Today marks the passing of the company's former owner, Howard Reese. If you met Howard once, you never forgot him. Intelligent, articulate, and eternally optimistic, Howard was a big thinker and excited about the possibilities of what could be. It didn't matter if he was your estimator, your employer, your friend or your father, Howard Reese was interested in what you thought about virtually anything you had to share and, remarkably, managed to find common ground even with those whom he did not see eye to eye. Howard was a walk-on Varsity wrestler in college and spent summers working in the steel mills of Cleveland. After college and graduate school, he worked as a consultant at a Big Eight accounting firm, served as North America product manager for a division of Mattel, and acquired and ran a fine arts lighting company. He dedicated the last four decades of his life to promoting and elevating the masonry arts as the head of AAA-1 Masonry & Tuckpointing. As with all of his endeavors, Howard insisted on providing a superior product and always giving the customer more than they had anticipated. Hands down, Howard was an entrepreneur's entrepreneur and savored life until the very end. On April 8, 2022 after beating back cancer 25 years longer than any oncologist's prediction, Howard was gathered to his ancestors. May his memory be for a blessing.
Post: Scaffolding Saves the Day
Monday September 20, 2021
AAA-1 Masonry & Tuckpointing often works on projects requiring the use of scaffolding. Whenever possible, our preferred type of scaffolding is ladder-type scaffolding due to its strength, ease of assembly, and ability to solve many access challenges.
Ladder-type scaffolding allows our masons to construct safe and stable access with near infinite scalability. In the first photo above, Michael is standing next to one of our 3’-wide ladder-type scaffolding frames suitable for narrower spaces. The horizontal rungs allow for easy climbing and ensure the frame does not twist or flex, and is the perfect access solution for restoring the two-story residential building in the background.
Each scaffolding frame is approximately 6 feet tall. With the use of cross braces, locking pins and wall clamps, scaffolding frames can be stacked to create access many, many stories above grade.
(Refer to the building across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City I photographed this fall ... now that’s scaleable!)
Whether ladder-type scaffolding, walk-through scaffolding, tube-and-coupler scaffolding, or swingstage scaffolding, our licensed and very seasoned masons know how to safely access the area on your building requiring attention.
If you are in need of an assessment of your masonry building, please give us a call or drop us a line.
Thank you for the opportunity to be of service.
Post: Reputation for Honesty & Integrity
Friday July 16, 2021
Thanks to our enduring reputation for honesty and quality, AAA-1 Masonry is provided the opportunity to work on hundreds of masonry projects every year. Even our smallest sized work crews are led by master masons with decades of experience in the masonry arts. Here, crew chief Greg flanked by Jack and Jesus pause for a photo after putting the finishing touches on a magnificent century-old brick beauty in Wilmette recently purchased by a local TV news anchorman and his wife for their growing family. Considered their Forever Home, the new owners requested over a dozen different hand-mixed mortar samples in an effort to find the one color they both agreed was perfect for their brick exterior. The family could not be happier!
Inspiring and dazzling the most discerning Chicago-area home owners since 1954, let us assist you with your next masonry restoration project.
Post: We Leave Your Masonry Restoration Project Debris Free
Friday June 18, 2021
At AAA-1 Masonry & Tuckpointing, job site clean-up is considered just as important as the restoration work itself.
Watching the AAA-1 masons pour their hearts and souls into their work today I couldn't help but smile. How many other masons restoration companies can boast of over 1000 combined years of experience restoring brick, stone, mortar, terra cotta, window and door lintels, chimneys, parapet walls, stoop walls and caulk? And what other masonry restoration company directs as much attention to cleaning the premises after every day of work as it does the restoration of the masonry itself? We enjoy what we do and we expect a lot from ourselves as we lovingly restore your masonry structures back to their original weather-tight and beautiful condition. You can count on us to wow you with our workmanship and professionalism. Let us assist you with your next masonry restoration project.
Thank you,
Rob
Post: Window Lintel Replacement Work in East Lakeview
Friday May 28, 2021
This month, AAA-1 Masonry & Tuckpointing was hired to locate and correct the source of water incursion at an elegant pre-war courtyard building in East Lakeview just steps from the lake.
After examination of the exterior and interior wall conditions, it was determined that defective window lintels were the primary contributors to the water damage observed inside the living spaces (refer to first photo). We could tell by the bowing of the steel lintels and the step cracks emanating from the corners of the window heads that these lintels were severely deteriorated and in need of replacement but we never could have guessed just how structurally deficient they were.
Lintels are often referred to as "angle iron” because the shape of the steel used to support the bricks and stones over door and window openings forms a right angle. In residential work, steel lintels typically have a thickness of 3/8” or 1/2”. Steel of this thickness is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of pounds of load without difficulty. The wider the window or door opening, the thicker the piece of steel should be to handle the load and maintain a nice straight shape. In the second photo you can see the cross section of a 3/8” piece of angle iron freshly cut and ready for priming and painting. This is what steel lintels should look like.
The third photo shows the condition of one of the window lintels removed from the building. Wow, that is a really awful steel window lintel! (Actually, what crew chief Andy is holding in his hand is more like 99% rust and 1% steel.) It is hard to believe that this hunk of junk once looked like the lintel in photo #2. When steel lintels are structurally deficient, more and more of the brick and stone load gets supported by the window frames and, not surprisingly, owners often complain that their windows no longer open easily because the frames are being crushed and deflected and no longer retain a true square shape.
Replacement of window lintels requires strength, patience and technical skill. AAA-1 Masonry & Tuckpointing has the technical knowledge and extensive field experience to replace your window and door lintels correctly. (That means priming and twice-painting the steel before installation, and installing a proper flashing detail including stainless steel drip edges and end dams.). For lintel replacement work that lasts and lasts, please contact us for a free consultation.
Thank you,
Rob