Mortar mixing

[Pjbrandon]

Hi all, 

 

hope this is the correct place for this post.

 

I am repairing and roofing an old brick out building and notice some of the brick work is loose due to failed mortar.

 

I am unsure what type of brick it is and also what type of mortar mix (novice)

 

hopefully someone one can tell me from looking at the pic what type of brick it is and how to get the best mortar mix to match the current mortar colour ? please......

[Pjbrandon]

Nobody ?

[Declan52]

They look like a concrete block made with coloured concrete.

https://www.aggregate.com/products-and-services/building-products/walling/rough-dressed

As far as matching the motar, is it the pink bit or grey bit you are going to go for.

[Construction Channel]

the smooth ones look like concrete blocks, but the rough ones look more like stone to me, i dont know what kind of stone but it would take a lot for a concrete block to blow its face and end up looking like that,

 

as for the mortar, it looks very smooth to me so probably just building sand and cement, as for the pink mortar IDK, possibly they added a dye but from the look of the wall, i think its more likely they put some multi finish in it for some unknown reason

[Jeremy Harris]

I agree with @Declan52, but suspect these may well be Bradstone Cotswold buffs, as they look near-identical to those we used for a lot our landscaping work, like this well:

 

 

The mortar colour depends on the colour of the local sand to some extent; around here we can get a very bright yellow/orange sand that when used with white cement, rather than the standard grey cement, gives a cream colour to the mortar.  When used with normal cement the mortar ends up grey, as in the photo above.  I have no idea how you've got pink "mortar" but have to say that I agree with @Construction Channel that it looks suspiciously like plaster to me, especially as it's not well pointed and is failing.

[Declan52]

14 minutes ago, Construction Channel said:

the smooth ones look like concrete blocks, but the rough ones look more like stone to me, i dont know what kind of stone but it would take a lot for a concrete block to blow its face and end up looking like that,

 

as for the mortar, it looks very smooth to me so probably just building sand and cement, as for the pink mortar IDK, possibly they added a dye but from the look of the wall, i think its more likely they put some multi finish in it for some unknown reason

They make a concrete block using whatever stone and dye they need  and make it 225*200*450 and split it in 2. 

They where used here everywhere around 2000-2005. 

[Jeremy Harris]

2 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

They make a concrete block using whatever stone and dye they need  and make it 225*200*450 and split it in 2. 

They where used here everywhere around 2000-2005. 

 

 

That's exactly how ours came.  They were packed on pallets (I bought 5 pallet loads for £15 per pallet, "left over from a job"....) and when the wrap was peeled off you could see that adjacent "bricks" were just split, as the uneven faces were a perfect match to each other.  I bought four different sizes, so we could make some of the larger walls in the garden look semi-random, with square jumpers in the courses and as capping "stones" (there's a block wall behind that front wall, just to add a bit of extra strength):

 

 

[Brickie]

The pink gear may be B&Q/Homebase ‘just add water mortar.’ 

I had to do a patch job with it the other year when the client (a builder) hadn’t ordered any sand & cement for a Sunday job. Christ,it was awful. 

What part of the country are you in?

[PeterW]

40 minutes ago, Brickie said:

The pink gear may be B&Q/Homebase ‘just add water mortar.’ 

[...]

What part of the country are you in?

 

So Hanson who make that stuff for a lot of the sheds have a couple of different blending locations - one is near Lincolnshire and uses the yellow/grey sand from round there and another uses a red sand that’s more orange / pink Bunter sandstone coloured. The downside is it can depend on which factory supplied which warehouse as you can get different blends in the same store. 

 

Across the East Midlands if you go east of the A1 it tends to be yellow sand, West is red sand - have to be careful with some of the merchants too as they send what they feel like unless you specify ..!

[Ed_MK]

Well i did a test mix for my build yesterday

IT is 4-1 (Wicks Building sand and Snowcrete)

as the wife wants a CREAM but not WHITE mortar (as they do)

 

It will probably lighten up in a day or so ...looking at the flakes next to it.

 

I was surprised though how CRUMBLY it is ...and I am used to seeing the odd rock or 2 in mortar

and I have just realised, there isn't any in this 

[bassanclan]

The problem with white cement is that it doesn't have a use by date so you don't know how long it has been sat in the builders merchant's warehouse.

[Ed_MK]

oh dear ...

well it definitely wasn't "clumpy"

It was fine like flour...

 

....or the other stuff Nigella Lawson uses 

(allegedly)

 

Edited July 19, 2018 by Ed_MK

[Declan52]

If motar is crumbly is usually either poor sand or too much plastersizer. It goes like fluff. Or if it wasn't mixed for long enough. 

Plus as above might the cement have been dead??

If you have some ordinary cement around do another mix exactly as you done using the white cement and if it's crumbly then it's poor sand if not then it's your cement.

Just before you start can you get a lorry load of sand delivered from the same place all the time. You want the sand to be the same for every mix. No point in having nice cream motar to start with then you run out of sand and your next delivery is a red/yellow sand and your top half of the build will end up a different colour.