Prioritizing Masonry Repairs When Your Budget Is Limited

We completely understand that life is expensive, and a lot of families and business owners do not have discretionary income sitting around for masonry repairs. The good news is that not everything needs to happen at once. While some things (a small chip in a walkway, a loose brick in a garden wall, faded mortar from an old repair, etc) can wait, other things (falling bricks from an apartment building, a cracked foundation, water pouring through a basement wall, etc) will only get worse and more expensive as time goes on. 

After two decades working on properties across Greater Boston, our team at JMS Masonry & Restoration has a pretty simple system for sorting out what needs to happen now and what can wait until the budget catches up.

TL;DR: Fix anything that threatens safety or structure first, handle water intrusion next, and let the purely cosmetic stuff wait until the budget allows.

Start With Anything That Could Hurt Someone Or Collapse

This is the easy part of the list, even though it is usually the most expensive part too. A foundation crack that keeps spreading, a wall that has started to lean, loose bricks sitting above a sidewalk or doorway (these things fall, and when they do, somebody can get hurt) all jump straight to the top, no matter what else is competing for the budget.

JMS Masonry & Restoration provides foundation repair to homeowners and property owners across Greater Boston, and these are the calls we treat as urgent the second we hang up the phone. If a mason walks your property and points out anything structural, that item does not get to wait for next year's budget.

Address Water Intrusion Next

Water does not care about your budget, and it does not wait either. A cracked mortar joint, a gap in flashing, a chimney cap that has rusted through (these all let water in), and once it is in, it keeps moving. It rots wood, grows mold, and in a New England winter, it freezes and thaws and makes the original crack bigger every single time.

We wrote about this exact problem in our article on basement flooding in Brookline, and the same logic applies to any building type. JMS Masonry & Restoration offers waterproofing throughout Boston and the surrounding towns, and we tell every client the same thing: water repairs come right behind anything structural, before the cosmetic stuff gets touched at all. Mold tied to ongoing moisture is also a real health issue, not just a property one, and the EPA's guidance on mold and moisture control lays out why this should not get pushed to next year.

What Can Actually Wait

Not everything on the list needs a check written this month. A small chip in a walkway, a loose brick in a garden wall, some faded or mismatched mortar from an old repair, that sort of thing can usually sit for a season or two without getting worse. We ask our clients one question to sort this out: is it getting worse on its own, letting water in, or putting anyone at risk? If the answer is no across the board, it’s probably ok to wait, but it’s always worth checking with a professional masonry contractor in the Boston area.

A Patch Job Is Fine, As Long As It Has An End Date

Putting a temporary fix on something is not always about cutting corners, sometimes it’s just being smart with a limited budget, as long as somebody keeps track of it. We covered the difference between patch jobs and permanent fixes in our piece on temporary versus long-term masonry solutions, and the same rule applies at home.

A patch can buy time on something that is not urgent yet, but it needs a date attached to it. Otherwise a temporary fix turns into a permanent habit, and the small problem from two years ago is suddenly a big one.

Get Everything Ranked On Paper Before You Spend A Dime

The fastest way to make a smart call when money is tight is to get a mason out to the property and have them rank every issue by urgency, in writing. A written list takes the guesswork out of it and gives you something to work from over the next year or two, instead of just hoping you picked the right thing to fix first.

JMS Masonry Helps Homeowners Prioritize Repairs Across Boston

JMS Masonry & Restoration serves homeowners and businesses across Boston, Quincy, Newton, Cambridge, and the towns in between, and our assessments are built to help families and business owners plan, not to talk anyone into the biggest job on the property. If you are juggling more than one masonry problem right now, reach out to our team and we will help you figure out where to start.