So the guys who did one of the load bearing walls in the basement gave me a quote of $575 to do this one back wall. I had no intention of hiring them to do it, since I felt they didn’t do a good job with other basement work (detailed in other posts here), but I thought it would be interesting to find out how much they’d try and gouge me for.

This is what the corner wall looked like before. Pretty ratting with loose stones and lots of dirt, cobwebs, you name it.

This is what it looked like after. Not bad, if I do say so myself. It looks just as good, if not better than what the guys did on one wall.

Total cost? $9.69. Let me spell that out. Nine dollars, and sixty nine cents.

It took a total of about 3 hours. That included cleaning the walls with a wire brush to remove loose partials, using a Shop-Vac on it to remove even more loose dirt and junk, mixing the mortar (which only costs $3.23 a bag at Lowes), and of course applying it. Saving lots of money is fun.

Since the wall in the back corner came out better than I expected, I also decided to do the other main load bearing wall that was a wreck. This one took about 2 bags of mortar.

Sections of this wall are so bad, that bricks could actually be pulled out and you could see through to the other side. Not good at all.

The process was the same as the back wall, except maybe a little easier since these were flat bricks and not stones of various shapes with many gaps, like the back wall above.

This is the final result. I think it looks better than before, and is obviously more secure with all the lose bricks, cracks and joints filled in with new mortar. I also hate bugs with a passion, so the less places for them to hide and fester, the better. Anyway, things might look a lot better if I painted it, but I kind of like the grey look at the moment. We’ll see down the line.

Nonetheless, doing this is easier than it looks. I’ll break it down in just a few steps.

1. Clean the wall with a wire brush. Get all the loose dirt and crap out of there, otherwise you’ll risk the mortar sticking to that and then eventually crumbling back off. You don’t want that. I went a step further and used a Shop-Vac to get deep into the cracks and suck out even more dirt, as well as clean up all the junk I scraped off with the wire brush.

2. Mix the mortar. This is easy. Get a big plastic mixing pan or wheelbarrow. Dump the mix into it and add a gallon of water. Mix until you don’t see any visible dry powder. You can use a hoe, a shovel, anything strong. They apparently have hoes with holes in them made especially for mixing mortar, too. I just used a regular one. A gallon of water is recommended, but at times I found using a little more to make the mixture a little more wet helped it stick to the wall better. I suppose it depends on the kind of wall you’re doing though. Something to experiment with.

3. Get a spray bottle and fill it up with warm or room temperature water. Before you slap the mortar on the wall, it’s good to dampen the area to help it stick. Almost every book I’ve read with instructions on how to mortar talk about this step. The foundation guys I hired to do one wall never did this (yet more proof they’re idiots). I did this just about everywhere, especially in tight and flat spots.

4. Here’s the fun part. Get a scoop of mortar, maybe roll it into a ball, then toss it at the wall. You don’t need to do this all the time, but tossing balls of it at cracks helps get it in there easier. It’s also a nice stress reliever. Applying the mortar can be done with various tools like pointers and trowels, or you can just use your hands. I prefer my hands, since it was easier to really shove it where I wanted it. However, I used tools as well to smooth things out or really get some into spots, so it’s good to keep them close by.

Oh, you should always wear protective gloves. I used rubber ones. Because of the chemicals in it, mortar can mess your skin up if you handle too much of it with your bare hands. Keep an eye on the gloves too and have an extra pair handy, as they can easily rip or wear down at some point while handling the mixture and applying it. I ripped the tips of one pair while rubbing it on the walls.

5. Get a big paint brush, about 4 inches wide, and keep it handy nearby in a bucket of water. After you do a section of the wall, before it fully dries, get that wet paint brush, shake off the excess water, and go over the freshly slapped on mortar a few times. This will smooth it out and make it look a lot better when it dries. If some of the mortar comes off, then just put some more on, and repeat the process. This is my favorite step. It really does help the finished look. You get a smooth light gray looking finish, instead of a dark bumpy/rough looking finish. But hey, if you like dark bumpy finishes, then leave it.

Anyway, I’m really pleased with the finished results on both of these walls and plan on doing the entire basement. I bought 50 bags of mortar from Lowes for a total of $161. With the delivery charge (well worth it, considering how heavy it is - we’re talking 50 bags that are 60 pounds each!) it came out to a little over $200.

50 bags of mortar (and 25 bags of concrete)

More than enough to do the entire basement and patch up some outdoor foundation on the house and garage. $575 for the corner in one room? Ha.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 18th, 2005 at 8:54 am and is filed under Interior, Projects (completed). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.