[jskamm]

Can someone help?

I live in the Chicago land area. Own a brick cape cod home built around the 1930's and now I need to do some minor tuckpointing on the exterior mortar. I tried using a bag of mortar mix from HD but the color wasn't even close to the existing mortar. Looking at the existing mortar it seems to have a lot of sand in it and is cream/light brown in color, kinda like old concrete. Can anyone tell me what I need to be mixing to match the color of the existing mortar? Thanks in advance.

Jskamm
Oak Lawn, IL

 

[Ron6519]

You can try to color the mortar with a dye for concrete and you may get close. But as the mortar ages, the two mortars might age differently.
Ron

 

[clasact]

I would take a sample to a local stone dealer and get a match as close as possible by useing a dye as suggested.Also I have found that some morters dont tint as well as others.I had bought a bag of morter mix from my local dealer but when I ran out they werent open so I ran to HD to get another but no mater how many batches I mixed up I could only come close but never could match what I had started with so make sure you use the same mix and record you measurements to get the same tint

 

[NJ Brickie]

A house that old you might be doing more damage pointing it with today's mortar. If it is a lime based mortar you will need to point with a lime based mortar. If you use a portland cement based mortar you can be in for a lot of trouble in the future. There are labs that can test your mortar and tell you exactly what is in it and you will be able to match the original mix. Might not look exactly the same because the mortar on your house is weathered. But it will match over alittle time and you will not damage any of the brickwork.