Pointing & Repointing in Historic Restoration
No matter what the age, size or style of a building, masonry work can be essential to proper restoration. These two terms, are defined by the Dictionary of Building Preservation, written by our own Ward Bucher, as:
Pointing: The process of placing mortar (especially colored mortar in a raked masonry joint after the units are laid; may be finished with a tooled joint or tuck pointing; sometimes used to mean repointing.
Repointing: Repairing existing masonry joints by removing defective mortar and installing new mortar.
Below are examples of these processes at two different Encore projects of vastly different scale.
Repointing of Historic Brick Smokehouse
Poplar Hill Mansion on His Lordship’s Kindness was built between 1785 and 1787. The Georgian main house is a remarkable survival and retains a high degree of intact 18th-century interiors. The existing outbuildings include a brick privy, slaves infirmary, smokehouse, pigeon cote and wash house.
Our work on this property focused on the outbuildings, including the repointing of the smokehouse. In the first image you can see the incredible damage and loss of mortar between bricks on the building.
Smokehouse before Repointing
In the second image you see the same building after repointing the brickwork with mortar matching the composition of the original. Masonry work performed by Vintage Masonry Restoration. It is a simple, but dramatic difference in both aesthetics and strength of structure.
Smokehouse After Repointing
Granite Repointing at Historic Naval Academy
At the much younger, only 122 years old, but larger, MacDonough Hall at the US Naval Academy, we review and serve as quality control on a variety of projects.
Shown here is the repointing of the building masonry with masonry restoration subcontractor, Worchester Eisenbrandt Inc The building was last repointed in the seventies. Since then, the mortar between the granite blocks has deteriorated, including green copper staining and efflorescence. Repointing removes the damaged mortar and replaces it to ensure solid weatherizing of the building as well as address cosmetic issues.
The repointing of this building took quite a lot of effort and time.
Extensive scaffolding to support exterior work at MacDonough Hall