Masons get shopped on a published $8 / sq ft tuckpointing Facebook special. Those numbers cannot see the joints or the access. A ground-level Type N smear of a ranch veneer is a different job from a three-story historic lime grind with a swing stage, lintels, and cut-and-replace brick.
Open the free tuckpointing bid calculatorTuckpointing is a face, then a method, then how you reach it. Length times height is the wall. Joint lineal feet is that area times a density for the bond. A smear is a surface coat. Grind-and-point is the real trade. Rebuild is cut-out and relay. Ground is a ladder. Two stories is scaffold. Three stories is a swing stage.
The cheap special is almost always a surface coat on a one-story ranch, no grind, Type N bags. Proper tuckpointing grinds the joint out, then points it. Matching a smear per-foot number on a grind-and-scaffold job is how a sold wall becomes a two-day loss after the first scaffold ticket.
A rusted lintel is a steel invoice and two hours. Cut-and-replace brick is units plus set time. Historic lime is mix time, not a bag. Color-match is a sample. The calculator prices the same wall three ways — smear, grind-and-point, rebuild — so you can see which method still keeps the margin when the owner asks you to “just match the other guy.”
Load the wage with payroll burden. Add overhead as a share of direct cost. Then take margin as a share of the customer’s price, not a markup on cost. The walk-away number is total cost. A proposed price under that number loses money before you take anything out of it.
This page is a walkthrough of the arithmetic in the tuckpointing bid calculator. It is not a structural specification, an engineered stamp, a historic-preservation determination, or a price you should copy onto a contract.
Charge from wall area, method, access, and extras — not a published $8 / sq ft special. A ground-level Type N smear of a ranch veneer is a different job from a three-story historic lime grind with a swing stage, lintels, and cut-and-replace brick.
Yes. A smear is a surface coat with no grind. Proper tuckpointing grinds the joint out, then points it. Rebuild is cut-out and relay. Matching a smear special on a grind-and-scaffold job is how a sold wall becomes a two-day loss after the first scaffold ticket.
Ground is a ladder day. Two stories is scaffold rental and set hours. Three stories is a swing stage or mast climber. The access does not live in a published per-foot dump.
No. Type N is bags on a modern veneer. Lime putty is mix time and a different chemistry. Color-match is a sample invoice. The cheap special is almost always Type N on a one-story ranch.