Humes Masonry Solutions

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Tuckpointing Projects of Years Past

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St. Louis Area Tuckpointing Projects of Years Past

St. Louis Tuckpointing Projects: Revisited!

After performing countless tuckpointing and masonry projects over the years throughout the St. Louis area, we often find ourselves in neighborhoods where we have already worked, often by referral. It is always exciting to revisit projects we completed years ago and see them as beautiful and intact presently as the day we left.

We wanted to take a moment to show you a few current snapshots of projects we have recently stumbled back across while working on neighboring homes and businesses!

Below are a few current pictures of past completed St. Louis tuckpointing projects.

Dogtown Tuckpointing

Year: 2008

The first two are from St. Louis’ Dogtown neighborhood; a home we completed in the Spring of 2008. We repointed the complete home in a concave joint profile with a dark buff color. The window sills and other decorative brickwork were tuckpointed with a natural mortar color.

 

Clayton, Mo Tuckpointing

Year: 2009

The following two pictures are from a Clayton, MO home tuckpointed in the Summer of 2009. We are especially proud of this home as we were also contracted to repoint the walkway leading from the front of the home. Repointing flatwork, i.e. brick walkways, stone walkways, brick patios, stone patios, require the knowledge and experience needed to restore a product with the durability to last – especially in St. louis’ climate. Many variables factor (stone and brick type, mortar type, bonding agents, foundation, drainage, etc) in creating a system to last. As you can see, this walkway is still going strong, 5 years later! (Yeah, yeah, I should have swept the walkway a bit)

Clayton, Mo Tuckpointing

Year: 2007

The final two pics are from another Clayton, MO home completely tuckpointed in the Summer of 2007. This was tuckpointed with a concave joint profile in a red tinted mortar. Also, we historically restored the stone mortar joints with a ribbon joint to enhance the beauty and provide some geometric order.

Thanks for taking a moment to check out a couple of our tuckpointing projects of years past! We will continue to post more as we come across them, for those who are interested in bricks and mortar o_O  We love feedback…feel free to leave comments below!

And remember, we offer free, no obligation tuckpointing and masonry estimates and consultations!

-Terry

 

 

 

 

 

St. Louis Turns the Big 2-5-0!

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Celebrate St. Louis’ Historic Brick Heritage

250 Years Young

St. Louis is 250 years old this year, and birthday celebrations are happening all over town. But did you know that your historic brick home might be one of the best examples of St. Louis tradition and heritage. We are a city built from brick, and that’s something to celebrate. So what makes St. Louis brick so special? Lots of cities build with brick. It’s durable, strong and relatively easy to maintain . . . but it isn’t always pretty. Here in St. Louis, it’s the decorative brickwork–the variations in brick colors, brick patterns and architectural styles throughout our city–that sets us apart.

St. Louis’ Brick

Historic Lemp Brewery Brick Silos

Historic Lemp Brewery Brick Silos

It all started during the Industrial Revolution. With underground clay deposits all over the city, masons and bricklayers of the 19th century had easy access to the raw materials they needed to make brick quickly, easily and right at the building site. Not only did St. Louis become a leading manufacturer of brick for Western, Midwestern and Southern states, but we had plenty of brick to build our own city strong. And since we didn’t have to pay to have our brick delivered, we were able to put our resources into decorating and designing our brick structures. So while other cities sometimes had to make do with a simple brick boxlike building, St. Louis bricklayers, architects and masons could create beautiful buildings throughout the city–homes, apartment houses, churches, schools, taverns and industrial buildings. Even the humblest of brick buildings in St. Louis might be decorated with distinctive and ornate brickwork like cornices, arches, glazed brick, textured brick and masonry sculpture.

Preserving Heritage with Historic Tuckpointing and Restoration

historic st. louis tuckpointing in the Skinker-Debaliviere neighborhood

Historic Skinker-Debaliviere Tuckpointing & Restoration – Humes Masonry Solutions

If you’re lucky enough to own an historic St. Louis brick home, you know the necessity of regular maintenance. It is important to check your exterior walls, parapets and chimneys for crumbling mortar, cracked bricks or deteriorating bricks, to keep your home or business safe from moisture. But you can’t trust just anyone with your classic St. Louis home. Older masonry needs a little extra TLC. The color variations and design elements need to be carefully matched and cared for. And your home needs to be treated with the respect it deserves. Our team of licensed and fully insured masonry specialists provides tuckpointing and brick repair services that match the needs of historic St. Louis buildings. Contact us today for a free historic tuckpointing or decorative brickwork repair consultation and estimate.

 

Brick, Tuckpointing…and the Polar Vortex?

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St. Louis Winter and It’s Effect on Your Brick & Tuckpointing

Is Tuckpointing or Brick Repair in Your Future?

 

St. Louis’ Climate: Ice Age to Heat Wave, and Repeat

What a tremendous year of cold, snow, and ice! It is fair to say the winter of 2014 is one to forget. It’s only February, we are only half way there! The freeze and thaw of a typical year in St. Louis is brutal, this year is exponentially worse, and I’m not reflecting about the morning walk to your car.

St. Louis weather’s propensity for being highly irregular wreaks havoc on your masonry walls. Masonry units, i.e. bricks, block, and stone, have varying degrees of porosity and when they freeze the moisture they are retaining freezes. In St. Louis, of course, one might have a parka on one day and shorts the next! This constant freeze and thaw is devastating to your brick home’s tuckpointing; this repetitive cool weather contractions and warm weather expansion eventually will cause your brick to crack or spall (it looks as though the “faces” peel off) or the mortar joints may begin to crack. If constructed  or previously repaired properly, the mortar joints will fail first. Repointing, commonly nowadays referred to as tuckpointing, the mortar joints is a much less expensive process than replacing the brick or stone itself.  The following photo illustrates a chimney with the aforementioned spalled and damaged brick. Notice how the “faces” seem to have peeled off and now needs brick repair.

 The depth of water retention and freeze results in the depth of spalling of the brick.

Spring Inspections

Although this freeze and thaw is especially hard on chimneys, it abuses parapets, walls, and all other masonry structures as well. The deterioration and crack patterns on walls are dependent on a variety of structural issues such as the wall configuration and number and locations of openings. If your walls, chimney, or parapets have not been addressed in a few years, or the chimney and crown inspected, this spring would be a good time to have a professional St. Louis tuckpointing and masonry company inspect it. By Spring, the freeze cycles are ending, and inspection, diagnoses, and repairs can safely begin.

Spring is an optimal time to evaluate and address these issues.  We offer no obligation, free inspections and estimates. Contact us today!

 

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