A perfect example of terrible tuckpointing

The following pictures are from a chimney we repaired and Tuckpointed BEFORE we fixed it.

Some previous contractor went and tuckpointed the mortar joints with something that looks like the small batch cement sold in big box stores in small bags for floor leveling and the like.

It’s hard to tell what the previous contractor was thinking, the mortar is incompatible with the existing, too strong, not equivalently permeable, disimilisr modulus of elasticity, different tensile strength. You can see all of this from the photosexcept for the permeability which is an educated guess on my part because I know it to be a dark colored modern mortar.

One of the other main details about this mortar is the lack of sand grit is visually apparent. It is likely there is still a high silica content in this cement but likely at a much finer sieve, that is one of the reasons I suspect it might be a feather edge type of cement leveling product.

And of course, by the way, the previous contractor left messy mortar stains all over the face of the brick which look so bad you can actually see it from the street level.