The old church repoint gave me a real before and after

Worked on a 1920s brick church in Dayton last fall and the front wall was a mess. We tore out all the crumbling mortar and repointed with lime mix, took about 5 days for 300 square feet. The difference is wild, the bricks pop now and the water runs off instead of soaking in. Has anyone else seen that kind of change on historic buildings, or is it usually a smaller visual shift?

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robert_hayes21d ago

The part about water running off instead of soaking in is the thing nobody talks about. I mean, everyone sees the color change, but that moisture issue is the real win. On old brick, when the mortar gets soft and crumbly, it acts like a sponge and pulls water deep into the wall. Once you repoint with lime, the wall can actually breathe again, so the moisture has a way out instead of sitting there and wrecking the bricks from the inside over winter freeze-thaw cycles. That's the kind of before and after you can't see in a photo but you feel in your bones when you know the building is dry.