Reference · Glossary · updated
Chicago masonry glossary.
A reference for the masonry words that show up on 312 Masonry quotes and in our guides — wythe, mortar types, lintel, parapet, tooled joint, spalling and twenty-four others. Each term is a single short definition you can cite. Written for homeowners, condo boards and anyone reading a scope.
- Licensed
- Bonded
- Insured
- License TGC-098-734
- Est. 2014
- 30 trade terms
Masonry vocabulary used on 312 quotes.
Each definition is one short paragraph, cite-ready. Cross-links go to the service or guide that uses the term in scope.
- Backing
- Material immediately behind a brick or stone wythe in a multi-wythe wall, providing structural support; commonly common brick behind a face brick veneer on Chicago two-flats.
- Bearing
- The portion of a lintel, beam or stone sitting on the wall on each side of an opening. Residential brick lintels typically have 4 to 6 inches of bearing each side. See the lintel guide →
- Bed joint
- The horizontal mortar joint between courses of brick or stone. Bed joints carry vertical load; head joints (vertical) lock the bond.
- Bond
- The pattern in which brick is laid. Common Chicago patterns include running bond (every brick offset half), Flemish bond (alternating stretcher and header), and common bond (every fifth or sixth course is headers).
- Brick
- A standardised baked-clay unit. Chicago common brick is roughly 3⅝ × 2¼ × 8 inches; face brick is selected for appearance; firebrick is harder and high-temperature, used in 19th-century industrial buildings.
- Brick veneer
- A single-wythe brick wall or facade anchored to a structural backing wall, not load-bearing. Common on 20th-century commercial and modern residential construction.
- Chicago common brick
- Locally manufactured common brick from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s. Soft, often salmon-pink to yellow, dominant on Chicago two-flats and worker cottages. Requires soft Type-N or lime mortar — Type-S cracks the face. Common on Logan Square cottages →
- Collar joint
- The continuous vertical mortar joint between two wythes in a multi-wythe wall. Distinct from the head joint (between bricks in a course) and the bed joint (horizontal). Collar joints stay invisible behind the face wythe.
- Coping
- The cap on the top of a parapet wall — stone, brick or metal — that sheds water off the wall. Loss of coping is the first failure mode for most Chicago parapets.
- Course
- A single horizontal row of brick or stone in a wall. Counted from the bottom up.
- Efflorescence
- White crystalline deposit on a brick or stone surface, left when water passes through the wall and evaporates, leaving dissolved mineral salts behind. Indicates water movement, not damage in itself.
- Face brick
- Brick selected for appearance, used on the visible face of a wall. Harder and more uniform than common brick.
- Facade
- The principal visible exterior face of a building, typically the street-facing wall. The Chicago Facade Ordinance regulates exterior walls of buildings 80 feet and taller. Commercial / facade service →
- Flashing
- Through-wall waterproof barrier — typically metal or rubberised — installed at lintels, sills, parapets and other water-collection points to direct water back out of the wall.
- Greystone
- A Chicago-specific residential building type built roughly 1880–1920, with a front facade of Indiana limestone or cut greystone over a brick body, brick side and rear walls, and stone stoops. Concentrated in Lincoln Park, Logan Square and Wicker Park. Lincoln Park greystone work →
- Head joint
- The vertical mortar joint between two adjacent bricks in the same course. Head joints lock the bond; bed joints (horizontal) carry the load.
- Lintel
- A horizontal structural member spanning an opening (window, door, garage) in a masonry wall, transferring the wall load above to the bearing wall on each side. Steel angle iron is the dominant Chicago residential type. See the lintel guide →
- Mortar
- The cementitious mix between bricks or stones in a wall. Composed of cement, lime, sand and water in defined proportions. Chicago residential mortars are most commonly Type-N (soft, lime-rich) or Type-S (stronger).
- Parapet
- The portion of a wall extending above the roof line at the building edge. Carries primarily wind and weather load, not vertical load. Capped with coping.
- Pointing
- Originally, the act of finishing fresh mortar joints with a tool to a specific profile (concave, V, weathered). Today often used as a synonym for repointing.
- Repointing
- The repair process of grinding out failed mortar joints and replacing them with fresh, matched mortar. In modern Chicago practice the term is used interchangeably with tuckpointing. Read the comparison guide →
- Spalling
- Failure mode where the face shell of a brick breaks off, exposing the soft interior. Caused by water trapped inside the brick freezing and expanding. The repair starts with the cause — flashing, mortar — not the brick. Brick repair service →
- Stoop
- The brick or stone porch and step assembly at the entrance of a Chicago residential building. Stoop step rebuild is a common scope on Lincoln Park greystones and Lincoln Square bungalows.
- Stretcher & header
- Two orientations of brick in a wall. A stretcher is laid with the long face out; a header is laid with the short end out. The pattern of stretchers and headers defines the bond.
- Tooled joint
- A mortar joint finished with a tool to a specific profile — concave (most common), V-shaped, or weathered. The profile sheds water from the joint and matches the original wall.
- Tuckpointing
- In modern Chicago practice, the repair process of grinding out failed mortar joints and replacing them with fresh, matched mortar; synonymous with repointing. Historically, tuckpointing was a decorative technique with a contrasting thin tuck of putty inside coloured mortar. Tuckpointing service →
- Type-N mortar
- A medium-strength mortar (roughly 750 psi at 28 days) used for soft historic brick — most pre-1920 Chicago stock. Lime-rich and softer than Type-S; flexes with the wall rather than cracking the brick face.
- Type-O mortar
- A low-strength mortar (roughly 350 psi at 28 days) historically used on the softest pre-1900 brick and lime-rich pre-Fire stock. Rare in modern repair scopes; sometimes used on Old Town Triangle preservation work. Old Town preservation →
- Type-S mortar
- A high-strength mortar (roughly 1,800 psi at 28 days) used for harder commercial brick, parapets, retaining walls and load-bearing courses. Too strong for soft historic brick — will crack the face.
- Wythe
- A continuous vertical section of a masonry wall, one masonry unit thick. Multi-wythe walls have two or more wythes separated by collar joints. Most Chicago brick walls are two or three wythes.
Where these terms get used.
Guide
Lintel guide
Uses bearing, soffit, span, flashing and lintel — the largest guide and where most of the vocabulary appears.
GuideTuckpointing vs repointing
The historic and modern meanings of the two trade terms — both defined in this glossary.
GuideSigns your brick needs repair
Spalling, efflorescence, cracks and mortar dust — diagnostic vocabulary in context.
Glossary · free estimate
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