Mortar Joint Profiles Explained: Concave, Weathered, Raked, Grapevine — and Why the Finish Decides How Long Your Wall Lasts

Two Chicago tuckpointing jobs can use the exact same mortar — same sand, same color, same mix — and one of them looks like it belongs on the house while the other looks like a stripe painted across it. The usual difference is not the mortar. It is the shape the mason tooled into the joint.

Joint profile is one of those details homeowners have never had a reason to think about, right up until they are looking at fresh repointing that stands out from across the street. And it is not only cosmetic: the profile controls whether a joint sheds water or holds it, and in a climate that freezes and thaws dozens of times a winter, that is the difference between joints lasting decades and joints failing early.

Paul Lally's Masonry has been tooling Chicagoland mortar joints since 1988. Here is what the profiles are, which ones perform, and why matching yours matters more than most people realize. Free on-site estimates — (708) 448-8866.

What "tooling" a joint actually does

When mortar is placed in a joint it starts out soft and porous. At a specific point in its set — masons call it thumbprint hard, firm enough to take an impression but still workable — the mason runs a jointing tool along the joint under pressure.

Two things happen:

1. Compaction. The mortar at the joint surface is pressed tight, driving out voids and densifying the outer layer.
2. Surface closure. The tool burnishes the surface pores shut, which sharply reduces how much water the joint absorbs.

That compacted skin is the joint's weather layer. A joint that was struck flush and left untooled has an open, porous face, and it drinks water. The same mortar, tooled properly, resists it. This is why tooling is a real construction step and not a finishing flourish — and why joints that were never tooled tend to be the first ones eroding on a wall.

The shape the tool leaves then decides what happens to water that reaches the joint: run off, or sit there.

The profiles, and how they perform

Profile	What it looks like	Water performance	Where you see it in Chicagoland
Concave	Curved inward, tooled with a round jointer	Best — compacted, no ledge, sheds cleanly	The most common profile on Chicago-area brick, from bungalows to modern veneer
V-joint	Tooled to a V with a bladed jointer	Excellent — compacted, sharp shadow line	Common on midcentury and later work; crisp, formal look
Weathered (struck)	Angled so the top is recessed and the bottom flush	Good — deliberately slopes water outward	Traditional; found on older brickwork and stone
Flush	Cut level with the brick face	Fair — no ledge, but little compaction	Common on rough or reclaimed brick and utility walls
Grapevine	Flush with a narrow groove pressed down the center	Fair — decorative, minor water catch	Older and colonial-revival brickwork
Beaded	Raised half-round bead	Fair to poor — creates a ledge	Ornamental work, rare residentially
Raked	Deliberately recessed, leaving a square ledge	Poor — holds water, snow, and ice	Midcentury and modern architectural brick
Extruded / weeping	Mortar squeezed out, untooled	Worst — uncompacted and ledged	Rustic and cottage styles

Concave: the workhorse

If you are looking at a Chicago brick house and you are not sure what profile it has, the odds favor concave. It is tooled with a round jointer, it compresses the mortar hard against both brick faces, and its curve leaves nowhere for water to sit. In a freeze-thaw climate it is genuinely difficult to beat, which is why it became the regional default.

V-joints: sharp, and nearly as good

A V-joint gets the same compaction benefit with a crisper shadow line, and sheds water just as well. It reads more formal and more modern than concave. On the right building it looks excellent; on a 1920s bungalow it can look slightly too sharp.

Weathered joints: the traditional water-shedder

The weathered or struck joint is angled so the upper edge is set back and the lower edge is flush with the brick below — literally a small built-in slope directing water out of the wall. It is an old, sensible profile and it holds up well. It takes more skill to run consistently over a large elevation, which is part of why it is less common on new work.

Raked joints: the one that costs you

A raked joint is recessed square into the wall, leaving a deep shadow line that architects have loved since the 1950s. It looks great and it performs badly.

Every raked joint is a small horizontal shelf, repeated across the entire wall. Rain sits on it. Snow packs into it. Meltwater refreezes in it. In Chicagoland's freeze-thaw cycling, that is a wall constantly working water into its joints — and raked walls, in our experience, come up for repointing noticeably sooner than concave ones on the same street.

If your house has raked joints, it is worth knowing: this is not a defect, but it is a maintenance obligation. Those joints need to be watched more closely, and they benefit more than most from having the rest of the water management on the house done right.

Extruded and weeping joints: rustic, and not for this climate

Extruded joints are mortar squeezed out of the joint and left where it lands — uncompacted, unshaped, and hanging over the brick as an overhang that catches everything. On a sheltered garden wall in a mild climate, fine. On an exposed Chicagoland elevation, it is a slow-motion water problem.

Why matching the profile matters in tuckpointing

Good tuckpointing and repointing is invisible work. Four things have to line up for that:

1. Mortar color — matched to the aged existing joint, not to what it looked like when new
2. Sand and texture — grain size and color, which is what your eye actually reads up close
3. Hardness — matched to the brick, never harder than the units (this is the one that has structural consequences)
4. Profile — the tooled shape

Miss the fourth and the repair announces itself no matter how well you did the first three, because profile is what creates the shadow line across the wall. Your eye picks up an inconsistent shadow pattern from thirty feet away without knowing why. Concave repointing dropped into a raked wall reads as a bright stripe; flush joints run into a concave wall read as a flat patch.

How we identify your profile: we look where weather has not reached — under soffits and overhangs, on the protected elevation, behind downspouts, in a sheltered corner. Weathered joints erode over decades toward looking flat or slightly recessed regardless of what they started as, so the original shape survives longest in the sheltered spots. Then we match it.

The full repointing sequence, and where tooling fits

1. Cut out the failed mortar to sound depth — typically about two to two and a half times the joint width — by grinding or raking, without damaging the brick edges.
2. Clean and dampen the joint so the brick does not pull the water out of the fresh mortar before it can cure.
3. Pack the joint in layers. Deep joints are filled in lifts, each one compacted, rather than jammed full in one pass that leaves voids behind.
4. Wait for thumbprint hard. This is a judgment call that changes with temperature, humidity, sun, and wind — the same wall can be ready at different times on different elevations.
5. Tool the joint to the matched profile, under pressure, working the tool consistently along the whole run.
6. Brush and clean down once the joint has set enough not to smear.

Step 4 is where the craft lives. Tool too early and you smear wet mortar across the brick face and leave a weak, under-compacted joint. Tool too late and the tool tears and burnishes the surface instead of compacting it, which looks fine on day one and erodes fast. On a hot, windy Chicago afternoon, one elevation can go from too wet to too dry in the time it takes to work down the scaffold.

Chicagoland context: profiles by era and building type

• Pre-1930s common brick — bungalows, two-flats, workers' cottages. Soft brick, lime-rich mortar, mostly concave or weathered joints. These walls need soft mortar as well as matched profile; a hard modern mix on soft common brick pushes stress into the brick faces and spalls them.
• Greystones and limestone-fronted homes. Stone joints and brick side walls often differ, sometimes with a finer, tighter joint on the front elevation. Both need matching, and the stone needs a compatible, softer mortar.
• Postwar ranches and Cape Cods — Oak Lawn, Evergreen Park, Burbank, Palos. Concave dominates; harder brick, so more mortar-mix latitude than the older stock.
• Midcentury and modern architectural brick. This is where raked joints turn up, and where we most often find joints failing ahead of the brick.
• Newer veneer subdivisions — Orland Park, Frankfort, Naperville, Homer Glen. Concave or V, machine-consistent, generally sound — but the details around them (sealant joints, weeps, flashing) are usually what fails first.

Signs your joints are failing regardless of profile

• Mortar you can scratch out with a key or that comes away sandy in your hand
• Joints receded noticeably behind the brick face
• Cracks running through joints or between joint and brick
• Missing sections of mortar, especially on south and west elevations
• Efflorescence — white powdery salts — indicating water moving through the wall
• Spalling brick faces, which often means water has been getting past the joints for a while
• Damp interior walls or musty smells on an exterior wall

What drives the cost of repointing

Profile matching does not add much cost by itself — but the surrounding conditions do:

• Square footage of wall and percentage of joints that have actually failed
• Height and access — a grade-level wall versus a chimney or a three-story elevation needing staging
• Cut-out difficulty — hard existing mortar, tight joints, or soft brick that requires hand-raking rather than grinding
• Match difficulty for color, sand, and profile, especially on historic work
• Brick repairs needed alongside the joints
• Season and curing conditions

We do not publish a rate, because scope decides it. The on-site estimate is free — (708) 448-8866.

DIY vs. hiring a mason

Homeowners can and do point small areas successfully. What goes wrong most often is not the mixing — it is:

• Cutting out too shallow, so the new mortar is a thin cosmetic skin that pops out in a season or two
• Damaging brick edges with a grinder, which permanently changes how the wall looks
• Using a mortar too hard for the brick, which spalls soft older brick within a few winters
• Mistiming the tooling, giving weak, smeared, or torn joints
• Not matching the profile, so the patch is visible forever
• Working in the wrong conditions — too cold, too hot, direct sun, wind — all of which wreck the cure

None of it is mystical. It just takes having done it enough times to read the mortar.

Maintenance

• Walk the exterior once a year and look at south and west elevations first — they take the driving rain
• Scratch-test suspicious joints with a key; sandy is a repointing signal
• Keep gutters and downspouts clear and discharging well away from the walls
• Keep soil, mulch, and plantings off the base courses
• Check chimney joints specifically — the most exposed masonry on the house
• If you have raked joints, inspect more often than your neighbors with concave ones

Related services

• Tuckpointing and repointing — cut out, repack, and tool joints back to matched profile
• Brick repair — for spalled and cracked faces where water has already done damage
• Chimney repair and rebuilds — the most weather-exposed joints on the building
• Masonry restoration — historic work where lime mortar and traditional profiles matter most
• Masonry waterproofing — a breathable repellent after joints are sound and cured

The short version

The profile is not trim. Tooling compacts and closes the joint, and the shape decides whether water runs off or sits on the wall. Concave and V joints perform best in Chicagoland's freeze-thaw climate; raked and extruded joints hold water and pay for it. And when repointing goes back into an existing wall, matching the profile — along with color, sand, and hardness — is what makes the repair disappear.

Paul Lally's Masonry Inc. is a family-owned, insured masonry contractor serving Chicago and the Chicagoland suburbs since 1988 — tuckpointing, brick repair and replacement, chimney repair and rebuilds, lintel replacement, masonry restoration, and waterproofing for residential and commercial properties. Built on Craftsmanship. Backed by Experience. Free on-site estimates — call (708) 448-8866.

If your joints are receding, cracking, or crumbling — or a previous repointing job stands out on your wall — we will look at it and tell you plainly what it needs. Request a free on-site estimate or call (708) 448-8866.