Longview is a short drive from us in Tyler, and the calls we get there look a lot like the ones at home. We see brick houses with mortar joints that have worn thin, chimneys that have started letting water in, and yards that need a wall, a walkway or a better driveway. We do the same work in Kilgore and White Oak, so our crews know the roads and the kinds of houses out this way.
A lot of the brick we see here has been on the wall for a long time, so the job usually turns on finding brick and mortar that match what's already there. A patch that stands out is a patch you'll look at every day.
Repairs that blend with the old brick
When a few bricks are cracked or a joint has washed out, the fix is only half the job, because it also has to look like it was always there. For brick repair on an older Longview house, I look at the size and color of the brick and how the old joints were finished before I write anything down, so we can find a close match. Sometimes that means tracking down salvaged brick or mixing a few test batches of mortar. If a crack is cosmetic and isn't moving, I'll tell you it can wait. If water is getting in behind it, that's the part we fix first.
What sets the price and the schedule
Price mostly comes down to how much brick or block is involved, how hard the old work is to match, how high we have to work and how easy the wall is to reach. A chimney top costs more to get to than a garden wall. Anything we find underneath, like rotted flashing or a footing that has moved, changes the scope. The schedule turns on whether the city wants a permit for your job, how long matching brick takes to find, and getting dry days so the mortar can set right. I walk you through all of it on the estimate visit and write up the estimate there.
Access, deliveries and who's on site
Before we start, we work out where the brick, sand and mortar will sit and how the crew gets to the wall, so tell me about gates, narrow side yards, sprinkler heads or a car that has to get out every morning. Some roads, intersections and underpasses in Longview flood during flash flood events, and when that happens we move a delivery or a start day instead of pushing a loaded truck through. A lead mason runs the crew on site, so you always have one person to ask and you're not chasing anybody down to find out where your job stands.