Crumbling or cracked mortar between your bricks? We take it out gently and repoint the joints so the brick keeps its face.
Masonry restoration in Brownsville, TX mostly means repointing, where we take the worn, crumbling mortar out of the joints of your brick or stone wall and replace it with new mortar, so the wall stays tight and the brick lasts.
Most calls start with something you can see, like sandy grit at the foot of a wall, joints sitting back from the brick face, or a crack that runs through brick and mortar both. At E&M Brownsville Concrete and Masonry I'd rather tell you straight that a wall can wait than sell you a job you don't need, and a lot of houses only need one side or a few courses done.
The price mostly comes down to how much wall needs work, how deep the mortar has failed, how many bricks are cracked and have to be swapped, and how high we have to reach. Soft old brick adds to it too, because that means slower hand work. The schedule turns on the weather the new mortar needs to cure and on what the city wants for your job, which we check before we start. My written estimate puts a price on the work we walked through together.
Here's how it goes from the first call to the last joint, and who you'll be dealing with at each step.
I'm the one who comes out, and I'll ask what you've been seeing, look the wall over up close and give you a written price for the work we talked about. I started this business in Brownsville in 2023 after years on an old-school mason's crews, where a bad joint got torn out and laid again.
If you go ahead, we sort out what your city or county office wants for the job first, so nothing stalls once the wall is open. Then we set a start date that works for you.
Our own crew does the work and I'm on site running it, then I walk the finished wall with you. We're licensed and fully insured. Satisfaction guaranteed.
We start by finding out what the wall is made of, because soft old brick and hard newer brick get handled differently. On older brick and stone we go slow, and the old mortar comes out by hand with chisels and hammers, since preservation guidance for historic masonry says hand removal takes more labor but carries the least risk of damage, and power tools in unskilled hands can wreck soft brick. We mix a mortar softer than the brick so the joint takes the wear instead of the face, pack the joints firm, tool them to match the old ones, and clean the wall last with low pressure and soft brushes. A pressure washer in the wrong hands can strip a soft face faster than years of weather, and the same preservation guidance warns that high-pressure water can etch soft stone and some kinds of brick.
Restoration often turns up other work on the same house. A firebox or hearth that's past saving may be a case for fireplace installation instead of more patching, and where a wall face is too far gone or you want a new look over sound block, stone veneer installation is the other route. I'll tell you on site which way makes sense for your wall.
Every wall is a little different, but the work goes in the same order every time.
We cover plants, windows and walkways first, because mortar dust and slurry get everywhere. Then we check how soft the brick and old mortar are, since that decides the tools and the mix.
We clear each joint back to solid mortar, by hand wherever the brick is soft. Any cracked brick or stone comes out at this stage so its replacement sits in fresh mortar.
New mortar goes in packed firm, in layers on deep joints, so it cures solid all the way back. We tool each joint to the shape of the old ones so the repair blends in.
One national cost guide calls spring or fall the ideal curing weather and looks for daytime temperatures between 40 and 90 degrees for at least 24 to 72 hours, so we watch the forecast when we set the dates. Once the mortar has set, we wash off the haze the gentle way described above and clean up the site.
Send the form or call (956) 505-5518, and if you can, add photos of the crumbling or cracked joints and about how old the building is. We'll reply within one business day, then I come out, look the wall over and give you a free estimate on site with no obligation. We answer Monday through Friday from 6 AM to 10 PM and weekends from 8 AM to 10 PM, or you can email hello@brownsvilleconcreteandmasonry.com.
(956) 505-5518Your walls need repointing when the mortar has worn back more than ¼ inch from the brick face, is crumbling, or has hairline cracks or gaps, or when bricks are cracking along with the joints. Walk your walls with that list and take a few photos. It still pays to have a mason look before you commit, because some of it can usually wait.
Mortar harder than the brick pushes stress out to the face of the wall, and that causes spalling, where the surface breaks away, plus cracks in the bricks or stones themselves. Federal guidance written for historic buildings prefers lime mortars over Portland cement mortars for repointing old masonry, because lime lets water pass through more easily. Ask any mason which mortar they plan to use and why.
Mortar lasts roughly 25 to 50 years, while the brick itself lasts about 100 years or more. That gap is why a sound brick wall still needs its joints redone as it ages, and why the mortar should be the part that wears out, not the brick.
The City of Brownsville processes permits and reviews plans for all remodeling and new construction, and every permit there is applied for through Accela Citizen Access, the city's online permit system. Before work starts we check what the city or county office for your property asks for on a repointing job, and when a permit's needed, we pull it and call for the inspections. The city also registers contractors through its Planning and Redevelopment Department, where the general contractor category covers concrete and foundation work and asks for valid ID, so that paperwork gets settled while we plan the job, not the morning we show up.
We're based in Brownsville and work across the Rio Grande Valley cities around it, including San Benito, Harlingen, Los Fresnos and Port Isabel, along with others nearby. A lot of the restoration calls we get are older brick homes and garden walls where the mortar gave out long before the brick did, which is the careful repair and repointing work we're best known for.
A joint caught while it's just starting to crumble is a smaller job than a wall where water has already worked in behind the brick, so call (956) 505-5518 or use the form.
If your mortar's crumbling or you're not sure whether it is, call or send us a message and I'll come take a look.
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