Bricklaying and repointing in Bransgore

Repointing, and the mortar it actually wants. Half of Bransgore went up between the middle sixties and the early eighties, in a cement mortar that was often harder than the facing brick it was holding. Where that is the case the joints have shrunk back, hairline gaps have opened along the top of each bed joint, and driven rain is getting behind the face. We rake out by hand to about twice the joint width, wash the wall down, and point back in a mix matched to what is there, finished flush, bucket handle or weather struck so it sheds water instead of holding it. Close to a fifth of the village is older than that, and those cottages are solid wall in soft red brick, wanting a breathable lime mortar, usually an NHL with a coarse local sand. A hard cement joint on soft brick simply moves the damage into the brick face.

Wall ties, and spalled brick. A cavity wall built here in the seventies has galvanised ties in it, and fifty years is about their working life. As they corrode they swell and that lifts the outer skin along a bed joint, and the tell is horizontal cracking at regular spacing up an elevation, most often on the south west face that takes the weather. It is a proper repair with replacement ties installed through the outer skin, not a pointing job, and pointing over it only hides it for a season. Once a brick face has blown, frost takes another layer off it every winter, so we cut the failed units out and replace them with a reclaimed or handmade brick of the right period rather than the nearest thing on the merchant's rack. On the first two courses above the damp proof course, where splashback keeps the wall wet, that is often all that is wrong.

Plots in Bransgore are long and four in ten houses are detached, so there is a lot of free-standing brickwork about: boundary walls, a pair of gate piers either side of the drive, low retaining walls where the garden steps down. Free-standing walls weather from both sides at once, which is why they are usually the first brickwork on a property to lean or bow. A stack is the most weathered brickwork on any house, and the flaunching around the pots normally fails before anything else. New work is extensions and garden rooms in blockwork with a facing skin laid in stretcher bond to match the house, and cutting a new lintel in over a widened opening.

No rate per square metre: what the joints are like decides the job. A bungalow gable, a two storey rear elevation behind a narrow side gate, and a chimney stack are three different jobs before a joint is raked. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold, a garden wall wants nothing, and how long the platform 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 work across Bransgore and the villages around it, Thorney Hill, Sopley, Burley and out towards Christchurch, and the BH23 postcode generally. 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.