Mortar not hardening in damp weather

[Egon]

Three shovels of mixed mortar and a shovel of Portland. Add lime as required to get the stickiness required. ( it will stick to the trowel upside down.

It has been many a year since I have done this.

 

[LD1]

It seems everyone here is either talking about making their own mortar with portland, lime, and sand......or buying pre-mix mortar that you only add water.....and talking about that needing "help" with a little portland from time to time.

Does nobody buy just plain type-s mason cement and mix their own sand? Thats how every contractor I have ever been around lays block/brick, etc. No pre-mix crap

 

[EddieWalker]

If you are bricking an entire house, the cost savings is significant if you have a dump truck of sand on sight and a bunch of 94 pound sacks of Portland Cement. If you are laying a dozen blocks at your house, I think it's better to buy a couple sacks from the box store. I've never felt the need to add Portland Cement to the mix when using sacks of mortar. It's always worked fine for me as long as I keep the moisture in the mix right.

 

[drivesitfar]

Anybody want to tell me (us) what the purpose of lime is in mortar? i've seen and watched many brick and block masonary guys just mix 2 or 3 parts sand and 1 part Portand Cement that seems to work well here in the PNW and I hear the Northeast USA. maybe they eliminate the lime so they don't have the white running down the side of their buildings or walls or project?

 

[Egon]

Anybody want to tell me (us) what the purpose of lime is in mortar? i've seen and watched many brick and block masonary guys just mix 2 or 3 parts sand and 1 part Portand Cement that seems to work well here in the PNW and I hear the Northeast USA. maybe they eliminate the lime so they don't have the white running down the side of their buildings or walls or project?

Go for a sample job of laying up a nice straight brick wall using only Portland in the mortar and report back.

 

[/pine]

It seems everyone here is either talking about making their own mortar with portland, lime, and sand......or buying pre-mix mortar that you only add water.....and talking about that needing "help" with a little portland from time to time.

Does nobody buy just plain type-s mason cement and mix their own sand? Thats how every contractor I have ever been around lays block/brick, etc. No pre-mix crap

Agree with this 100%...every professional masonry (sub) contractor I ever let on used "masonry cement" and sand...maybe they would throw in a couple shovels of Portland for pavers etc...masonry cement is Portland cement and lime and usually some additives to make it buttery...

 

[Snobdds]

I can get bags of 5000psi concrete here that puts the portand in a separate water proof bag inside of the bag with the aggregate. The bag weights right at 8 pounds for an 80 pound bag. That makes the ratio of portland to aggregate at 10%. It seemed low to me, but it's the best concrete I have ever used. Plus you don't have to worry about it getting wet and setting up.

 

[EddieWalker]

If you are bricking an entire house, the cost savings is significant if you have a dump truck of sand on sight and a bunch of 94 pound sacks of Portland Cement. If you are laying a dozen blocks at your house, I think it's better to buy a couple sacks from the box store. I've never felt the need to add Portland Cement to the mix when using sacks of mortar. It's always worked fine for me as long as I keep the moisture in the mix right.

I wanted to qualify this. I've never mixed my own mortar for laying blocks or bricks. I've been on a bunch of jobs where a crew was doing this and I've just observed them. I have bought gravel, sand and Portland Cement to mix my own concrete, but found it to be more time consuming getting all the materials there for the job then it was worthwhile for what I was doing. I haven't done this in years and probably never will again. If I need that much material, it's faster to just bring in a cement truck. I'm not aware of lime being added to mortar, but that doesn't mean they didn't do it, I just didn't pay that close of attention. I also don't know for sure if they are using Portland cement or something else. I've only been responsible for having the sand delivered by dump truck and figuring out where it should be dumped so the crew can mix it where they want to work.

 

[drivesitfar]

Snobdds: interesting having the bag of Portland inside the pre mix concrete. local store in Wyoming or maybe a place that sells the bricks, block and rock?

All: I buy concrete bags cause here in the city if I had a pile of sand sitting there the cats and maybe other critters would love me that I gave them their own private crapper. here's a small maybe 4 level of bricks I installed with just Portland and Sand and if it's not straight or perfect it's more operator error than the mud. it's solid and seems to work ok and best of all my bride is happy with it cause it's holding up her new garden area that used to have treated 6x6's i installed 25 years ago. I need to use her new garden area for cutting and staining the new cedar fence this spring so maybe she'll have our veggies growing there in 2021.