Spec Mix® Preblended Mortars | Specifying Mortar for Unit Masonry

Be honest. If you’re a designer, you’ve not awakened in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea for using mortar. If you’re an engineer, you’re concentrating on much more than C-270 mortar; you already have the numbers you can plug in. And if you’re a specifier, well, with all due respect, you’ve got a rubber stamp with "Mortar" on it, don’t you?

Yet, for all the attention given to the aesthetics of the cmu, and all the assumptions allowed in the structural design, mortar is just as critical an element in the wall as the cmu, grout, and rebar. Field batched mortar, when properly proportioned, mixed, and finished, will enhance the look of a wall; poorly done, it can detract or ruin what you’ve so carefully envisioned. Design and drawings are within the architect’s control, and material manufacturing is trusted to those with proven performance, but who’s minding the mortar?

In all fairness to the guy working the mixer on the jobsite, "good" or "bad" field batched mortar may not be within his absolute control, even assuming he’s highly skilled at it. The variables in field measurements and raw materials, particularly moisture content and site contamination of the sand, affect the consistency and quality of the mortar. When adjustments are made for these variables at the mixer, it’s usually a little more of this, a tad more of that. It’s likely that a bit too much adjusting will cause the mortar mix to no longer meet proportion requirements of the mortar specification. And it’s a given such batches will not match each other; you’ll see it, right in the middle of your wall.

Now think about adding field measured oxide to that method to create integrally colored mortar. Yikes!

Take control! With your power of design and specification, you can eliminate the possibility of mortar being the aesthetic weak link in the wall. Spec Mix® Preblended Masonry Mortar, manufactured by EZ Mix, Inc., is the most popular and respected name in masonry mortar. Its state-of-the-art factory production guarantees the most consistent material batch possible. In fact, each batch is computer controlled and recorded, and each bag is identified to a batch. Since we know what’s in every bag, you’ll know what’s on your job. All the mixer man has to do is add enough water for proper workability.

Example Masonry Mortar Specification
2.02   Mortar

A.   Mortar shall be Spec Mix® Preblended Masonry Mortar, Type S, conforming to the proportion and property requirements of ASTM C-270, manufactured by EZ Mix, Inc., Sun Valley, CA.

1. Colors:
        a.   Natural Gray
        b.   Medium Tan
        c.   Oak

See Spec Mix® Preblended Mortar and Spec Mix® Mortar Colors.

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