Bricklaying in Crossways
Garden walls, driveway piers, repointing, lintels and brick repair across Crossways and the DT2 villages around it.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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The work
Brickwork in Crossways: what we do and what it costs
Most brickwork trouble in Crossways is in the garden walls, not the walls holding the house up. Boundary walls, driveway piers and low retaining walls between plots take the weather and the knocks, they were nearly all built without a damp proof course, and they are the first thing to go. They are also the cheapest thing on a property to put right properly, if it is done before the whole length starts leaning.
The other two common faults are a gable that has started to lose its joints on the weather side, and cracking above a garage door or a patio opening where the lintel has begun to move. Neither is dramatic, both get slowly worse, and both are far cheaper to sort at the point you first notice them.
We come out and look at the whole property, not the single wall you have spotted, and tell you which of those you have. If it is nothing worth spending money on yet, we will say that plainly and put nothing in front of you. The site visit and the itemised written quote are free either way.
The work
Brickwork jobs in Crossways
Walls, piers and retaining walls. Estate plots here are divided by long low brick walls, and driveways are flanked by piers that were built to hold a gate and often never got one.
Most were laid off a shallow footing with no damp proof course, so they draw water out of the ground, the bottom courses go soft and the wall leans, and on ground that shrinks and swells the movement is seasonal as well. We rebuild bowed lengths on a proper foundation, put a DPC in, reset the coping so water is thrown clear, and rebuild gate piers bonded into the wall instead of standing on their own. Where a wall is retaining ground between two levels it gets built as a retaining wall, with drainage behind it, not as a garden wall that happens to have soil against one side.
One elevation, not four. Plenty of Crossways houses are only thirty or forty years old and already want pointing on one elevation, which surprises people. It is normal: the gable that faces the weather is worn out long before the sheltered walls. We rake back to sound mortar, match the mix and the sand for colour, and finish the joint bucket handle or weather struck to match what is already on the house rather than cut flush because it is quicker. Wide garage openings, patio doors and picture windows of this age sit on steel lintels, and a corroding lintel expands and cracks the brickwork it carries: prop, cut out, replace and rebuild over it. That is structural and goes through building control. On the older houses in the village the ties are galvanised and worth a look, since corroding ties show as fine horizontal cracking at regular intervals and remedial ties go in from outside without taking the skin down.
Around the edges of Crossways there are properties that predate all of this, solid wall construction with no cavity behind them, and those get lime rather than cement: an NHL mortar, raked by hand, kept breathable, with a sample panel to look at first. Putting a hard modern mix on soft period brick is what causes the spalling faces on so many walls repointed decades ago. Stacks lose their flaunching and top courses first and are rebuilt off a scaffold. New work means extension skins, porches and garden walls, where the job is matching a facing brick that is often no longer made: reclaimed stock, a sample brick off the wall, and you see what we have found before it is laid.
How it runs
Repairing brickwork on a modern estate house
Thomas walks each elevation himself, photographs anything that needs explaining, and prices the job on the spot. In writing, the quote splits out the access, the raking out, the mortar mix, each elevation, bricks to be replaced, and the waste. The one quote covers it through.
Most Crossways houses are brick and block cavity walls from the seventies and eighties, laid in cement mortar with a hard, machine made facing brick. The brickwork that wears out here tends to be driveway piers and boundary walls, the brickwork over a garage opening, a chimney on an older house, or a wall with a crack that needs looking at. Bricks are matched from reclaim or current stock before anything is ordered. Open frontages make scaffolds and materials easy to place. We clear up each evening and the rubble goes away with us. Should opening up expose a failed lintel or wall tie trouble, Thomas sends a photo and a figure and waits for your decision.
Repointing and brick repair are maintenance. With no conservation area in Crossways, nobody takes a view on how the brickwork of an ordinary house looks. Height limits for building or raising a garden wall are in the Planning Portal's garden wall guidance, and a change to the outside of the house is covered by Planning Portal guidance on external walls. A new lintel or a retaining wall is structural, so Dorset Council building control is involved, and work on a shared wall falls under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Cost
What sets the price of a brickwork repair here
We do not quote a rate per square metre. The area of wall tells you little until you know what the joints and bricks are like.
Access. A house on an open estate frontage, a terrace with a shared rear path and a bungalow tight against next door's fence are three different set ups. A chimney needs a platform at roof height. It is costed separately, because the work at height rules set what it must be.
The joints and the faces. Cement joints on a modern wall are hard and slow to rake out by disc, and the edges of the bricks must not be chipped. How deep the joints go and whether any faces have spalled decide the hours.
Cracks and movement. Crossways sits on clay that shrinks in dry summers and swells in wet winters. A crack that opens and closes with the seasons is a different job from a one off, and it may need the cause dealt with first, such as a leaking drain or a downpipe emptying at the wall.
Matching the brick. Some seventies facing bricks are no longer made, so finding a match can mean reclaimed stock.
Before choosing, get each builder to say how deep and with what tool they rake, the mix, the number of bricks allowed for, and if scaffold is included.
If something has moved
A pier, boundary wall or brick arch that has moved
Move cars away, keep children clear, and do not try to shove it upright. Anything leaning or overhead comes first: a chimney that has moved, a wall pushed out by roots, a gate pier clipped by a car, or loose brickwork over a garage door.
A crack that has suddenly widened after a dry spell or heavy rain is worth a call too, because the ground here moves with the seasons. On the first visit we prop it, take down what is unsafe, or cordon it off, and work out the cause before pricing the repair. Booked work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Should a wall have moved, telephone us rather than filling in the form, and if the call is missed, we get back to you as soon as possible.
The one local thing
No conservation area here, and that saves you real money
Crossways has no conservation area, and on an ordinary house here there is no heritage layer to deal with. On this patch that is genuinely unusual, and it is worth knowing because it takes a whole layer of cost and delay off a brickwork job. You can repoint in whichever mortar actually suits the wall without asking anyone.
You can choose the brick when something has to be replaced, rather than hunting for an exact match because the council will look at it. You can rebuild a garden wall in a different brick, put a modern coping on it, or take a pier down and not put it back. Ten miles away, on a listed cottage, every one of those needs consent in writing before a joint is opened, and getting it takes longer than the work does.
What that freedom does not do is change the physics, and this is where people in Crossways lose money. Because nobody has to approve the mortar, it is tempting to let whoever is cheapest put a strong cement mix on everything. On the modern houses that is roughly right, because they were built that way. On the older cottages on the lanes it is wrong, and it will spall the brick faces within a few winters.
The same goes for the ground: no designation stops rainwater from a downpipe soaking the footing of a wall, and Approved Document H still sets out where surface water is supposed to go. Pick the mortar to suit the wall, get the water away from the base of it, and the absence of a heritage constraint turns into money saved rather than a wall done twice.
Who you are dealing with
A bricklayer who prices the job himself
We are 21.8 miles from Crossways, at our base in Boscombe, and for brickwork we also cover Moreton, Woodsford, Owermoigne and Broadmayne in DT2, with Dorset Council for building control. The company, Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, has company number 15471719 and is registered in England and Wales. Before you book a visit in Crossways, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Thomas Hannen owns the business and comes out to look at your wall and write the price himself. One verified Checkatrade customer marked our work 10 out of 10. Visits are free, and the written, itemised quote costs nothing.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Crossways?
Most repairs in Crossways 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.
| Question | In Crossways |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Crossways. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Crossways, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Nothing in Crossways is on the statutory list, so listed building consent does not come into it. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Crossways. |
Questions
Questions about bricklaying in Crossways
There is no conservation area in Crossways. Can we do as we like?
On the planning side, more or less. Crossways has no conservation area, which is unusual on this patch, and unless the Historic England list shows your own building, repointing, brick replacement and a rebuilt wall are ordinary repairs and Dorset Council is not going to ask what colour the joints are. The wall itself is less relaxed. Put a hard cement mix on a soft brick and it will do damage whatever the planning position happens to be.
Does a crack that opens each summer need underpinning?
Not often: the ground at Crossways is cohesive and shrinks and swells with the seasons, so a shallow footing rides up in winter and settles in a dry summer and the crack breathes with it. What matters is whether it is wider each year and whether water is being delivered to one spot by a downpipe or a soakaway. Most of these get stitched and repointed once the water has been dealt with.
Crossways is about twenty two miles out. Will you come?
We do, and we plan it instead of dropping in. It is 21.8 miles from our base, so the visit, the measuring and the quote happen in one trip, materials arrive in one load and the work runs in a block instead of scattered days. That suits a single elevation or a garden wall well. If something is unsafe, say so on the phone and it gets dealt with ahead of the rest.
What mortar suits a 1980s estate house?
A gauged mix, softer than the brick and no stronger than it has to be. The largest slice of Crossways housing is 1970s and early 1980s, machine made facing brick in a cavity wall, and that takes cement and lime gauged together without complaint. The pre-1919 element here, roughly one house in seven, has to be lime. Getting those two the wrong way round is what ruins an old wall.
Would a new annexe here need nutrient mitigation?
If someone is going to sleep in it, yes. Crossways sits inside the Poole Harbour nutrient neutrality catchment, and the requirement engages where a scheme adds overnight accommodation, so a habitable annexe is caught while a garage, a workshop or a garden wall is not. Brickwork repair and repointing sit outside it entirely. Dorset Council will say what mitigation an annexe needs before you get as far as foundations.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near Crossways
Nearby places we also cover for bricklaying, with straight-line distances from Crossways, and the other trades we offer in Crossways itself.
Bricklaying nearby
Our other trades in Crossways
Brickwork and repointing guides
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Get a straight answer on that wall
Tell us what you are looking at. We will come out, say whether it needs doing now or can wait, and give you a written itemised price if it does.