Bricklaying in Canford Cliffs

Garden and boundary walls. Most homes in Canford Cliffs sit on generous plots, and many are fronted by a brick wall with piers and a coping. The common faults are a cracked or bowed length, spalling bricks along the top where the coping has failed and frost has got in, and gate piers pushed out of line.

Where it is only the top courses, we take them down to sound work and relay them with a new coping. Where the whole length has moved, it comes down to the footing and is rebuilt. A garden wall repair is a day or two. A full rebuild runs longer, depending on the length.

Trees and walls. Canford Cliffs is heavily wooded, and mature pines grow close to a lot of boundaries. Roots lift a shallow footing and crack the wall above it in a stepped line. We will not simply cut the roots out: the tree may be protected by a Tree Preservation Order or by the conservation area, and taking the root that holds a pine up is not a safe fix anyway. Bridging the footing over the root with a lintel, or moving the line of the wall slightly, usually is.

Retaining walls. The ground falls away towards the chines and the harbour, so a sloping garden held up by a retaining wall is not unusual in Canford Cliffs. A retaining wall needs a proper foundation, drainage behind it and weep holes through it, and one that is bulging has usually been built without all three. We tell you honestly whether it can be repaired or has to be rebuilt.

Chimneys. Loose brick at the top of a stack, cracked flaunching and a failed pot are a scaffold job. We rebuild the top courses in matching brick, in a lime mortar where the stack is an older solid one, reset the pots and form new flaunching, and the lead round the base, covered under roofing, can be dressed from the same scaffold.

Extensions and new work. Garden rooms, garages and extensions in blockwork with a brick outer leaf, the right cavity, wall ties, a damp proof course (DPC), lintels over the openings and a bond that matches the house, usually stretcher bond on the post-war stock. Houses in Canford Cliffs were built across several decades in several shades of brick, often alongside render, so we lay a sample panel for you to approve before the walls go up, with the mortar mixed from a sand chosen to match the joint colour and a joint finish, flush or weather struck, to match the old work. Where a wall is simply tired rather than broken, repointing may be all it needs.

No rate per square metre, because the metre of wall tells you almost nothing until you know what the joints are like.

Getting to it. A Canford Cliffs front wall behind a gravel drive, a retaining wall at the bottom of a steep garden and a chimney on a two storey detached house are three different access problems, and on a terraced garden every brick and bag goes down the steps by hand. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold, a garden wall wants nothing. How long the platform stands matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules are why it is a priced line rather than an optional extra.

The joints, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow and is the only safe way on soft old brick. How deep the joints have to come out, and whether the brick faces have already spalled, decides the hours more than the area does.

The mix, and matching. Matching an existing mortar for colour, texture and strength takes trial panels. Matching a brick means sourcing it. Neither is a line most quotes make visible, and both are why two prices for the same wall can be so far apart.

Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are being raked and by hand or by disc, what the mortar mix is and whether it has been matched, how many bricks are being replaced, and whether the scaffold is included. The same wall can be priced for quite different work.

We cover Canford Cliffs from the village on Haven Road down to Cliff Drive and the chines, and across BH13 into Branksome Park, a little over four miles from our base in Boscombe. BCP Council deals with planning and building control.

You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of 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. Before you book a visit in Canford Cliffs, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Canford Cliffs 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.