Bricklaying and repointing in Bashley

Repointing modern brickwork, and where it goes. Very little here needs a whole house doing. The busiest decade in Bashley was the nineties, and brickwork of the last forty years was laid in a cement mortar harder than the brick, so it does not wash out the way a lime joint does. It fails in patches: the perpends open on the elevation that takes the weather, joints under a cill or a coping give way where water concentrates, and hairline cracking follows the bed joints where the mix was too rich. Those areas are raked out square to sound mortar and pointed back in a matched mix, struck to the profile already there, which on this housing is usually a bucket handle rather than weather struck or flush.

Cracks over openings, and movement joints. Modern houses have wide windows, patio doors and long unbroken elevations, and two things follow. A dropped or corroding lintel over a wide opening shows as a crack running up from one corner, and it is fixed by propping the opening, replacing the lintel and rebuilding the brickwork over it. And where a long run of brickwork was built without a vertical movement joint, or the joint was filled with something hard, the wall makes its own crack at the weakest point instead. Cutting a proper joint in and sealing it correctly stops it opening again, which repointing on its own will not.

Plots here are large and the lanes are narrow, so walls and gate piers take a lot of punishment from vehicles and from roots. A pier out of plumb is rebuilt off its footing rather than straightened, a bowed length comes down and goes back up with its own bricks where they are sound, and drainage goes in behind anything holding back a change in level. A good share of the work is not the house at all: garages, workshops, stores and stabling get new brick and blockwork, repairs to the bottom courses where the ground has crept up over the damp proof course, new openings and rebuilt gable ends. There is a scatter of much older building here too, including five listed entries, and those solid walls get a lime mix, hand raking rather than a disc, and badly spalled brick replaced from reclaimed handmade stock.

No rate per square metre. The joints decide this job, not the area. Most of what we price here is a nineties detached house or bungalow on a large plot, a garage, workshop or stable behind it, or a long boundary wall down a lane, and a lot 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.

We cover Bashley and BH25, through New Milton, Ashley and Wootton, and out by Bransgore, Sway and Brockenhurst. 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.