Jeff Somers is a freelancer who has been writing about writing, books, personal finance, and home maintenance since 2012. When not writing, Jeff spends his free time fixing up his old house. He has ...

INDIANAPOLIS – Do you know what “repointing” bricks means? By definition, it consists of “removing a portion of the deteriorated mortar and redoing the joints with new mortar.” Doing that basically ...

You may not know this, but I received a bachelor of science degree in geology many moons ago. I was fascinated by the topic, and it helped me build houses and buildings that would not fail.

The University of Virginia Chapel was swathed in scaffolding for the new year. Facilities Management’s historic masons, specializing in historic preservation, have been working on repointing the ...

Q. I need to repair the mortar joints on my older brick home that was built in the late 1800s. I’ve seen some horrible workmanship where the mortar doesn’t match at all, and I want to avoid this. How ...

Last week, I fielded no fewer than five phone calls from homeowner with the same grim news. They found it nearly impossible to get quotes from contractors to do fairly simple repairs. Each caller’s ...