Yes, Chelo's Brick & Stone repairs historic masonry on old farmhouses, including foundation stone, chimneys, and brick that was laid with lime mortar instead of modern cement. The key issue on a farmhouse this old usually isn't the brick or stone itself, it's making sure the repair mortar is soft enough to work with the original material instead of against it.
Farmhouses from the 1800s and early 1900s were usually built with soft, handmade brick or fieldstone set in lime mortar, which is deliberately softer than the masonry around it. That's on purpose: lime mortar is meant to be the sacrificial part, it flexes and lets moisture escape, and it's easier to repair than the brick. Modern Portland cement mortar is much harder than that old brick.
If a hard cement-based mortar gets used to repoint an old farmhouse, it doesn't flex and it doesn't let water out. Moisture gets trapped behind it, and when that water freezes it has nowhere to go but through the softer brick face, which is how you end up with spalled, crumbling brick that used to be sound. We match old lime-based masonry with a compatible lime or lime-blend restoration mortar instead.
The foundation on a lot of these older farmhouses is often rubble or fieldstone rather than a poured footing, and that stonework needs the same lime-compatible approach when it's repointed or rebuilt. We assess what's actually holding and what's failed before we touch anything, since replacing sound old material for no reason costs more than it needs to.
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Chelo's Brick & Stone serves Hillsville, Galax, Wytheville, Fancy Gap, and Independence, VA. Call for a straight answer and a free on-site estimate.
