Until last year, this house dripped water all winter onto the centre of the pedestrian sidewalk. By mid January, a six to ten inch mound of ice, like a long glacier tongue, stretched the length of the building on the centre of the sidewalk. The city sidewalk plows were unable to stay on the walk, so the situation got worse and worse through the winter.
In 2009, as part of a streetscaping project, the sidewalk was widened and moved out further into the city right of way. Now this house, and its neighbours up and down the street, drips largely unseen unto the city boulevard and pedestrians can pass safely.
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This is a big improvement. The home owner still needs to get some troughs put in, ans the years of water running down his wall has resulted in all the mortar being washed away. Much of that wall needs to be re-pointed.
ReplyDeleteBoth the brick and stonework need repair. I repointed my stone foundation last year and it was surprisingly easy. I bought high-lime mortar and a bag of sand at Merkley's -- it is important the supplier know you are repairing a rubble stone foundation and want a soft-cured motar not a hard-cure like cement. I bought a little tool like a bent finger and a coarse paintbrush like thing at Preston. I mixed small batches of mortar, trowelled it into big holes with a garden trowel, packed it in with the steel finger, and smoothed it with the finger. After I had done about 8' of wall, I went back with a really wet motar brush and brushed off the dried flecks and smoothed out the finish. I'm really pleased. The new motar always shows up as repairs, though, never exactly the same color as the original.
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