Type S Mortar Price Per Bag, and What 80 Pounds Covers

Type S is the letter most people arrive with. Rockhouse stocks one bag of it: Pro Mix Type S Masonry Cement - White (80 lb.) at $19.95 per bag. The masonry aisle holds six mortar and cement products in total, and every one of them prices by the bag.

Two questions decide which bag leaves the yard on your trailer. The first is what the letters mean and which one your wall wants. The second is how far one bag goes, and that second answer has more moving parts than a bag weight can carry. This guide handles both, prints the six bags with their prices, and tells you what to have in hand when you call the counter.

What the letters on a mortar bag mean

Mortar grades run M, S, N and O. The letters come from the words MASON WORK, where every second letter is a grade. They rank by compressive strength, and ASTM C270 is the standard that sets the numbers behind them.

• Type M is the strongest of the four. It goes into work below grade and into stone masonry that carries heavy weight.
• Type S sits one step down and holds a strong bond. It suits work at or below grade, exterior walls and stone veneer.
• Type N is the general purpose grade for above grade walls. Most brick and block work in a yard sits here.
• Type O is the weakest of the four. It handles interior work and repointing on soft historic masonry.

Stronger is not automatically better. A mortar harder than the units around it moves stress into the brick or stone instead of into the joint, and a soft old wall repointed with the wrong grade fails at the unit face. Which grade a given wall calls for belongs to the project plans, the engineer or the building official. Rockhouse sells the bag and does no specification work.

The six bags in the Rockhouse masonry aisle

The masonry supplies aisle holds twelve products. Six of them are mortar, cement or a mortar additive, and each one carries its own price per bag.

• Pro Mix Type S Masonry Cement - White (80 lb.) at $19.95 per bag. A Type S masonry cement in a bright white finish for glass block and light colored natural stone, where the joint color shows against the unit.
• Pro Mix® Mortar Portland/Lime Type N 80-lb., Champagne at $20.00 per bag. An Ash Grove portland lime mortar for laying brick, block and stone or repairing an existing wall.
• P&L Professional Mortar Mix at $10.50 per bag. A pre-blended masonry cement for brick, block and stone work.
• Sakrete High-Strength Concrete Mix (80 lb.) at $8.50 per bag. Concrete for footings, fence posts and slabs.
• Sakrete Floor Mud Mix (50 lb.) at $18.00 per bag. A portland cement and sand bed mix for floating a shower pan or an entryway before tile goes down.
• Buff Mortar Color Additive at $85.00 per bag. A high concentration pigment that tints mortar to a warm buff tone.

Prices in that list run from $8.50 to $85.00 per bag, a ten times spread, and the letter grade explains almost none of it. Two of the six are not mortar at all.

Concrete is not mortar, and floor mud is neither

Sakrete High-Strength Concrete Mix (80 lb.) at $8.50 per bag is the cheapest bag in the aisle because it does a different job. Concrete carries coarse stone aggregate and stands up on its own as a structural mass. It pours into a footing, sets a fence post, and forms a slab. It does not belong in a joint between two units. Spread concrete where mortar should go and the coarse aggregate keeps the joint from closing.

Mortar carries fine sand and no coarse stone. Its job is adhesion between units and a joint thin enough to tool. That difference is why an $8.50 bag and a $19.95 bag sit on the same pallet run without competing.

Sakrete Floor Mud Mix (50 lb.) at $18.00 per bag is a third category again. Floor mud is a portland cement and sand bed for leveling and sloping a surface before tile. It packs to a slope and holds it. Nothing about it is a laying mortar, and it goes in the bag list here because it shares the aisle and the per bag unit.

Masonry cement or portland and lime

Look at the two Pro Mix products again. One reads masonry cement, the other reads portland lime. That is a real difference and it changes what happens on the board.

A masonry cement bag arrives with the cementitious materials pre-blended, including the air entraining agents that give the mix workability and freeze thaw resistance. A mason adds sand and water. Pro Mix Type S Masonry Cement - White (80 lb.) at $19.95 per bag works this way, and P&L Professional Mortar Mix at $10.50 per bag does too.

A portland lime bag pairs portland cement with hydrated lime. Pro Mix® Mortar Portland/Lime Type N 80-lb., Champagne at $20.00 per bag is the aisle's portland lime option. Portland lime mortars run higher on bond strength and lower on air content, and masons who repoint historic brick tend to want lime in the mix for that reason. Both families make a Type S. Both families make a Type N. The letter tells you the strength class, and the family tells you what is in the bag before the sand goes in.

Which bag a stone wall or a block wall takes

The unit on the wall is the first thing that narrows the choice. A block wall laid above grade in Arkansas is ordinary Type N territory. Bring the wall below grade, or hang natural stone veneer on it, and the specification usually moves to Type S for the stronger bond. Anything carrying serious weight, or anything a plan calls out by grade, goes exactly where the plan says.

Color is the second thing, and it decides more of the finished look than most buyers expect. A mortar joint frames every unit on all four sides. A white Type S under light limestone reads clean and lets the stone color carry the wall. A champagne portland lime joint warms brown and tan stone. A buff pigment pulls a gray mix toward earth tones. Nobody sees the grade of a wall from the street. Everybody sees the joint color.

Rockhouse Stone Company has supplied Arkansas masons under the Bennett Brothers of Hot Springs name since 1972, and the counter crew has watched a lot of walls go up. They will tell you what other buyers pull for a job like yours. They will not write your specification.

What 80 pounds actually covers

The bag says 80 lb. That figure is the dry weight in the sack. It is not a volume of finished mortar and it is not a coverage number.

Three things stand between a bag weight and a bag count on your order.

1. Sand goes in after the bag. Masonry cement and portland lime both mix with sand on site, and one 80 pound bag turns into considerably more than 80 pounds of usable mortar. The ratio and the yield print on the manufacturer's bag, and the bag is the authority on its own mix.
2. Joint thickness moves the total more than anything else. A standard joint runs 3/8 of an inch. Run it at half an inch across a big wall and mortar consumption climbs by a third with no change to the unit count.
3. The unit decides the joint length. A wall of 8 by 16 block has far less joint per square foot than a wall of thin brick or irregular natural stone veneer, and irregular stone with wide joints eats the most mortar of anything in the yard.

That is why the yard asks for a unit count and a joint size before it quotes a bag count. Give the counter the number of block, the square footage of veneer, or the linear feet of wall plus its height, and say what joint you plan to run. Rockhouse gives free consultations and quotes on material quantities, and the counter will work the bag count with you on the phone at 501-532-1905.

Color additive and how far a pigment goes

Buff Mortar Color Additive at $85.00 per bag looks expensive beside a $10.50 bag of mortar mix until you see how it works. Pigment is a high concentration product measured against the cementitious material in the mix. One bag of pigment tints a batch far larger than itself.

Two rules matter with any mortar pigment. Keep the dose identical from batch to batch, because a wall built over three days with three different pigment doses shows three different joint colors and nothing fixes that afterward. And mix a small test batch, let it cure, and look at it dry in daylight. Wet mortar reads several shades darker than cured mortar, so a joint judged out of the mixer will disappoint on the wall.

Pickup at the yard and free delivery in Garland County

Bagged material travels on pallets and the yard loads them with a forklift. Rockhouse runs a 7 acre yard at 5643 N Hwy 7, Hot Springs Village, AR 71909, open Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. Call ahead and the crew stages your pallets before you arrive.

Rockhouse delivers free on 3 or more pallets to Hot Springs Village and all of Garland County. Below three pallets the yard quotes the run when you call. Rockhouse Connect covers buyers outside the region and books the freight nationally.

The online store shows what is on the shelf and what it costs. Nobody can order through it. A pallet of bags leaves the yard after a phone call to 501-532-1905 or a walk up to the counter.

Trade pricing and net terms for masons

A crew going through mortar by the pallet belongs on a verified pro account. That account carries trade pricing and net terms, and qualified buyers get trade credit on top. A mason can then pull material through a whole season and settle once. The Rockhouse Rewards Program layers tiered discounts over that for repeat and volume buyers, and direct-to-jobsite delivery drops the bags where the wall is going up. Call 501-532-1905 to open one.

What to have ready before you call 501-532-1905

Four answers get a mortar quote done in about two minutes.

1. Say what unit you are laying, whether block, brick, thin veneer or full bed natural stone.
2. Give the count of units, or the square footage of wall face.
3. Name the grade your plan calls for, or say that you need the counter to talk through the options.
4. Say what joint color you want, and whether the job needs pigment on the same ticket.

Rockhouse Stone supplies the material and does no on-site work. The yard stocks the mortar, prints the price beside its unit, palletizes the bags and gets them to your address. Call 501-532-1905 with your unit count and the yard will work the bag count, price the pigment if you want one, and give you a delivery figure for Garland County. You can also drive out to 5643 N Hwy 7, look at a cured sample in daylight, and load the bags yourself.