Repairing Fireplace Mortar

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Bobby on behalf of Expert Village. Everyone loves having a warm fireplace on a cold winter day. The downside to that is you have to clean the fireplace. In this series we are going to tell you how to clean the inside of the fireplace, your chimney and even repaint the inside of your fireplace to make it look new. Okay so the next thing that I want to talk to you about is perhaps your mortar is cracked out between the bricks here and it is just a good idea to keep a good eye on these. It is rare for there to be a fire danger but it can happen. So let's say right here the mortar is cracked out. This fireplace that I am looking at right now is actually in pretty good shape but I am going to go ahead and show you how to do this. This is some mortar I picked up. It is made especially for fireplaces and you will probably have a hard time picking that up at your local hardwood store. I actually had to go to a masonry supply and buy this. It is made to withstand really high heat but it is a great product. If you don't feel comfortable doing this yourself, you can always just call a brick mason or contractor and they can probably take care of it very well. So if you are into saving a little money, pick this up. I think I paid less than $20 for the bag. You just take a little on your trial here and I am going to take this and put it in a spot that needs repair or more cracked out a little bit. I am just going to dab it in there and I am going to take the trial and lay it flat and work that mortar into the joint there and smooth it out. Then you can always come back with a wet rag and kind of smooth out the edges if you need to make a nice little mortar joint. The color is a little different but we are going to end up painting this eventually. So once we end up painting this, you can never tell that it has been patched and it will blend in nicely. "