Bricklaying in Hyde

Base courses, and walls standing in wet ground. This is the repair the ground here makes likely. Huckles Brook runs a few hundred metres off, the surface water risk across Hyde is high, and where ground water sits against a wall, or the ground level has crept up over the years, the bottom of the brickwork never dries out.

The mortar in those joints turns soft and sandy, white salts appear on the face, and the first hard frost takes the faces off. The fix is not more pointing. It is getting the levels back down, giving the water somewhere to run, then rebuilding the affected courses in a frost resistant brick on a sulphate resisting mix, with a damp proof course where one can be worked in.

Where the wall is solid and the brick soft and handmade, it only works if it can breathe. That means NHL lime and sharp sand, with no cement anywhere in the mix, raked and pointed to the profile the wall already carries. A good deal of the old brickwork here was pointed in hard cement decades ago and now pushes moisture out through the brick instead of the joint. Taking that cement out without damaging the arris of a soft period brick is slow, careful work and it is the part of the job worth paying for.

Then there are the stables, stores and field shelters: single skin brickwork, brick piers carrying a roof plate, and timber lintels over the openings that have rotted where the wall stayed wet. Widening a doorway, rebuilding a gable end, replacing a pier clipped by a trailer, taking a wall down to a sound course. All of it depends on what the footing is doing, which is why we dig a hole rather than quote off a photograph.

A stack is exposed on all four sides and gets no shelter at all, so it is usually first to need repointing, along with new flaunching around the pots once the old bed has cracked. Access is most of a stack job, so the pointing, the flaunching and any frost damaged brick in the top courses are worth doing in one visit. Long walls beside the lanes, gate piers and retaining brickwork where the ground steps get the same treatment: a foundation dug to firm ground, proper footings, a dpc, and a coping that throws water clear of the face. Part of Hyde falls inside the Western Escarpment conservation area, so on anything visible the brick and the mortar are agreed off a sample before we start.

Brickwork in Hyde has no rate per square metre, because the size of a wall says little until the joints have been checked.

Reaching the wall. Where a van can park alongside, the job is quicker than where every barrow goes over a lawn, and a chimney that needs scaffold up to the ridge is different again. The platform costs more the longer it stands, which is why the work at height rules put it on its own line.

Finding the cause. The soil around Hyde is cohesive, so it shrinks in dry spells and swells in wet ones. Cracks come from that, from a lintel giving way, or from roof water being dumped next to a footing. Rebuild without knowing which and the crack comes back, so working out the cause is part of what you pay for.

Brick and mortar. Hand raking takes time, and joint depth and the number of spalled faces decide how much. Soft old brick needs a lime mortar, and a matching brick can take some hunting, with trial panels to check colour.

Soft ground. A scaffold on a grass verge or a wet garden needs boards under every standard before it goes up.

Ask other bricklayers about raking depth and method, the mortar they propose, what they think caused the crack, and whether scaffold is in the price.

Hyde lies 12.7 miles from where we are based in Boscombe. Our patch covers the village, Frogham, Gorley, Ogdens, Godshill and Fordingbridge, SP6. The New Forest National Park Authority plans for Hyde and the hamlets, and New Forest District Council for Fordingbridge. The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Hyde, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

It belongs to Thomas Hannen, who inspects the wall in person and writes the price. A verified customer on Checkatrade gave us 10 out of 10. Visits are free, and the written quote with each item listed is free as well.

Most repairs in Hyde 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.