Bricklaying and repointing in Ashley

Cracks, and telling live movement from old. Half the houses in Ashley went up between the war and the early eighties, with the busiest years around the turn of the sixties, and shallow foundations of that age move a little with the ground. So the first question on any crack is whether it has finished. We record where it runs, how wide it is at each end, and whether it goes through the brick or round it, and where it matters we leave a tell tale and come back. A dead crack is cut out and repointed to match. One that is still working needs the cause dealt with first, and that is usually water or roots rather than the wall.

Wall ties, and brickwork at ground level. Cavity walls of that era were built with a narrow cavity and the ties of the day, and when those corrode they swell and jack the outer leaf apart. The sign is a horizontal crack repeating every few courses at the same height, and a bulge you can see by sighting along the elevation from one end. That is not a pointing job: the ties are replaced through the face in stainless steel and the brickwork cut out and rebuilt where it has been pushed out of line. Two houses in five here are bungalows, which means long runs of wall within a few courses of the ground, most of it facing a border or a path. The damp proof course sits two courses up, and once a raised bed, a gravel margin or a patio has been laid over it the wall bridges and goes damp inside. We take the ground back down, cut in a margin, and replace any brick whose face has spalled where it has been kept wet.

Repointing a whole house is rare here. It is usually the south west face, where driven rain has scoured the mortar back and left the joints open, raked out by hand to sound mortar and struck so the joint sheds water rather than holding it on a ledge. On the older solid wall properties in the village that mix is a lime one, because a cement joint traps water in the brick until frost takes the face off. The wide windows and patio doors of this period sit on long lintels, and a crack running straight up from one corner of an opening means the lintel has dropped or a steel one is corroding. We replace them, rebuild the brickwork over, and renew cracked cills. Beyond the house it is gate piers put back plumb and coping re-bedded.

There is no rate per square metre, because the joints decide it and not the area. Most of what we price here is a bungalow, a post-war semi, or a detached house with a garage and a low front wall, and a good deal of it works off a tower rather than a full scaffold. 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.

We cover Ashley and BH25 across New Milton, out through Bashley, Barton on Sea and Hordle, and up to Bransgore and Sway. 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.