Questions tagged [mortar]
Mortar is used between bricks, cinder blocks, or stone to bind them and fill any gaps. It is made from sand, a binding agent (cement or lime), and water.
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What's the best way to tile over brick?
I'm replacing an old brick hearth with tile, and wondering the best way to approach this. I've removed most of the brick except for a 48x60" area, and will be using 12x24" tiles. My plan is ...
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What is the correct tuck pointing mortar ratio for a 1907, St louis brick main support column in basement. Lime? Portland? Sand? Water? [duplicate]
The owner believes the bricks are softer bricks due to the age of the house. All the research i have done say's after 1900 most houses in this area used Portland cement, lime, and a sand mix. I just ...
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How can I repair this screw anchored into mortar?
We bought a home where the handrail for the entry steps was screwed into an anchor in the facade mortar. The anchor has pulled away and left a pretty big hole at the joint:
The front of the handrail ...
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Can I hang a hammock from a anchor in mortar?
Can I hang a hammock from mortar?
I have a hammock that I’m wanting to put up in my back yard. The only way I can achieve this is by using the brick wall and my wooden fence post. The anchor point I ...
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How much air under tile is acceptable?
We hired a contractor to do redo our tile. One had to be replaced because it caved inward when a tool was dropped on it. We peeked under the adjacent tiles and there are giant areas without mortar. ...
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Can I hang shelves on a brick wall from the mortar, not the brick? [duplicate]
We're renting a house with exposed brick walls inside, and would like to put up some shelves. The landlord doesn't want us drilling into the brick itself, but he's fine with us drilling into the ...
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Should I Save My Mortar Bed? [closed]
I am in the process of ripping up my tile floor for a guest bathroom remodel. I discovered that my floor tile was installed on top of an old school mortar bed. Huge chunks of mortar have pulled away ...
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Filling in holes between brick wall and interior window frame
So my partner and I are working to restore an old interior brick wall (about 100 years old). We have stripped off the plaster and cleared out all the loose, crumbling mortar in some sections of the ...
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Curtain rod ripped off wall
My curtain rod got ripped off the wall.
I'm not a diy person so not sure what is behind the plaster but I guess thats what needs to be sorted.
It's not a drywall as there is no cavity behind it. The ...
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Will a mortar made of hydrated lime and sharp sand adhere to a fully cured portland cement substrate?
Will a mortar made of hydrated lime and sharp sand (no portland in the mix) adhere to a fully cured portland cement substrate subject to freezing temperatures in winter?
Context is bedding sandstone ...
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Re-fitting bathroom tiles - what goes behind it?
I have an issue in my bathroom. We have a window, the inside sill of which is tiled. Some of the grout around our tiles here was perished, but when beginning a re-grout, I noticed the tile was loose.
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Can I apply mortar over a bumpy, gritty texture plaster wall?
The house I live in is quite old and the renovations made ~ 15 years ago by the previous owners are of extremely(!) poor quality. It's like the people who plastered it did it with their toes. In some ...
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How do I deal with remaining mortar after removing tiles?
We're trying to reno our master bathroom, which includes the removal of existing ceramic floor tiles. Per a handy youtube video explaining how to remove them, I purchased a spiffy tool from Amazon ...
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Bathroom shower remodel old mortar stuck to concrete walls
I have removed the old tile in my shower to install new tile. The mortar is stuck on and very hard to remove. Can I smooth it out with joint compound and make a smooth as possible surface and tile ...
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What type of mortar and trowel size be used for stacked stone around gas fireplace?
Specifically, I'm installing Rockmount Stacked Stone from MSI around a gas fireplace. Using 1/2" cement board as my backer.
https://www.msisurfaces.com/stacked-stone/silver-travertine/
I've ...
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Mortar washout on brick
Moved into a home and looks as if when the retaining wall was installed they allowed the mortar to washout and stain the bricks. What we are left with is a very ugly street facing wall. Not great for ...
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What is the North American term for sand used in making mortar for laying a sandstone patio?
I've been watching Brits prepare and lay patio stone on Youtube, and have been reading blogs by Brits. They recommend using "sharp sand" to make the mortar for laying sandstone rectangles. ...
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Best way to repoint a patio with strong mortar?
In our previous home, we had a patio laid in two sections. The first time, the workmen carefully filled the gaps with pre-mixed mortar. The second time, a different workman brushed dry mortar into the ...
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Best solution for cutting out mortar bedding?
I have been putting down porcelain tiles and I noticed one was slighly loose so I manageed to lift it up so that I can put new mortar down, slurry on the tile and place it back down.
Question is what ...
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Applying mortar to cinder block foundation to repair surface damage
I have a cinder block foundation, and near the floor in my garage the parging has flaked off excessively, revealing cinder blocks with a poor surface.
My thought is to clean off any remaining parging ...
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Is it safe to parge historic interior brick basement wall with hydrulic cement at grade?
I have a historic house from 1906 with soft bricks that had water leaking through top of basement wall near ground/grade level. Opening up the basement ceiling I can see that the mortar is all gone, ...
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Water seeping through mortar in an old wall
I live in a 150-year-old building. The exterior walls are very thick brick (2 layers deep). My apartment's exterior wall has some of this brick exposed (bottom half covered by dry wall, top half is ...
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Filling mortar cracks with caulking instead of tuckpointing
I would like to paint some brick walls so I need to fix some cracks in mortar.
For bigger cracks, I removed the old mortar and tuckpointed but that is a painful, dusty and time consuming job. If I ...
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Using adhesive to attach Durock to subfloor?
Durock's official installation guide says that using adhesive with a 5/8" v-notched trowel is a possible means of laminating the board to the subfloor:
However I'm not certain which adhesive to ...
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How should cement board interface with a shower pan?
I will be building up a shower pan using the Oatey Perfect Slope pre-slope system, a 40 mil liner. and then building up a dry pack mortar bed on top of the liner. My question is what is the best ...
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Side garage door leak - voids in mortar - threshold problem?
I had an awful experience in having my home built a few years ago. I already had a window leak that ruined my floors in the living room after finding a cracked window seal that was “repaired” with ...
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Will mortar applied to my house in 29°F weather last?
My house siding was damaged from several hail storms and instead of tearing it off because it was full sheet TX43 siding in still somewhat decent condition it was more sensible to wrap over it and use ...
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How to set a sole plate on a bumpy basement floor
I need to build a wall on a basement floor. The wall will need to support significant weight so I want it to be solid. The sole plate will be secured with concrete screws. The floor is a slab; it ...
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Repairing damaged brickwork before plastering
We’ve recently had a plastered internal wall hacked off after an ongoing damp problem. The source of the damp has been rectified and external repairs are complete, but we now have to have the inside ...
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Is there any way to check if the mortar used in a fireplace is regular or high-temperature?
A technician suggested we seal our firebox with high-temperature mortar since allegedly the existing mortar used around the bricks in the firebox is regular mortar (according to him a crack already ...
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Installing a solid surface pre-formed shower base
I recently purchased a solid surface pre-formed shower base. The shower base will be placed on 3/4" plywood. The manufacturer's instructions indicate that I should set the base in thinset. I e-...
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What kind of mortar is suitable for cut surfaces of old concrete
We're going to cut up and remove a slab. I figured I might as well (attempt to) cut it into rectangles and use it for landscaping. If I wanted to mortar them together like bricks, what should I use? ...
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pointing dry stacked fieldstone foundation? [duplicate]
hoping I can get some advice on this. We have a c. 1876 house in CT that has a half brick (above grade, mostly), half fieldstone (below grade) foundation. We are planning on repointing it, using lime ...
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Can I retuckpoint my chimney or will it have to be rebuilt?
Can I retuckpoint my chimney or will it have to be rebuilt? The bricks seem solid, but the mortar is in rough shape. Thanks.
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remove mortar + cement board? or self level ontop? Bathroom Floor
I have some mortar on a cement board on my bathroom floor it seems. I want to put luxury vinyl over this. Is my best bet removing the mortar + cement board and then redoing that process? or using some ...
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Raising a thinner tile to be level with a thicker tile
I set all my tiles on the bathroom floor not realizing how much the thinset mortar would add to the height of the floor. I have a curbless shower and the tile I chose for the shower floor is half the ...
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What kind of mortar do I need to use?
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 ...
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How do I avoid this white residue around brick after my first attempt at mortar repointing?
Whole house needs to be repointing so I tried in an inconspicuous area to practice. This white residue appeared and won't come off with a wet sponge.
I'm using Spec Mix tuckpointing mortar type O. ...
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Which thinset mortar do I choose
I have painted redgard on the shower walls and I am ready to tile. Which thinset mortar do I use over the redgard? I am using 12x24 tiles on 1 wall and 4x12 on the other 2.
I am using ceramic tiles.
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How can I fill the empty space behind a bug screen installed on these stone arches?
I want to install bug screens in the open stone arches of my sunroom. I have flexible screen retainers ready to replace the wood that the previous owner roughly installed for the same purpose.
The ...
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What should I use to repair this small crack between window and stone? Is this caulk?
I’m a new homeowner and just noticed this small opening next to my upstairs window between stone and window. Is this caulk that’s used there or mortar? Any recommendations on how I should go about ...
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how to repair a concrete patio slab with crumbling edges
A brick-on-sand patio was added to the house back in the 1970s atop a poured concrete foundation that goes down 36", below frost-depth, per local code. A brick-veneer was adhered with mortar to ...
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What type of mortar for foundation blockwork below ground level?
I'm building a shed / outbuilding on some ground that is prone to water logging. I already have several concrete pads on top of which some aggregate concrete blocks will be placed to raise the ring ...
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Use mortar between OSB and old concrete subfloor, in shower?
Replacing a shower pan in a 32x32 alcove. The prior acrylic base was bedded in mortar on top of concrete subfloor. The new pan I intend to buy has an OSB and foam underside, seemingly meant for a flat ...
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What are some uses for an old Quikrete?
I have a leftover bag of Quikrete that has turned into solid rock. It was stored for several years in a damp garage. Lesson learned.
I am thinking of using it as a step base on my new shed outside. ...
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Thinset too dry before laying tile? Not dry enough?
Yesterday I laid 6x36 wood-look porcelain tile in my bedroom using a mapei ultraflex LFT thinset directly to the concrete slab. It's been 24 hours, and I am now pulling off the top tab of the spacers ...
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Do these cracks in a brick wall indicate foundation movement?
This is the back wall of my detached single garage. It's just single skin, built in the 60s and as I want to use this building as a workshop, I'm looking to spend a bit of money getting it properly ...
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Is this sand or motar?
Originally I was going to repair the joints on my 20 yo brick stairs (pic A)
As I was chipping away the broken joints I noticed a few of the joints had the consistency of wet beach sand and I could ...
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How do I self-repair a section of crumbling basement wall, or should I hire a professional?
How do I self-repair a section of crumbling basement wall, or should I hire a professional?
Background:
How I discovered it:
I removed some exposed blue foam insulation from my basement walls to ...
user138192
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O or N Mortar for Fieldstone foundation on the exterior side
My house was built in 1860 and I have a field stone foundation. I have some areas on the exterior that I need to reapply some mortar on. I know some people are using type N and adding sand and some ...
