Masonry & Tuckpointing in Barrington, Illinois

The zoning ordinance names tuckpointing

In Barrington's zoning ordinance, masonry is not left to interpretation. Section 9.8 creates the H Historic Overlay District, and subsection E says no alteration to the exterior appearance of a structure or property inside it may be made until a Certificate of Appropriateness has been issued.

The Village's Historic District page supplies the practical side. Exterior changes to contributing and non-contributing buildings alike go through the seven-member Architectural Review Commission (ARC). Smaller projects such as replacement roofs or windows can be approved administratively by the Zoning Official, so long as no original materials are removed. The certificate carries no fee, review generally runs 60 to 90 days, and the certificate comes before the building permit.

The two documents do not quite agree. The district page says minor repairs do not need ARC approval though a permit may still be required, and it never names tuckpointing, masonry or chimneys; the ordinance does. The Zoning Official decides how a job is routed, as an administrative decision or by referral to the ARC. If your house is in the district, call Development Services at (847) 304-3460 before you accept a bid. For work handled administratively, the official must issue the certificate when the change substantially conforms to the building's style, and a denial can be appealed to the ARC within 45 days.

Is your house inside the district?

Barrington has two historic designations, and only one carries the requirement. The Barrington Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 (reference 86001047). The Village's Historic Overlay District, created in 2001, is a layer on the zoning map. In the National Park Service's words, National Register listing places no federal restrictions on a private owner; the local overlay brings the certificate.

To check an address, use the Village's district map and property survey, which list each property by street with its style, approximate date and contributing or non-contributing status. We counted 359 entries: about 280 contributing, 79 not. Age alone does not put a house in the district; the map and survey do.

A frame-house district: where the masonry actually is

The Village calls its historic district one of the largest frame-home districts in Illinois, and its guidelines say most contributing buildings went up between 1880 and 1939, with Folk houses the most common style. Even the landmark houses are clad in weatherboard. Of the three buildings the Village lists as National Register buildings, two are houses, and its survey records both with weatherboard siding: Barrington's White House at 145 W. Main Street (1898), on a rock-faced concrete block foundation, and the Octagon House at 223 W. Main Street, which it calls a frame house. Each has a brick chimney, which is where the masonry is.

Our own rounded tally of the survey text, not an official Village figure: about 240 of the 359 entries name a brick or stone chimney or flue, around 85 of them on an outer wall; roughly 215 of about 300 foundation descriptions are brick, stone or concrete block; and around 40 entries, roughly one in nine, describe a brick or brick-veneer exterior. Those are a mix of 1920s and 1930s veneer houses, such as 416 S. Grove Avenue, a Tudor Revival of about 1927 that the guidelines picture, with a terra-cotta tile roof and a three-flue chimney top, and buildings from the 1950s to the 1980s.

So read your own house first. On a weatherboard house the jobs are the chimney, the foundation joints and any brick porch piers. On a brick-veneer Craftsman or Tudor you also have a masonry skin, with flashing, weep holes and lintels behind it.

What the Village's guidelines say about mortar

The district's Design Guidelines (adopted February 27, 2006, last amended October 10, 2022) treat mortar as the part of the wall meant to give so the brick does not. Section 4 asks for:

• Soft mortar, never Portland cement or other hard mortar, matched to the original; if that cannot be determined, a historic compound such as one part lime to two parts sand.
• A matched joint: width, depth, color, raking profile, composition and texture.
• Hand tools, not electric power saws, to remove old mortar.
• No abrasive cleaning: no sandblasting, no water above 600 pounds per square inch, a test patch before any chemical.
• No silicone-based sealants on brick, no stucco, and no painting of never-painted brick unless it is badly mismatched from earlier patching.

One disagreement between sources is worth raising with a bidder. The Park Service brief allows a skilled mason to cut horizontal joints in hard cement mortar with a thin diamond-blade grinder, never vertical joints. Inside the district the guidelines say hand tools. Ask how the joints will come out, and ask for a sample panel first.

Foundations, piers and steps

Section 13 of the guidelines notes that many Barrington houses stand on stone or brick foundations, and that some original foundations were replaced with rock-faced concrete block in the early twentieth century, which it counts as part of the house's history. Gaps between piers are closed with wood lattice, matching brick or vertical boards, not plywood, corrugated metal or new block.

On steps, the guidelines favor replacing deteriorated wood porch steps with wood, call new brick or concrete steps on a wooden front porch discouraged but acceptable in some cases, and note that poured concrete steps were used on Craftsman, Tudor Revival and Colonial Revival houses of the early twentieth century.

Outside the district: a town built mostly after 1940

Barrington has about 11,000 residents and roughly 4,400 homes (2020-2024 American Community Survey, via the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning). Only 13 percent of them, 575, predate 1940; 34 percent date from 1940 to 1969 and 31 percent from 1970 to 1989. The median year built is 1971, so the typical house is about 55 years old. Of occupied homes, 78 percent are owner-occupied.

That profile means different jobs than the district. By the 1930s most masons were already mixing Portland cement into their mortar, so on a brick-veneer ranch, split-level or colonial from the 1950s to the 1980s the repair mortar is normally the same family, still no harder than the brick. What tends to need attention after five or six decades is the hardware around the brick: flashing, sealant joints, ties, crowns and lintels. The Brick Industry Association says caps, copings, sills, lintels and sealant joints need periodic inspection, and that chimneys may need repair sooner than the walls.

Chimneys: where a Barrington house takes the hardest weather

A chimney is a tall masonry stack standing in the weather on every side. In Barrington it is also one of the commonest pieces of masonry on an older house: the district survey names a brick or stone chimney or flue on about 240 of its 359 entries, about 85 of them on an outside wall, exposed from the ground up and not just above the roofline.

The climate does the rest. The Cook County hazard mitigation plan records a low of minus 27 degrees Fahrenheit in January 1982 and a high of 103, and local flooding from heavy rain and spring snowmelt. The Park Service lists freeze-thaw cycles among the causes of cracking in brick, and the Village guidelines say the key to brick and mortar preservation is to keep water out.

Where chimneys fail, top to bottom

• Crown or cap. It should overhang the walls with a drip edge, slope away from the flue, and sit apart from the flue tile by a clear gap so the two can move. A thin troweled-on parge coat tends to crack and debond, and the gap around the liner is a commonly overlooked way in for water.
• Flashing and counterflashing where the stack meets the roof. Laps and vertical legs must be sealed with an acid-free masonry sealant. Inspectors look for water damage in the attic just below the flashing. A chimney wider than 30 inches on a sloped roof usually needs a cricket.
• Mortar joints. Concave, vee and compacted grapevine profiles shed water; raked joints are to be avoided on new work. Repointing alone fixes nothing if the real cause is a leaking roof or gutter, the Park Service warns.
• Brick faces. Badly cracked or spalled brick is a likely water-entry point; white salts that keep returning mean water is still moving through.
• Flue liner. You cannot see it from the yard. A Level 2 inspection's video scan reports cracks or gaps in it.

When to have a chimney inspected

The Chimney Safety Institute of America separates three levels. Level 1 is routine, recommended for cleanings and annual inspections when nothing is changing; a sweep is advised once build-up reaches an eighth of an inch. Level 2 adds the roof, attic and a video scan of the flue, and is recommended when you sell, before relining, after a chimney fire or damaging weather, and when the conditions of use change, such as a new stove or insert, or a furnace or water heater of a different fuel or efficiency. In between, look at the outside each season with binoculars.

What a sound repair scope looks like

• The cause is named first: crown, flashing, joints or brick, not just “repoint the chimney.” The Park Service and the Brick Industry Association both say to find the moisture source before repairing.
• Work runs top down, crown and flashing, then joints, then brick, so repairs below are not soaked by a failed top.
• The flue is its own line item, based on the video scan. Relining is a different scope from masonry repair.
• The method is stated: joint depth two to two-and-a-half times the joint width, a sample panel about three feet square approved first, and wall temperatures of 40 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit while mortar sets, per the Park Service.
• Inside the district, the certificate comes first. The guidelines want visible chimneys restored or replicated to the original design, with clay, slate or stone caps, left as masonry and not covered with siding or stucco; rear chimneys out of street view may be removed if deteriorated. The survey logs ARC cases for new chimneys at 644 S. Cook Street and 145 W. Lake Street, so staff have seen chimney applications.

Pick Chimney repair, Chimney rebuild or Chimney relining in the quote form.

Signs to look at before you call anyone

• Mortar that scrapes out with a screwdriver tip or crumbles to sand, with joints sitting well behind the brick face
• Brick faces flaking or popping off: spalling
• White efflorescence that returns after cleaning, a sign of unresolved water penetration
• Rust stains on or above a lintel, where the steel may be corroding
• A bowing chimney, or staining where the stack tapers in
• Cracks wider than about 2 millimeters, cracks through several bricks, stair-step cracking, widespread spalling, or sills sloping the wrong way: the Brick Industry Association lists these as possible structural problems for an engineer's judgment, not a mason's trowel

Questions worth asking before you compare bids

• Is my address inside the Historic Overlay District, and who applies for the certificate, me or the contractor? Get the answer in writing.
• Is every contractor and subcontractor registered with the Village? No permit is issued until they are.
• Which mortar, and how do you know it is softer than my brick? Ask what the sample panel will show.
• How will the old joints come out? Inside the district, the guidelines say hand tools.
• For a chimney: where exactly is the water entering, and will the flue be scanned?

Questions Barrington owners ask