Masonry, Brick & Stucco Repair

Mortar joints are sacrificial — they're meant to be softer than the brick and to be maintained over the life of the building. Typical mortar life in NJ is 50-80 years before the joints recede, crack, and start letting water in. Repointing is the fix: grinding out the deteriorated mortar to a depth of about 3/4 to 1 inch, then repacking with fresh mortar matched to the original type and tooling the joint to shed water.

Mortar type matters. Type N is the standard for most residential brick; Type S is higher-strength for structural and below-grade applications. Using too-hard a mortar (e.g., Type S where Type N belongs) on soft historic brick actually damages the brick — the hard mortar forces moisture and movement into the brick face, causing spalling. Matching mortar type and color is the difference between a repair that lasts and one that looks wrong and fails early.

Spalled brick — where the face has popped off because absorbed water froze and expanded — has to be replaced, not sealed over. Sealing traps moisture behind the damaged face and accelerates the problem. We cut out spalled brick and replace with color- and size-matched units, then repoint the surrounding joints.

Not all stucco cracks are equal. Hairline cracks are cosmetic and routine; widening, stepped, or diagonal cracks (especially radiating from window and door corners) can indicate movement or water intrusion behind the stucco. We identify which is which before recommending a patch versus a more involved repair.

The repair is patch plus recoat, not paint. Painting over cracked stucco is the most common mistake we see — paint bridges the crack for a season, then the crack telegraphs straight through. Proper repair means opening and cleaning the crack, patching with a compatible stucco material, and recoating the area (or the wall) so the finish and texture blend.

Traditional three-coat stucco and synthetic EIFS systems fail differently and are repaired differently — EIFS in particular hides water damage behind the foam, so EIFS repairs require checking the substrate, not just the surface. The highest-risk areas on any stucco wall are the transitions: where stucco meets the roof, where it meets windows and doors, and at the base. Those transitions are flashing-and-sealant details — exactly the water-management work we do on roofs — and they're where most stucco leaks actually start.

On flat-roof buildings, the parapet wall — the masonry wall that extends above the roof at the perimeter — is one of the most common leak sources, and it's often misdiagnosed as a membrane failure. Water gets in through a failed or missing coping cap on top of the parapet, through open mortar joints in the parapet face, or behind missing through-wall flashing, then travels down inside the wall and shows up as a 'roof leak.' We repair the coping, repoint the parapet, and tie new through-wall flashing into the roof membrane so the whole detail sheds water as one system.

Steel lintels — the horizontal steel angles that carry brick over windows, doors, and garage openings — rust over decades, and rusting steel expands with tremendous force ('rust jacking'), cracking and displacing the brick above the opening. The fix is to address the lintel (clean and treat, or replace) and rebuild the affected brick. Cracked brick in a stair-step pattern above a window is the classic sign.

Because we're a roofing contractor first, we treat masonry as part of the building envelope, not a separate cosmetic trade. When we repair a parapet, a chimney, or a stucco-to-roof transition, we integrate the masonry repair with the roof flashing so there's no seam between trades for water to exploit — the most common failure point when a separate mason and roofer each do half the job.