Bricklaying in Furzehill

The post-war lanes. Getting on for half the houses and bungalows strung along the lanes in Furzehill went up between 1945 and 1982, in cavity brickwork bedded in a gauged sand and cement mortar. What goes first is the joint on the elevation that takes the weather and the joints around the chimney.

Raking out to roughly twice the width of the joint and repointing to the profile that is already there, normally a bucket handle or a flush joint, is a couple of days on one elevation. A weather struck finish is worth asking about on the face that gets driven rain.

Where you have a solid wall rather than a cavity, and soft handmade brick in it, the mortar has to be lime: NHL lime and sharp sand, no cement in the mix. Lime stays breathable and lets a period wall dry through the joint. A hard cement joint does the opposite, pushing the moisture out through the brick, and after a couple of hard frosts the faces start spalling and you are into cutting out and replacing brick instead of pointing it.

Stepped cracking down from a corner is usually ground movement, and the ground here shrinks and swells, so where the rainwater ends up beside a foundation matters more than it does on free draining sand. Horizontal cracking that repeats every fourth or fifth course, with the wall slightly bowed when you sight along it, is the wall ties rusting inside the cavity, and that is remedial tie work rather than pointing. Cracked joints in a straight line over a wide window are normally the concrete lintel below them; the brickwork over it comes out, the lintel gets checked and it goes back on a proper bearing. We will tell you which one you have got.

Then there are the long boundary walls beside the lanes, low retaining walls where a plot steps down, gate piers, and the screen walls and planters that came with the bungalows. A lot of them were built straight off the ground with no damp proof course, so they draw water up and blow out at the base. Anything we build new gets a foundation dug to firm ground, proper footings, a dpc, stretcher bond brickwork or blockwork behind a facing skin, and a coping that throws water clear. On a stack it is repointing, renewing cracked flaunching around the pots and swapping frost damaged brick out of the top courses, all in one visit, not three, because getting up there is most of what it costs.

We give no rate per square metre. A metre of wall tells you nothing until somebody has looked at the joints. The building. A gable on a two storey detached house is a scaffold job. A bungalow can be worked from a tower. A garden wall along a lane needs no platform, though its footing may need looking at. Scaffold hire runs by the week; what it must include comes from the work at height rules.

The joints. Most of the hours go on raking out by hand, and on cutting out bricks whose faces have spalled.

Matching. Common seventies brick is easy to find. A soft old brick on a cottage may mean reclaimed stock, and getting the mortar colour right needs a trial panel or two.

The ground. The clay-type ground here shrinks when it dries out and swells again in winter. A crack that steps through the bricks themselves, or opens and closes through the year, is a sign of movement, and it needs to be understood before anyone points over it.

Ask any other bricklayer how far back the joints will be raked, whether by hand or with a grinder, and whether the scaffold is included.

We cover Furzehill, Colehill, Holt, Wimborne Minster and the lanes out toward Wilksworth, all BH21. The run from our base in Boscombe is around eight miles. Dorset Council deals with planning and building control. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719, which is registered in England and Wales. Before you book a visit in Furzehill, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

It is Thomas Hannen's company, and Thomas comes out to look at the brickwork and price it himself. We hold a 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade from a verified customer. The visit and the itemised written quote cost you nothing.

Most repairs in Furzehill 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.