Bricklaying and repointing in Barton on Sea

The seaward elevation. Barton on Sea is a little over a kilometre from the water, 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 rather than 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 here 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.

No rate per square metre, because the joints decide it and not the area. Most of what we price here is a bungalow a few streets back from the clifftop, a block of flats with communal walls and bin stores, or a detached house with a garage and a front boundary wall. 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, how many bricks, and whether scaffold is in.

We cover Barton on Sea and BH25, through Becton, New Milton and Ashley, and along the coast by Milford on Sea, Hordle and Everton. 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.