The Glue That Holds Your Main Street Together…Sort Of
By Joe Pronesti, Chris Tobin, and Alexis Shady
This month’s Main Street Memo looks at the legacy masonry bond agent sand lime mortar. While students of the fireground are quick to understand and apply good building collapse discipline, one item sometimes overlooked when prefire planning/building familiarization is the bonding agent used on many structures built prior to 1933: sand lime mortar.
The use of sand lime mortar to bond the masonry bricks together was the standard prior to 1933. This type of mortar does not bond as well to brick or stone as today’s Portland-cement mortar. Its major issue is that the sand lime mortar can be washed and flaked away by years of weather, in particular water, such as from leaking pipes or hose streams.
Download this month’s training bulletin as a PDF here.
RELATED FIREFIGHTER TRAINING
JOSEPH PRONESTI is the chief of the Elyria (OH) Fire Department. He is a graduate of the Ohio Fire Chiefs’ Executive Officer program and a lead instructor at the Cuyahoga (OH) County Community College Fire Academy. He is a frequent contributor to fire service publications and sites, including Fire Engineering, FireEngineering.com, and FirefigherNation.com.
CHRISTOPHER TOBIN is a firefighter assigned to St. Louis (MO) Fire Department Rescue 2.
ALEXIS SHADY is a firefighter/paramedic with the Richmond Heights (MO) Fire Department.
