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Home > Search for DIY Projects by Trade Type > DIY How To Projects Guides Covering Brickwork, Blockwork, Masonry and Stonework > The Complete DIY Guide to Mortar Including Mortar Mixes, Repair, Pointing and Colour Matching

The Complete DIY Guide to Mortar Including Mortar Mixes, Repair, Pointing and Colour Matching

This page includes links to DIY projects involving mortar such as pointing and repointing brickwork as well as advice and tips on working with mortar and how to mix it correctly. Browse through the below list and click on your chosen link to view the project information.

  • Cleaning Mortar From Bricks

    Bricks - cleaning and removing mortar from bricks - Cleaning mortar from bricks - Find out how to clean old mortar off of bricks so that they can be reused and recycled, using a hammer and bolster and muriatic acid


  • Pointing Brickwork

    Brickwork - pointing and repointing brickwork - In this easy to follow guide we show you how to point and repoint brickwork including preparing brickwork and mortar for repointing, matching mortar colours and the different styles of pointing finish


  • Mixing Concrete

    Concrete - mixing concrete - Mixing Concrete - Let DIY Doctor show you how to mix concrete with this Project and Video Tutorial. Explains what sand to cement ratio you need for your Concrete Project. Find out how much cement and aggregate you need to buy using our concrete calculator. A guide on how to mix concrete for different applications.


  • Repairing Concrete Cracks Using Tarmac Repair Concrete

    Concrete repair - Find out how to repair damaged concrete splits, cracks and joints and ensure the repair is strong, stable and will last a long time


  • Mortar Colour

    Mortar - matching sand and cement - Colour matching mortar mixes: How to correctly match sand and cement mixes if you need them to match exactly


  • How to Mix Mortar and a Table of Mixes for Different Types of Mortar

    Mortar mixes - How to mix mortar for a variety of different jobs including house walls, chimneys, pointing, paving, render and floor screed. Learn how to mix the right mortar for your chosen job


The word mortar comes from the Latin mortarium which was a basin in which the Romans mixed lime with sand and water. The mixture itself became known as mortar.

Using a pointing trowel to smarten up your brickwork by repointing is a good weekend job

Using a pointing trowel to smarten up your brickwork by repointing is a good weekend job

Today we do not use so much lime in our mortar mixes as cement has been introduced. Cement causes a chemical reaction with moisture which allows the mortar mix to go harder more quickly which suits the speed at which we put up building and walls today. The downside of this is that the quicker something dries out, the more brittle it becomes. Cement is also impervious to water to a degree. This is a good thing as it should stop damp penetrating the walls of your house, or the surfaces of your paths etc. However, as cement dries out so quickly it sometimes cracks the mortar it is in and this allows water ingress. When water gets into a crack it soon spreads round a wall or floor but because the rest of the cement is not cracked, it cannot get out again through natural evaporation.

Lime however, allows surface to breathe as it dries out very slowly and remains very flexible.

In the following pages we will show you how to lay bricks, how to point and repoing brickwork and blockwork and how o match the colour of your mortar by varying the quantity of sand used, with the cement and sometimes with a cement dye which is easily added. We also show you the correct amounts of each material to use when mixing mortar for each job you are likely to do. There is a different mix required when you are pointing a chimney stack to the one used when you are building foundation walls.

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