Saving your stonework when others fall short.
Saving your stonework when others fall short.
The Forensic Reality of the Hairline Crack The homeowner called me out to a 1924 Dutch Colonial because they noticed what they called a ‘minor cosmetic blemish’—a hairline crack snaking through the mortar joints of the chimney stack. They had already bought a $15 grout bag from a big-box store and a few bags of […]
The Forensic Reality of the Hairline Fracture I remember a call I took last November in a district filled with century-old warehouses. The homeowner, a fellow who thought he knew his way around a hardware store, pointed to a thin, jagged line running through a soldier course above his third-story window. ‘Just a settlement crack,’ […]
The Ghost of the Mason: Why Your Mortar Match is a Lifeline I remember watching my old man stand in the middle of a 1920s job site, holding a chunk of crumbling mortar between his thumb and forefinger. He didn’t just look at it; he rubbed it until it turned back into dust, then smelled […]
The Anatomy of the Porch Yawn I recently stood on a limestone stoop in a neighborhood where the houses have stood since the late 1800s. The homeowner thought it was just a hairline crack, a cosmetic nuisance. But when I put my digital scope inside that ‘hairline’ gap, I saw the structural steel lintel wasn’t […]
The homeowner thought it was just a hairline crack, a minor blemish on a century-old facade that could be patched with a bit of hardware store caulk. But when I put my scope inside the cavity of that brick column repair, I saw the structural steel was rusted to dust, a victim of decades of […]
The call came in as a routine chimney leak detection for a Queen Anne Victorian with a beautiful rounded turret. The homeowner thought it was just a hairline crack, a minor annoyance from a wet spring. But when I put my scope inside that cavity, the reality was much grimmer. I saw the structural steel […]
The Tragedy of the Squared Slicker I once walked onto a job site in an old industrial corridor where a crew was trying to repoint a 1920s radial brick chimney with standard 6-inch straight slickers. From the ground, it looked like they were working hard. From my perspective on the scaffolding, it was a crime […]
The Forensic Scene: A Facade in Agony The homeowner stood there with a plastic squeeze bag in his hand, looking at a 1920s Tudor revival that was weeping. He thought it was just a hairline crack, a cosmetic blemish on a century of history. But when I put my digital scope inside the void he […]
The Ghost of Craftsmanship Past I recently walked a site where a 19th-century segmental arch over a carriage house door was literally weeping. Not water, mind you—though that was the culprit—but a white, salty discharge we call efflorescence, coupled with the heartbreaking sight of the brick faces popping off like scabs. The homeowner had hired […]
The Sin of the Shallow Joint My old foreman, a man who had more lime in his lungs than blood in his veins, would run his thumb over a raked joint with the intensity of a diamond grader. If he felt even a microscopic lip of old mortar remaining on the top or bottom edge […]
