Masonry work is one of the trickier trades to hire for, because the quality difference between a good job and a bad one is almost entirely invisible on day one. A repointing job that used the wrong mortar looks identical to a correctly done one for two or three winters. A retaining wall with no drainage looks exactly like one that's built properly until the wet seasons start stacking up. Here's how to tell the difference before you sign anything.
Start with what you can actually verify
Licensing and insurance are the floor, not a differentiator. In BC, most legitimate masonry contractors will be registered and carry liability and WCB coverage. Ask for proof before work starts. If someone hedges on this, stop there.
References from recent local jobs are more useful. Not a list of five-year-old jobs in other cities — recent jobs on properties you could actually drive by. A mason who does good work usually has no hesitation pointing you at their last three or four projects.
What a good masonry quote looks like
A written quote that tells you what the job actually includes is the baseline. At minimum it should specify:
- The scope of work in plain language (which walls, which sections, what type of repair or new construction)
- The materials: mortar type, brick or stone spec, any drainage or base materials for walls
- What's excluded — so you're not surprised by 'extra' charges at the end
- A payment schedule — standard is a deposit to start, balance on completion, not 100% upfront
- A realistic timeline
Questions that separate good masons from average ones
The answers to these questions tell you a lot before work starts:
- What mortar mix will you use, and why? (For old brick they should mention lime mortar. For a new wall, they should be able to specify.)
- How deep are you raking the joints before repointing? (The answer should be at least two to three times the joint width.)
- What goes behind the retaining wall? (You want to hear 'gravel backfill and a perforated drain pipe.')
- What's under the first course of brick? (For any freestanding wall, the answer should involve a footing.)
- What happens if you find rotted framing or failed ties behind the stone veneer? (They should have a clear process for handling scope changes.)
Red flags that are worth walking away from
These are patterns we see regularly in jobs that go wrong:
- Asking for full payment upfront — this is non-standard and removes your leverage
- No written scope, just a verbal number — if they won't write it down, you have no protection
- No mention of drainage on a retaining wall quote — this is either ignorance or a plan to cut costs
- A price significantly below every other quote — find out what's missing before you take it
- Reluctance to point you at recent local jobs — good work speaks for itself
- Using the word 'waterproof' to describe what a sealer does — brick sealers reduce absorption, they don't waterproof
The lowest bid question
Three quotes is the common advice, and it's good advice. What's less discussed is what to do when one quote is 30 percent below the other two. On simple work like a straight repaint or a lawn cut, the low bid is often just someone working faster or with lower overhead. On masonry, the gap almost always means something is being left out.
The most common omissions are: the gravel and drainage behind a wall (saves a day of material and labour), the footing under a new brick wall (saves a day of concrete work), proper scaffold for elevated work (saves rental cost and slows the job), and adequate cure time in cold weather (means moving faster than the mortar can handle).
Getting three scopes of work in writing and comparing what each includes — rather than just the bottom line — is the most useful thing you can do before choosing.
After the job: what to look for
Once the work is done, a few things are worth checking before you make final payment:
- Mortar colour is consistent and joints are tooled to a clean, matching profile
- No mortar smeared across brick faces (should be cleaned during the job)
- Weep holes or drainage exits are clear at the base of any veneer or cavity wall
- The site is clean — masonry generates a lot of rubble and offcuts, and removal should be part of the job
- Any landscaping or surface that was protected is back in place
