New Construction (almost).

[Paul B.]

We are getting ready to clean (masonry) this large 25K brick home. The masonry was completed about 7 months ago, which makes it interesting to start with, but it has some interesting twists that I'll get into later. This home is much further along than we would normally get involved in for new construction masonry cleaning. We are asked to clean the concrete (mud, clay and mortar), clean the bricks (mortar smears, mortar tags, efflorescence, sand), clean 15 limestone keystones (which were sloppily smeared with color mortar stains), and bring back the color of the mortar which should be a consistent maroon shade.

After cleaning, we are to seal the brick, stain the concrete foundation and stain the front porch/deck, rear porch/deck and garage porch/deck.

Let me start with this photo and a little ditty about the brick layer's helper. The young man spanned the concrete retainer wall top with some 2x6's and set a 32ft ladder on top of it to reach where no man has been before. He climbed the ladder and took the plunge. The concrete was not there at the time, which most likely saved his life. He hobbled around for a while and went off to lick his wounds. That mason was eventually fired for other reasons before the job was done. Personally, I would have fired him after the ladder incident.

[Paul B.]

Check out the sloppy mess on the keystone and the efflorescence in the mortar joints. The joint color should be a maroon shade.

[Paul B.]

This is what the color of the mortar joint should look like (consistantly) around the house.

[Paul B.]

When you are mixing colored Cemex for mortar joints, it needs to be a consistent ratio for every batch. Deviations in water amount, sand amount, freezing temperatures and rain will change the color consistancy.

It gets a bit ugly as you can see.

[Paul B.]

Is that a garage with a porch?
Or is that the "Dog House"? Beats the heck out of sleeping on the couch!

[Paul B.]

Some ugly sand on the brick by the right side window on the back porch.

[the_GUNN_man]

I used to be a brick layer and we had a few rules to go by. When working with colored mortar you should have the same person make the mud every time. This will help with different people using different amounts of ingredients. You also have to make sure you cover the sand pile as if it gets wet you get different amounts of sand on your shovel versus dry sand. Another thing to watch out for is too much mud being made at one time. You have to use the mud right away. I know alot of guys hate to make singles all the time but if you don't have enough brickies laying then you will have mud that sits around for too long and dry out. When you keep adding water to keep it wet it bleeds out the color. When masons have the mud on the boards many will temper the mud too much, this will cause the color to fade. Also you will have a horrible mess it rains while you are laying. One more factor is if the masons wait to long to strike the joints they can turn a darker color. This comes from the mortar hardening and then you use your metal striker to rub the joints and you get a blackish color coming off the striker. You have to be careful washing the Limestone. When it comes to the site sometimes it has a sealer on it already and if you use to much pressure you can turn it from a brighter grey to a dull grey. You will be blowing the sealer off. Test it on a left over piece if there is one. Might consider using a brush on the limestone.

[the_GUNN_man]

Now that I look a little closer, is that sand faced brick? If it is, have you washed it before? You have to be careful washing sand faced brick becuase you can end up making a red brick look orange when you are done.

[Paul B.]

Steve,

You described just about every mistake this person made.
He did do a few things correctly.

Seems like all we wash around here are sandfaces bricks. We limit pressure to no more than 1500 psi on rinsing.
Cleaning the Keystones are a bit of a concern to me also. I have seen them turn gray and have to be replaced (not on my watch fortunately).

[CarolinaProWash]

Why can't I see any pictures?????????

[bulletproof]

Thought I was the only one that can't see the pics.

[bill3752]

Paul, can't see the picture, but I assume the keystones are smooth Indiana limestone? If so, we sometimes sand the keystones using 50 grit sand paper, which is the grade used in finishing the stones at the manufacturer. Our normal process is the scrape off the big junks, hit with brick cleaner to pull out as much dye as possible, then sand. We either hand sand, or use an orbital.

[Paul B.]

This is an older post, but appearantly the pics were deleted when the BB went down last year. Prosoco's Vana Trol did a very nice job of removing the stain.

Scraped off the larger chunks first than applied the solution, let it dwell for 5 minutes and rinse. On a couple, a second application and brushing with a Tempico brush was required but it came out very nice.

[Paul B.]

Here are some of the "Before / After" shots.

[Paul B.]

This is the "Before / After" of the are that the mortar joints were severely
inconsistant in color. I was very pleased with the way Vana Trol cleaned and help blend the colors.