Elwood sits up in the northwest corner of Madison County. We're a masonry contractor based in Noblesville, and we come out here the same way we do to Anderson and Tipton. The calls are much the same too: crumbling joints, a chimney that leaks, a cracked foundation or block wall, and now and then a new walkway or wall.
Big Duck Creek runs right through the middle of town, so when a house near it has a cracked wall or a damp basement, water in the ground is the first thing I look at. Masonry rarely fails on its own, and where the ground stays wet or shifts, the brick or block is usually just where the trouble shows up.
What moves the price and the schedule
The price mostly comes down to how much wall, chimney or ground is involved and what's behind the trouble, because a crack from settling or trapped water needs that cause fixed too, not just new mortar. Matching old brick or stone, tight access around the house and digging along a foundation all add work. The schedule turns on our crew's calendar, on any permit the city or county wants first, and on the weather, because mortar doesn't cure right in a freeze or a soaking rain. When I come out, I tell you what I think is causing it and put the work in writing, so you have your own figure instead of a guess.
Why we look for the cause first
Patching a crack without knowing why it opened usually just means it opens again. So I start by asking why. Is water running toward the wall from a downspout or a low spot, is the footing settling, or did a hard mortar crack soft old brick? Sometimes the answer is that the wall has moved about all it's going to and can wait, and I'll tell you that straight rather than sell you work you don't need yet. When it can't wait, we fix the drainage or the footing along with the masonry, and our own masons do it with me on the job.
Matching or refacing the masonry you have
On a repair, we match the brick, stone and mortar color you already have as closely as we can, because a patch that stands out looks worse than the crack did. With older brick that can mean hunting down salvaged brick or mixing mortar to the shade and softness of the original. If the wall is sound but the face is tired, stone veneer installation puts a new stone face over it without tearing it down. Either way, it helps to pull plantings and stored things back from the wall before we start, and to tell us where we can park a truck and stack material.