Bricklaying and repointing in Alderholt
Repointing, brick repair, garden walls, chimneys and new brickwork across Alderholt and SP6. Free site visit, free written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Brickwork needs repointing when the mortar has washed back behind the face of the brick, when a joint crumbles out under a fingernail, or when somebody has smeared hard cement over a soft old Alderholt wall and the brick is now taking the damage instead. Joints that are simply weathered and still tight can be left alone for years, and we will tell you so.
Calls from Alderholt come in three sorts. An older cottage, outbuilding or chimney where the joints have gone sandy and open. A house on one of the newer closes with a crack climbing a corner, a cill that has split, or a garden wall that has bowed out towards the lane. Or somebody planning an extension, a garage or a new boundary wall who wants the brickwork to look like it has always been there.
We come and look before anybody talks about mixes. The survey means running a key along the joints to find how far back the mortar is still sound, tapping brick faces for the hollow note that says the face has already blown, and following where rainwater actually leaves the wall. The site visit is free and so is the written quote, and it is itemised so you can see how much of the wall genuinely needs touching. Often it is one elevation rather than four.
The work
The jobs we do most in Alderholt
Repointing the older brickwork. Roughly a fifth of the houses in Alderholt went up before 1919, and those are solid walls of soft handmade brick bedded in lime. The joints come out by hand to about twice their depth, not with a disc cutter that widens the joint and chips the arris off the brick either side. They go back in an NHL lime and sharp sand mix rather than cement, so the joint stays softer than the brick and the wall dries out through the mortar instead of through the brick face. What we are asked to put right most often on the older cottages and outbuildings here is a hard sand and cement pointing job done a generation ago. Water that can no longer leave through the joint leaves through the brick, frost gets into the wet face, and the face lifts off in flakes. Once that starts, the cement has to come out and the worst bricks are cut out and turned or replaced with reclaimed brick of the right size, because a modern one will never match the weathering around it.
The newer closes and estates. Most of Alderholt went up after the war and the busiest decade was the eighties, so a great deal of what we see is cavity work, a facing skin in stretcher bond over a blockwork inner leaf. The faults are different: a stepped crack where a corner has settled, a lintel dropped over a wide opening, a cracked cill letting water in behind the brick, and corroding ties on the older cavity walls. The ground here shrinks and swells, so where rainwater ends up beside a foundation is a structural question rather than only a damp one. We also spend a fair amount of time lowering ground back off a damp proof course, because a raised border, a drive or a patio laid over it bridges the dpc and the wall goes damp at skirting height.
Boundary walls along the lanes take it from vehicles and from tree roots. Leaning lengths are rebuilt off a proper footing, gate piers go back plumb, and coping is re-bedded so the top of the wall throws water off rather than drinking it. Stacks are repointed and the flaunching renewed in one visit. New work is extensions, garages and porches, with the facing brick bonded so the elevation reads as part of the house and a sample panel laid where the colour has to be right in daylight.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines. Alderholt has no conservation area of its own and nothing on the national list, which is unusual this side of Dorset and it keeps the paperwork simple. Repointing and brick repair are maintenance, so there is no planning permission to get and the brick and the mortar are your choice rather than a planning officer's. Building control still applies where the structure changes, so a new opening, a replacement lintel, underpinning or a rebuilt load bearing pier is notifiable. A wall shared with next door brings in the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 whoever owns it, and a new garden wall has height limits that Planning Portal sets out.
Cost
What decides the price of a brickwork job
No rate per square metre. The joints decide this job, not the area. Most of what we price here is a village cottage on one of the old lanes, an eighties detached house, or a garage and its boundary wall in a large plot, and much of that is single storey work off a tower. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold, and how long it stands is why work at height rules make access a priced line. Raking by hand is slow, and joint depth and spalled faces decide the hours. Ask how deep, by hand or disc, what mix, and whether scaffold is in.
If something has moved
Loose brickwork, or a wall that has shifted
Ring rather than use the form. Anything overhead or leaning goes to the front of the queue, and the first visit makes it safe before we price the permanent repair. In Alderholt that is usually a boundary wall a vehicle has caught on a narrow lane, or a stack leaning once the mortar washed out below the pots. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
One local thing
Nobody here is telling you what your brickwork has to look like
Almost every village on this side of the county sits inside a conservation area, and in those places half of a brickwork job is a conversation about appearance before it is a job at all. Alderholt is not one of them. There is no conservation area here and no listed buildings, so nothing about the look of your wall has to be agreed with anybody. That has real consequences for what you should ask a bricklayer for.
If the original brick cannot be sourced you are free to choose the closest thing rather than the closest approved thing. If an old elevation was pointed in cement you can have it taken back to lime without applying for anything. A garden wall can be rebuilt in whatever bond and coping suits the house, and a spalled brick face can be cut out and replaced without a debate about the colour.
That freedom is not a licence, though. The wall still sets the rules even where the council does not. A soft period brick needs a mortar weaker than the brick, and nobody is going to stop you putting a hard cement mix on an old elevation, so the only person protecting that wall is whoever you hire. The other side of it is timing, and this is the part worth knowing.
Where there is no application to wait on, the job can be booked around the weather instead of around a decision. That matters more for brickwork than people expect: lime will not set in frost and green mortar washes out in heavy rain, so being able to move a start date by a fortnight is worth having. When you ring, tell us how flexible your dates are and we will use it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Alderholt and SP6, out through Sandleheath and Fordingbridge, and back across to Cranborne, Verwood and Three Legged Cross. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Alderholt questions we get asked
Is there anything in Alderholt that limits what I can do?
Not on the heritage side. Alderholt has no conservation area of its own and no listed entries at all, so a repoint, a rebuilt pier or a new garden wall is ordinary work as far as Dorset Council is concerned. That is unusual on this patch. It means the mortar mix gets chosen for the brick in front of us rather than to satisfy a conservation officer, and nobody has to approve the finish before we start.
Why does my wall crack after a long dry summer?
The ground moves. Alderholt sits on cohesive soil with a significant shrink and swell rating, and it is naturally wet for most of the year, so a dry spell pulls moisture out and the soil contracts under the footing. Cracks open in a stepped line through the mortar beds, then close again in autumn. Where the crack sits below a leaking gully or a blocked soakaway, that is a drainage fix first and a brickwork fix second.
Why does the old cottage down the road need different mortar?
Because it was built to breathe and yours was not. Roughly a fifth of the housing here is pre-1919, at 22.7%, sitting alongside a heavy run of 1980s building that peaks at 21.3%. A solid older wall wants a lime mortar soft enough to let damp leave through the joint. The 1980s cavity work takes a cement based mix. Put the hard mix on the old wall and the brick faces spall instead of the mortar.
How fast can you get out here to a fallen wall?
Alderholt is about thirteen miles from the yard, so a collapsed pier or a wall down onto a pavement is normally a same week visit rather than same day. Ring with the postcode and a photograph. If it is unsafe we come and drop the loose material so nothing falls on anyone, then price the rebuild properly once the footing and the bedding can actually be seen.
Would a garden annexe here bring in the River Avon rules?
It can. Alderholt drains into the River Avon catchment, and nutrient neutrality bites on anything that adds overnight accommodation, so a proper annexe or a habitable outbuilding gets caught while a repoint, a chimney rebuild or a new boundary wall does not. Brickwork repairs to what already stands sit outside it entirely. If your plan includes a bedroom and a bathroom, put that to Dorset Council before you price the walls.
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Bricklaying and repointing near Alderholt
Bricklaying and repointing nearby
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Get a price for the brickwork in Alderholt
Tell us the address and what the wall is doing. We come and look, and you get an itemised written price with the method on it as well as the number.