Bricklaying in Bryanston

Repointing to match. Old brick is the hardest brickwork to repoint well because the new joint is judged against the weathered joints around it.

We rake out by hand to about twice the joint width, take the colour from the sand, not a pigment, and copy the joint profile already on the rest of the wall, whether that is flush, bucket handle or weather struck. On the older soft brick the mix goes to an NHL lime so the wall keeps breathing. On newer brick that was laid in cement, a gauged mix matched for strength is right instead. Where a previous owner has pointed in hard sand and cement and the faces are spalling behind it, that cement comes out first.

Stacks and parapets. Where a stack sits on a party wall and serves two houses, half of it belongs next door. A stack is the most weathered brickwork on any house: the flaunching around the pots fails first, then the top few courses. Repointing a stack, renewing flaunching, resetting a coping and rebuilding a top that has gone soft are a day or two of work once the scaffold is up, and doing it once for both halves saves putting the scaffold up twice. Where a roof runs into a wall that carries on past it, the top of that wall is exposed on three sides and gets no help from anything, and coping stones that have lost their bedding, open joints on the upstand and failed flaunching at the head of it are a standing source of damp in the rooms below.

Once a face has blown, every frost takes another layer. We cut out the failed units and set in a matched brick, reclaimed or handmade where the original is no longer made, keeping the bond correct so the repair does not show, which on a street elevation inside the Blandford St Mary and Bryanston conservation area matters more than anywhere else on the building. Garden brickwork weathers in its own way too: boundary walls, garden walls, dwarf walls under railings and gate piers on and off the lane. Free-standing walls weather from both faces and lean before anything attached to a building does, and we rebuild bowed lengths back to plumb on a proper footing rather than pointing over the cracks in them. New work is extensions and garden rooms in blockwork with a facing skin, laid in stretcher bond with the cavity, wall ties and damp proof course detailed properly, a lintel cut in over a widened opening, and brickwork stitched rather than filled where a footing has moved.

Brickwork is not priced by the square metre. Walls of the same size can be days apart once you look at the joints.

How the platform goes up. A low boundary wall needs nothing more than a board to stand on. A chimney or a tall gable needs a scaffold, and on a lane with estate walls either side it has to be planned round the road. Under the work at height rules the platform is a priced line, not a favour.

How deep the joints go. Mortar that has washed back a long way takes longer to rake out than a shallow joint. Raking by hand is slower than a disc, but on soft brick a disc widens the joint and chips the edges.

How many bricks have spalled. A frost-damaged face has to be cut out and a matching brick found. Old handmade bricks are harder to match than modern ones, and flint panels take their own time.

The mortar. Lime mortar on an older wall is slower to work and needs protecting while it cures. Cement on a soft brick traps water and makes the faces blow.

Put these to any other quote: how deep is the rake, is it by hand or by disc, what is the mix, and how many bricks are included in the brick count?

We work in Bryanston, 17.3 miles from our base in Boscombe, and across the DT11 villages along the Stour: Blandford Forum, Blandford St Mary, Stourpaine, Spetisbury and Winterborne Stickland. Dorset Council deals with planning and building control there.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719. The firm is Thomas Hannen's own, and he does the looking and the pricing rather than a salesman. Our Checkatrade page carries a 10 out of 10 from a verified customer. You pay nothing for the visit, and the itemised quote in writing is free. Before you book a visit in Bryanston, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Bryanston 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.