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Pointing a stone foundation

6K views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  Justin08 
#1 ·
I have a 200yr old house with 2-3foot thick stone foundation walls. The pointing is deteriorating and has fallen out in several areas. The walls seem sound, no loose stones and the wall beams have not sagged, all of which indacates to me that the foundation stones are solid (don't see any loose ones). My question is, and pardon my ignorance, but if the foundation is solid, and all I want is to fill the air leakes and mouse entrance holes, what actually will re-pointing accomplish as opposed to filling the cracks and voids with spray foam sealer? The pointing never seemed to last ( only been here 2 years) and the foam seems to be an quick and simple fix.
Thanks, Bill
 
#2 ·
cost's the big item imn-s-hfo :no: i'd pressure wash the wall w/4K psi, turbo nozzle, 4gpm unit them spray polymer-modified cement over the whole thing,,, you didn't mention any wtr intrusion,,, usually soil acids attack lime in mortar causing deterioration,,, otherwise, mortar should be permanent.

then again, i may not fully understand the issue :whistling2:
 
#3 ·
Well mortar is definitely not forever. Brick and stone walls are very low maintenance but NOT no maintenance. The mortar between those joints might last 100 years before needing to be re pointed again but re-pointing is going to be necessary at some point for sure(and it sounds like now). I am not a mason but I have been researching the subject extensively recently so I have learned a couple of things. I cannot imagine that using spray foam on that wall is a good idea, probably terrible! I don't even know that pressure washing that wall is such a good idea either. If you don't know what you are doing with the pressure washer you could cause some serious damage to that wall. At high enough pressure water will cut steel so digging a few rocks out of that wall will not be too hard! If I were you I would have the wall professionally re pointed, done correctly there is no reason that the work shouldn't last another 25 to 100 years. You could even re point yourself it is not that difficult just time consuming. If doing yourself, research the mortar mix very well, I would think you are going to need something with a very high lime content.
 
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