After noticing lots of loose mortar in our front retaining wall, I decided to try and tuck-point with the mortar repair kits sold at the local home store. I found the work tricky and knew my work was a little sloppy, so I hired a local handyman to do the job.
I removed all of the loose mortar and blasted all the loose stuff away with my air compressor. The first product I used was a single bag of mortar from Home Depot that I just added water to. I followed their directions exactly and I didn’t make the mortar dry enough to keep a bit off of the face of the brick.
I gave the handyman a try with this product, but he was just as messy as I was. I thought I would have better luck with the quikrete tube of easy mortar repair.
Anyway, the wall now has solid mortar, but looks terrible. I bought an attachment for my drill (rotary wire brush) that was supposed to be good at stripping bricks, but on that silicone-like quikrete repair, it just seemed to heat it up and smear it on the bricks.
Any thoughts? The next step for me is to get acquainted with muriatic acid.
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