Bricklaying in Barton on Sea

The seaward elevation weathers first. Much of Barton on Sea sits close to the cliff edge, and salt laden air keeps a wall damp between showers and drives the mortar back faster than it does two miles inland. Joints open, the perpends go first, and water starts finding its way behind the brick.

They are raked out by hand to sound mortar and put back in a mix deliberately weaker than the brick so the joint stays the sacrificial part, finished weather struck or bucket handle on an exposed face so it sheds water instead of holding it on a ledge, and flush only where that is what the wall already carries. Salt does not just sit on a wall either. It goes into the brick, crystallises in the pores as it dries and pushes the face off from the inside, which shows as spalling, a flaking face and a white powdery bloom, worst near the ground and worst on the side that takes the weather. Those bricks are cut out and replaced rather than filled, matched from a reclaimed batch where the original run has gone, with a sample panel so you can judge the colour on the wall itself.

Anything ferrous, and communal brickwork. Half the housing here dates from the war years to the early eighties, and cavity walls of that age were built with the ties of the day, which salt shortens the life of. As they corrode they swell and lift the outer leaf, showing as cracking that repeats along the same courses and a wall gone out of line. Replacements go in stainless steel through the face and the brickwork is cut out and rebuilt where it has been pushed. The same rule applies to a corroding steel lintel over a wide opening and to any fixing going into a coastal wall. Nearly a fifth of the dwellings here are flats, which brings its own work: parapet and balcony brickwork, screen walls, bin stores, communal boundary walls and gate piers, all of it in the same salt air with nobody living directly behind it to notice. If you are a leaseholder or on a residents' management company, major work has a consultation process attached to it under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, so a written itemised quote matters twice over.

Two houses in five in Barton on Sea are bungalows, so much of the work is long runs of wall a few courses off the ground. A freestanding wall on an exposed plot takes wind on both faces, so it wants piers at sensible intervals, a coping that overhangs and a proper footing under it, since a shallow foundation is what lets a wall lean, and a damp proof course at the base where the appearance allows it, and a bowed one is usually better taken down and rebuilt than patched. New work is cavity construction with the brick chosen for a coastal exposure and stainless ties throughout.

Brickwork is not priced by the square metre. What matters is the state of the joints, the bricks themselves and the ground under the wall.

Where the wall is. A bungalow a few roads back from the cliff, a block of flats with shared walls and bin stores, and a detached house with a garage and a front garden wall each need a different set up. A chimney or a gable end needs scaffold, and the work at height rules are why access has its own price.

Raking out. Doing it by hand takes longer but leaves the brick edges intact. A disc cutter is quicker but can widen each joint. How deep we go, and how many bricks on the sea side have spalled from salt and frost, sets the hours.

Clay below. Barton on Sea is on clay, which dries and shrinks in summer and swells again in winter. A crack that opens in August and closes by February is likely to be the ground moving, and new mortar will not stop it. If a downpipe is dumping water beside the footings, moving that water away, as Approved Document H describes, may be part of the repair.

The mortar. A hard cement mix on a soft brick holds water in, and the brick face breaks off. We match the mix to the brick, not to what sets fastest.

Worth asking every other quote: what depth of rake and which tool, which mortar, how many new bricks are allowed for, and is scaffold in.

Barton lies seven and a half miles east of Boscombe, where we are based. We take on brickwork there, in Becton, and in New Milton and Milford on Sea. Structural questions, such as a new lintel, go to building control at New Forest District Council.

Look us up on Companies House as Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns the business and comes out to look at your wall before he puts a price on it. A verified reviewer on Checkatrade gave us 10 out of 10. Both the visit and the itemised written quote are free. Before you book a visit in Barton on Sea, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Barton on Sea need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.