Bricklaying and repointing in Beacon Hill
Repointing, brick repairs, garden and retaining walls across Beacon Hill and BH16, priced in writing after a free look at the wall.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most of the brickwork we get called to in Beacon Hill wants a repair, not a rebuild. A few metres of failed pointing, a handful of spalling brick faces or a crack stepping up from a garage opening are hours of work, and we would rather price that honestly than sell you a whole elevation.
People here ring us for one of three things. The joints have gone soft and sandy, you can pick at them with a screwdriver, and damp has started showing on the inside of that wall. A front garden wall has been clipped by a car, shoved by a hedge, or has quietly given up at the footing. Or a crack has appeared, usually stepping through the joints above a garage door or a window, and nobody has told you whether it matters.
All three want looking at close up rather than from the pavement, because on brickwork the answer is nearly always in the joints and in what is going on around the wall: a gutter running over, a downpipe soaking one corner, soil or a raised patio piled up above the damp proof course. We come out, get up to it, photograph what we find and tell you which of those you have before anybody talks about work.
The work
The brickwork jobs we do most around Beacon Hill
Repointing where it has actually failed. Most of Beacon Hill went up in the 1970s and early 1980s, so what you have is a cavity wall in hard machine made brick with a thin cement joint, and that stock rarely wants a whole house done. What goes first is the gable that takes the south westerlies and the run of wall under a gutter that has been overflowing, where the mortar has weathered back and the joint has lost its edge. We rake out to about twice the width of the joint, by hand wherever a disc would damage the brick, then point back to the profile the wall already has. Frost takes the face off a brick that has been kept wet, and on this estate that shows up under leaking gutters, behind downpipes and in the courses above the damp proof course where ground has been built up against the wall.
A stepped crack over a garage opening or a bay usually means the lintel has dropped or its bearing has failed, and filling the crack achieves nothing at all. Cavity ties of this period corrode and lift the joints in a regular horizontal line on the most exposed elevation. We tell you which of the two you have, and a crack that is still moving is better watched for a season than rebuilt around.
Retaining walls, and the ground behind them. Plots step here, so plenty of gardens have a retaining wall behind a drive or between two levels, and those fail differently from a house wall. Water builds up behind them because nothing was left for it to escape through, the wall goes bowed, and the coping and the gate piers move first. We rebuild what has moved, repoint what has not, and sort the drainage while the wall is open. New work is extension skins, garage conversions and openings cut through with a lintel over, and building control signing it off.
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. On permission, repairing and repointing an existing wall in the same materials is maintenance, so there is no planning permission to get and no building control to involve. No conservation area covers Beacon Hill and there is nothing listed here, so there is no heritage consent to chase either, and the brick and the mortar are your choice rather than a planning officer's. New work is where that changes, and Planning Portal guidance on fences, gates and garden walls sets out the heights that need an application. Building control comes back in where the structure changes, which here is usually a lintel over a new opening.
Cost
What decides the price of a brickwork job
No rate per square metre: what the joints are like decides the job. A bungalow you can walk a barrow round, a detached house with a retaining wall at the back of a sloping plot, and a front garden wall on a bend are three different jobs before a trowel comes out. 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.
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. We are out this way along the A35 most weeks, so a wall that has been hit or a stack with movement in it usually gets seen within a day. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Nothing here is listed, so the rules that bite are about walls
Beacon Hill is one of the few places we work where heritage gets out of the way completely. No conservation area covers it and there are no listed buildings in it, so nobody is going to tell you what colour your mortar has to be or turn down a brick for being the wrong period.
Repointing, replacing spalled brick and rebuilding a garden wall are all maintenance and you can simply get on with them. It also means you have a free hand you would not have in Wimborne or Blandford: if the front wall has to come down, it can go back up in something you actually like rather than something a planning officer will accept.
The rules that do apply here are the ordinary ones about walls. A new or rebuilt boundary wall over one metre high where it fronts a road, or over two metres anywhere else, needs planning permission, and the height is taken from the higher ground where levels change, which catches people out on stepped plots.
If the wall is shared with next door, or you are cutting into it, the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 gives your neighbour a formal say, and that is far easier served early than after the scaffold has arrived. Neither is a reason not to do the work. Both are cheaper dealt with before the quote than after we start.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Beacon Hill, Upton, Lytchett Minster, Lytchett Matravers, Corfe Mullen and the rest of BH16, and we are on this side of Poole most weeks. 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
Beacon Hill questions we get asked
Does the Green Belt here affect brickwork repairs?
Not repairs. Green Belt policy bites on new building and on extensions or outbuildings that add bulk in open countryside, so a repoint, a rebuilt chimney or a like for like garden wall around Beacon Hill sits outside it entirely. Where it does matter is a new detached garage or a workshop at the end of the plot. Dorset Council will tell you before you spend money on drawings, and it is worth asking before you ask us.
Nothing is listed here. Does that make brick matching easier?
It makes it your decision rather than an officer's. Beacon Hill has no conservation area and no listed entries, so there is nobody to satisfy on appearance and the brick and the joint get chosen to match what you already have. The awkward part is still the brick. A facing brick from the 1970s or early 1980s, a period that accounts for 14.9% of the housing here, has usually weathered well away from anything in a builders merchant.
The lawn stays wet all winter. Is that hurting the footings?
It can be. The ground under Beacon Hill is naturally wet and cohesive, the sort that swells as it takes water and shrinks back as it dries, so a footing standing in water through the winter and then baking in July gets worked both ways. Look at where your downpipes discharge and whether the gully is blocked. Moving water away from a wall is a far smaller job than underpinning it, and it is the first thing we check.
Is the crack above my window a lintel problem?
Often, and it is worth knowing before anyone points over it. A crack running up at an angle from a window corner usually means the lintel bearing has shifted or a soft cill bed has dropped, not that the mortar has failed. Pointing hides the movement for a season. We open the joint, look at what the lintel is actually bearing on, and either rebuild the bearing or tell you the wall is stable and the crack is old.
Where will your van and mixer go on these lanes?
On the drive if there is room, on the verge if there is not, and we ask first either way. The lanes in this corner of Sturminster Marshall parish are narrow enough that a mixer, a grab bag and a badly parked van will block a neighbour in. We drop materials once, keep bags on boards rather than the grass, and work off a tower where a single storey wall allows it instead of standing a scaffold across the footpath.
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Bricklaying and repointing near Beacon Hill
Bricklaying and repointing nearby
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Get the wall looked at properly
A free site visit, an itemised written quote, and a straight answer on whether it is a repair or a rebuild.