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Masonry & Hardscaping

Brick, block and chimney work that keeps water out of the building

Structural block, brick veneer, chimneys and repointing — the masonry that is part of the building rather than the yard.

The problem

You have masonry that is part of the structure and it is failing: a chimney shedding mortar, a foundation wall cracking, brickwork spalling, or you need new block for an addition.

The most common masonry repair in this housing stock is a chimney, and the reason is almost always the crown. The crown is the concrete cap at the top; when it cracks, water enters the masonry below it, freezes, and pushes the brick apart from the inside. That is why a chimney appears to fail from the top down. Repointing the visible joints without replacing a failed crown is money spent on a problem that will come back.

Repointing itself has one rule that gets broken constantly on older houses: the new mortar has to be softer than the brick around it. Modern Portland-heavy mortar is harder than nineteenth-century brick, so when the wall moves — and it always moves — the brick spalls instead of the joint. On a house from the 1920s or earlier that means a lime-based mix, and it is worth asking any mason you hire what they intend to use.

Structural block is straightforward by comparison, and unforgiving in a different way: a foundation or bearing wall is laid on a footing below frost, cores grouted and reinforced where the design calls for it, and it is either right at the first course or wrong for its whole height.

What the work includes

  • Block foundation walls
  • Structural and bearing block walls
  • Brick veneer and decorative brickwork
  • Chimney rebuilds, crowns, caps and flashing
  • Repointing and mortar joint repair
  • Stone veneer over block
  • Masonry restoration and spall repair

What you end up with

Masonry that is doing its structural job and keeping water out of the building — repaired in a way that does not create the next failure.

How long it takes

A chimney crown and cap is one to two days. A full chimney rebuild above the roofline is three to five. Foundation and structural block is scoped per job and coordinated with whoever is framing on top of it.

Brick & Block Masonry we've built

Photographs from our own jobs.

The first courses of a concrete block wall laid to line in an excavated trench, with safety cones and tape around the work.
Block wall, first courses laid
A rebuilt brick chimney on a shingle roof with a new mortar crown, copper flashing and a black cap.
Rebuilt chimney crown and cap
Stone veneer laid over a block foundation wall along the side of a house, with the trench still open at its base.
Stone veneer over a block foundation

Where we do brick & block masonry

Across Putnam and northern Westchester County. The ground is not the same in all four of these towns and it changes how this work gets built — each page says what changes there.

Usually goes with

These three come up on the same properties often enough that it is worth pricing them together rather than twice.

Concrete ServicesSlabs, footings, sidewalks, curbing and steps — poured on a prepared base, reinforced, and jointed where it will crack anyway.
Retaining WallsBlock, stone and engineered walls that hold a grade — with the drainage behind them that decides whether they still do in ten years.
Walkways & DrivewaysPaver, blacktop, concrete and natural stone — the surfaces that carry the most weight and get looked at first.

Get a brick & block masonry estimate

Tell us what you are trying to do and we will come and look at it. Free written estimates, no obligation.

Call 845-470-6093Request an estimate