The condition of your home’s mortar can have a huge impact on the overall appearance of the building. Worn-out mortar with lots of cracks, stains, and missing bits can make your entire building look old and worn down. These conditions can also affect your building’s strength and its ability to withstand natural elements.
It is very good to get these lines in your home patched up whenever they start to show signs of wear. While you are patching up the mortar lines, you can also choose a color and type that can offer more benefits. Choosing the right mortar can be a little bit tricky. In this guide, we are going to share some helpful tips that can guide you toward the right type of mortar.
Choosing The Right Type Of Mortar
Mortar is manufactured by combining binding materials like concrete or lime with a fine aggregate like sand or surki and water. Different types of mortar can be used for construction purposes and some of these are better suited for outdoor or indoor applications. Here is a quick look at the main mortar types.
Cement Mortar
- This type of mortar is created from cement as binding material and fine sand as aggregate. Cement can vary a lot in strength and the type of cement you use will have a huge impact on the strength, durability and flexibility of the mortar. The sand-to-cement ratio for mortar is usually a range of 1:2 up to 1:6.
- Lime Mortar
Lime mortar is a type of mortar that is created from fat lime or hydraulic lime as a bonding agent and sand as aggregate. This is one of the oldest forms of mortar and even the Pyramids of Giza were plastered with this functional material. The same lime-to-sand ratio is used for this mortar as for cement mixes.
- Guaged Mortar
Gauged mortar is made from a mixture of lime and cement binding material and sand as aggregate. The mixture usually contains a lot more lime since the cement is only included to add strength. The cement-to-lime ratio ranges from 1:6 to 1:0 and is then paired with the normal ratio of aggregate. This type of mortar is quite affordable yet also offers a great level of strength and durability.
- Surki Mortar
Surki mortar is made from lime as binding material but instead of sand, surki is used as an aggregate. This type of mortar is affordable but not quite as strong as cement or normal lime mortar.
- Mud Mortar
Mud mortar is made from a combination of mud as a binding material that is mixed with materials like sawdust, rice husk, or cow dung as aggregate. This can be a useful solution in areas where concrete might not be available but isn’t the strongest since the mortar cannot withstand heavy rainfall.
Out of these different mortar types, concrete is by far the most popular. Gauged mortar can however be a very good budget option that also offers good strength and durability.
Choosing The Right Color For Your Mortar
Mortar can be mixed with coloured concrete to create different colors. There are quite a few different colours to choose from such as dark iron, fly ash, woodland, clay, basalt, mocha, wheat, limewash, dune, and dusk hues.
It is good to choose a mortar that is very similar to your wall colour if your building isn’t constructed from first-grade bricks or if the bricks are already a bit worn down. Mortar with a similar color won’t draw any unnecessary attention to the brickwork. A contrasting coloured mortar can however give a very interesting and fresh look and is ideal in buildings that already feature a very straight and uniform brick pattern.
If you are having a tough time choosing the right mortar for your building or need some more advice on a suitable colour then you should give ProTuck Brickworks a call. This company specialises in mortar and they can help you revive your entire building exterior with suitable products.