Boulder's older neighborhoods contain a significant amount of historic brick and stone construction, some of it dating back to the 1870s, and restoring or repairing this older masonry requires a different approach than working on new construction. Historic mortar mixes were often softer than modern Portland cement mortars, and repointing historic brick with a mortar that's too hard can actually accelerate deterioration of the brick itself, since the harder mortar forces the brick to absorb the stress of expansion and contraction that... read full review »