Enduring On Construction
Masonry repair and repointing
Brick, block and stone repaired on elevations that stay in service. Surface preparation, crack routing, sealant and spot repointing, to the owner's specification where there is one.
Tell us what needs doingPerformed in Ewing · Haworth · Rahway
- NJ HIC 13VH13745900
- Public Works 753861
- Fully insured
The water comes first
Window and door perimeters and the joints above the damage are dealt with, because masonry that keeps getting wet keeps failing.
Whatever is around it
Chimney and parapet work carries the render or stucco around it rather than stopping at the trade line.
Built, not surfaced
Paver hardscape is built as a full structural assembly rather than laid as a surface.
Where we have done it
New Jersey Department of Transportation facility
Ewing, NJ · Subcontract · 3 frames
New Jersey Department of Transportation facility, frame 2 of 3
New Jersey Department of Transportation facility, frame 3 of 3
Each entry is a project on our register. Nothing here is a reference job we cannot name the town for.
01
New Jersey Department of Transportation facility
Ewing, NJ · Subcontract
Surface preparation, crack routing, elastomeric sealant and spot repointing across the block field and brick piers of a New Jersey Department of Transportation facility in Ewing. Public work at prevailing wage, with certified payroll filed against every invoice.
Open02
Country club exterior stucco
Haworth, NJ · General contractor
Rooftop chimney masonry repair at a country club in Haworth.
Open03
Paver hardscape
Rahway, NJ · General contractor
Paver hardscape in Rahway, built as a full structural assembly.
Open
Tell us what needs doing
An address and a few photographs off your phone are enough to start. We will tell you what we are looking at before anyone talks about a price.
What the work covers
- Surface preparation and crack routing across block and brick elevations.
- Elastomeric sealant and spot repointing.
- Chimney and parapet masonry repair, with the render or stucco around it.
- Window and door perimeters resealed.
- Paver hardscape, built as a full structural assembly rather than a surface.
Reference
What you are looking at
Pick the one closest to what is in front of you. This is the part worth reading before anyone gives you a number.
Spalling, when the face of the brick pops off
A brick spalls when water inside the unit freezes and the face fails before the body does. What put the water there is the question worth answering: a missing or blocked coping, a downspout discharging onto the wall, a parapet with nothing shedding off the top of it, or pointing mortar harder than the brick around it. Hard mortar is the one that catches people out, because it forces every bit of movement and moisture into the unit instead of into the joint, where it is supposed to go. Replacing spalled brick without closing off what wetted it buys a few seasons and no more.
Repointing that failed early
Pointing fails early for two reasons and both are avoidable. The joint was not raked back deep enough, so the new mortar is a skin with nothing to key into, and it sands out or falls away in lengths. Or the mortar was mixed stronger than the units around it, which puts the stress into the brick rather than the joint, and the pointing outlives the wall it was meant to protect. Mortar smeared across the face is the visible tell that neither of those was taken seriously.
Efflorescence, the white bloom on the face
The white crust is salt left behind after water has moved through the masonry and evaporated at the surface. As a stain it is cosmetic, and washing it off without doing anything else brings it straight back. As information it is precise: it marks where water is getting in and where it is leaving, which is usually a failed joint, a coping, a sill or a gutter somewhere above it. Reading the pattern is worth considerably more than removing the bloom.
Movement over openings
Stepped cracking that climbs the joints above a window or a door, a course that has dropped over an opening, or a rusting steel angle lifting the brick above it are all the same story: the thing carrying the load across that opening is moving. Steel lintels rust, and rusting steel expands with enough force to lift masonry off it. That is a structural condition and not a pointing condition, and it is named as such before anything is pointed across it, because pointing across it hides the movement without changing it.
None of these quite it? Send a photograph and we will tell you what we are looking at.
Questions we get asked
- Does the whole elevation need repointing, or only the bad joints?
- In most cases only the failed joints, which is what spot repointing is. Sound original mortar is doing its job, and cutting it out so the elevation looks uniform costs the wall more than it gains. The joints that go are the ones that have receded, gone soft, cracked through or opened at the back of the unit. An elevation failing everywhere at once is a different conversation and usually has a water source above it.
- What is the white staining on my brick, and will it come back?
- It is efflorescence, salt carried out of the masonry by water and left at the surface as the water evaporates. It comes back if the only thing done is cleaning it off, because the water path that produced it is still open. Read as a symptom it points straight at the joint, coping, sill or gutter letting water in. Once that is closed, the bloom stops renewing itself.
- Why did the last pointing job fail so quickly?
- Depth and mortar strength account for most of it. A joint cut back shallow gives the new mortar nothing to hold onto, and mortar mixed stronger than the brick drives stress and moisture into the units instead. Add work done in the wrong weather, on joints that were never properly cleaned out, and it starts letting go early. The failure usually reads clearly on the wall before anyone touches it.
- Is a crack in a brick wall a structural problem?
- Some are, most are not, and the location is what tells you which. A fine crack following the joints in an open field of brick is usually movement the wall has already taken up. Stepped cracking above an opening, a course that has dropped, or a crack noticeably wider at one end is movement that is still happening, and it gets called out as what it is rather than pointed over. Anything sitting on a lintel or a bearing point is named before work is scoped around it.
- Does sealant belong on masonry, or should it all be mortar?
- Both have a place and they are not interchangeable. Mortar fills the bed and head joints the wall was built with. Elastomeric sealant belongs in the joints that are meant to move: window and door perimeters, control joints, and where masonry meets a different material. Coating an entire elevation in a film to keep water out is the move to avoid, because masonry has to be able to release the water it takes in.
- Do you work on public projects at prevailing wage?
- Yes. The masonry work at a New Jersey Department of Transportation facility in Ewing was public work at prevailing wage, with certified payroll filed against every invoice. Public Works Contractor Registration 753861 is carried and appears on every page of this site. Public owners verify past performance, which is why nothing written on these pages goes past what the project record holds.
- Can chimney and parapet masonry be done together with the render on it?
- Yes, and on those details it is the only sensible way to do it, because the masonry and the stucco or render over it are one assembly and one water path. Rooftop chimney masonry with a stucco refinish was done at a country club in Haworth. Splitting the two across separate trades is how a rebuilt chimney ends up with a fresh crack down the finish.
The rest of what we do on a building envelope
Send us the job
Drawings, or a building that needs work. We will come and look at it with you.
Enduring On LLC, license, registration and contact details
Contractor
Enduring On Construction
Enduring On LLC · New Jersey general contractor
Home improvement
13VH13745900
NJ Div. of Consumer Affairs
Public works
753861
NJ Dept. of Labor
New home builder
0058509
NJ Dept. of Community Affairs
Based
Clark, New Jersey
Telephone
(908) 887-3118Fully insured, with certificates and additional-insured endorsements issued on request. Registered with the New Jersey Department of Labor to perform public work at prevailing wage.
Verifiable with the State of New Jersey