Bricklaying in Bransgore

Joints, and the mortar they actually want. 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 Bransgore 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.

Whether the wall is still moving. A crack that has been stable for years can be raked out, stitched with helical bars if needed, and repointed. A crack that grows each summer means the ground is still moving, often because a tree or a leaking drain is drying or wetting the clay. That needs the cause sorted before the brickwork, and it changes the job completely.

Which wall you have. Most houses in Bransgore are cavity walls built in hard, even brick with a cement mortar. The older cottages are solid brick in a softer mortar, often lime. Matching the brick and the mix on a cottage takes longer, and a hard cement mortar on soft brick makes the faces spall in frost.

How much is actually wrong. The joint depth, the number of spalled bricks to cut out and replace, and whether a wall tie has corroded all set the hours. Raking by hand is slow. A disc is quicker but can widen the joint.

Getting to it. A garden wall needs nothing. A chimney or a gable needs a scaffold, and how long it stands is why the work at height rules make access a priced line.

Ask any other quote whether the cause of the crack has been looked at, what mix is going in, and how many bricks are being replaced.

You deal with Thomas Hannen. It is his business, and he looks at the brickwork and prices it himself. Bransgore sits 5.6 miles from his Boscombe base, and he takes on walls anywhere in the village as well as at Thorney Hill, Sopley and along the BH23 roads towards Christchurch.

New Forest District Council covers planning and building control here. The company behind the name is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales with number 15471719, which is public on Companies House. On Checkatrade, the review from a verified customer reads 10 out of 10. Nothing is charged for the visit or for the written, itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Bransgore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Bransgore 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.