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Brick & Masonry, Home Improvement Library
The mortar mix you see in those bags or tubes is probably not going to match your existing mortar in color and strength. This is especially true if your house was built prior to the 1950’s. Houses built prior to the 1950’s “usually” used site-mixed mortars...
Brick & Masonry, Cleaning, Home Improvement Library, Painting
Cleaning Paint Streaks Off Brick I believe this is the white pigment from the powder coating on the metal siding that is washing down onto your brick. Yes, you can remove the streaks yourself but this will continue to be a persistent problem until the siding above is...
Brick & Masonry, Cleaning, Home Improvement Library
White Stuff on Brick is Efflorescence Q: What is the white stuff developing on the bricks of my home?A: What you are experiencing is efflorescence. Efflorescence is a white crystalline or powdery, often fluffy/fuzzy deposit on the surface of masonry materials like...
Brick & Masonry, Home Improvement Library, Insulation
Insulate the Inside Walls of a Solid Masonry Brick House Yes it will. It will also diminish the size of the room the thickness of each wall you build. You will need to fir out the jamb thickness of each door, window, and base board that gets re-installed. As the wall...
Brick & Masonry, Concrete, Foundation, Home Improvement Library
The cause of the crack is expansion of the brick usually from sunlight or summer heat. The brick is usually a different color than the white concrete foundation and therefore expands and contracts at a different rate than the concrete. During the heat of the summer...
Brick & Masonry, Home Improvement Library, Painting
Once the brick is painted it is difficult to remove all the paint. The paint absorbs into the brick mortar and does not easily come off. Painting brick is much more common because brick colors often date the house and may need color updating. The vision and value of...
Brick & Masonry, Concrete, Home Improvement Library
Paver bricks are substantially more attractive and more costly than standard white concrete. Brick pavers are considered a premium surface. Pavers also offer the ability to repair, re-grade, remove & replace the pavers in shifting soil condition without having to...
Brick & Masonry, Cleaning, Home Improvement Library, Painting
Solutions include scraping heavy deposits of paint off the brick, wire brushing the rest of the solid paint off the brick, and burning the residue off the brick with a torch, heat gun or Bernzomatic flame. Solvents are not good for this purpose because they turn the...
