One of the most common questions people have when preparing to tuckpoint (replace deteriorated mortar between bricks) is how to make the new mortar look similar to the "sound" mortar already in the ...

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.

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www ...

Experienced builders are plenty familiar with when to use cement, concrete, and mortar. But in the popular parlance, things get a bit confused—people often say "cement" when what they really mean is ...

Q: We love our family room corner fireplace with rock but hate the color of the grout. The grout is dark to medium gray and we prefer light gray which we think would look better as our decor is mauve, ...

Mark Chetkovich has spent the last 30 years laboring in all aspects of the home-improvement field, mostly as a paper hanger and painter. Recently, he turned his talents to a concrete-staining project, ...

Dear Tim: I have a lovely brick patio that has mortar between the brick. After pressure-washing it this past weekend, I noticed several locations where the mortar has disintegrated. Most of the mortar ...