Appreciation post: picked old-school lime mortar over modern mix for a 1920s row house job

I had a choice last month on a row house in Baltimore, do I go with traditional lime mortar or just grab the standard Type N mix from the yard. Went with the lime after talking to a guy who's been doing restoration for 40 years, and man the brick just breathes better and the joints didn't shrink crack like I've seen with cement mixes. Have any of you dealt with lime mortar on old buildings and had good luck with it?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan2951mo ago

Whoa wait you actually found a mason who still mixes lime mortar on site? That's almost impossible to find around here, I thought all those guys retired or died off. Honestly I'm jealous, I've seen what the cement mixes do to old soft brick after a few years and it's not pretty.

the_oscar1mo ago

Yeah, "almost impossible to find" is exactly what I thought too. I used to be all about grabbing the bagged mix from the yard, figured the old guys were just stuck in their ways. But after seeing how much better this lime stuff actually works on soft brick, I won't be using anything else on a pre-war house again.