went through this exact thing back in 2018 on a farmhouse out near New Market. I remember I showed up with a whole wheelbarrow full of this lime mix and my buddy just laughed at me. He goes "you know that's gonna take like two weeks to cure, right?" I didn't believe him. But yeah he was right, same thing happened to me where half of it just fell back out after a rainstorm. The trick I figured out is you gotta mix it real sloppy wet and then keep misting it for days. My grandpa used to say lime mortar breathes like the old bricks do, makes sense for an old house but man is it fussy. I still use Portland for everything else though.