Masonry Magazine August 2005 Page. 38
COLORED MORTAR
A red molded brick with matching mortar provides a monochromatic color scheme while maintaining a rustic look.
The overall aesthetic feel of the neighborhood and to differentiate one house from another.
"I can use the same brick in two houses right across the street from one another, and people never recognize it's the same brick because of the differences in mortar," he says.
Focus on the Mortar for Competitive Advantage
BUILDERS ARE ALWAYS considering new brick and mortar combinations to keep their home appearances fresh and distinctive. However, the artistic possibilities stemming from the myriad of colors, styles, textures and finishing techniques in creating the many unique looks for brick homes seem endless.
Solving the Problem of Unmatched Masonry
Brooke Schmidt, Managing Editor
When adding on to a masonry structure, it's "virtually impossible to match brick or block colors exactly," explains Russell Gray, President of Nawkaw Corporation just outside of Atlanta. "Brick and block are like wallpaper in that they must come from the same lot or run for them to match exactly. This is why there are so many mismatched additions."
To solve the mismatched masonry problem, Gray's company was the first in North America to offer masonry staining as a service. For government, institutional, commercial and even residential projects, masonry stains allow the new additions to be color matched to the existing brick, providing a look that is consistent and homogenous. Plus, the stains are much more affordable than decladding and rebricking a building "Our cost to color a building is about 15% of rebricking," Gray says.
Gray says the idea for masonry staining originated in new construction where, every now and then, two different runs of the same brick were accidentally mixed together on the same building. "There was nothing structurally wrong with the brick. The color range just wasn't right," Gray says. "Sometimes one run was a little lighter or darker than the other run, and the results were visually displeasing"
Masonry color treatments are a stain, Gray says, referring to the fact that masonry stains penetrate into the pores of brick and concrete.
Faced with this challenge, builders have two choices:
* Specify a wide variety of bricks but risk creating a logistical nightmare and greater expense.
* Focus on mortar, rather than brick, to create subtle yet distinct personalities for homes.
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36 Masonry
August 2005
www.masoncontractors.org