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I am going to begin some repairs to the brick foundation walls of my 1890s farm house. Mostly it will be tuck-pointing where mortar has crumbled out, but some of it will be replacing some bricks that have come loose. We have loads of old bricks from a porch foundation wall that crumbled. We pulled & stacked all the old brick and replaced the porch foundation with poured concrete pillars.

I know to chip out any loose mortar so the new stuff has something solid to hold on to, instead of having a firm hold on a loose chunk.

At my local big-box, I've seen type S and type N mortar. Does it matter which type I use for this repair work?

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Type S is what you'd want.

Type N is a mortar that fares well above ground, but has a relatively low compressive strength. Most common applications would be things like brick/stone veneers, but it is a pretty good all-around mortar.

Type S is a much stronger (higher compressive strength) mortar and used below grade for things like a masonry foundation or retaining walls. The high compressive strength is needed in below grade due to the forces (soil and water for example) you might see against the foundation.

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  • I'm glad you added the description of what the different types are good for. Most of the work will actually be above dirt level outside (the brick extends up about 2 feet above grade) or inside (the crawl space side has a fair bit that needs to be touched up, too. I'm not digging anything out for below grade work.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Oct 4, 2022 at 0:24
  • This might also be helpful thespruce.com/…
    – UnhandledExcepSean
    Commented Oct 4, 2022 at 0:55
  • The Spruce link was, indeed, helpful. The type K was what I was thinking might be needed, but my house is neither ancient (in the way I think of ancient), nor historic, so that's probably not a concern.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Oct 4, 2022 at 14:35

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