Bricklaying in Lover
Old soft brick, chimneys and boundary walls on the edge of the Forest, repaired in a mortar that suits the wall rather than the merchant's shelf.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
On the older brickwork around Lover the mortar should always be the softest thing in the wall. If yours has been pointed in cement and the brick faces are now crumbling, the cement is the cause and taking it back to lime is the cure.
Brickwork problems on older buildings tend to take a few shapes. Brick faces flaking off a cottage wall, usually on the side that takes the rain, with the pointing standing proud of them like ribs. A chimney stack shedding mortar into the gutter. An outbuilding, a stable block or an old boundary wall that has bowed and nobody is sure whether it is safe.
And now and then a straightforward new job, an extension or a garage, on a plot where matching the existing brick matters more than anything else. All of it starts the same way: someone comes out, looks at the whole wall, photographs it and gives you an itemised written price with the mix on it.
The work
What old brickwork in Lover needs
Soft brick needs lime. The older buildings in Lover are often handmade brick, softer and more irregular than anything made today, sometimes with flint or cob in the mix. We rake the joints by hand to about twice their width, never with a disc, because on brick this soft a cutter takes the arris off and leaves a wall that looks machined.
Pointing goes back in an NHL lime gauged with a sand picked to match the colour of the original, finished flush or very slightly recessed so that water runs off the brick and not into the joint. We put up a sample panel first, since lime pales as it dries.
Where spalling has taken the face off, the brick will not recover and pointing round it just tidies the problem up. We cut the failed bricks out one at a time and bed in reclaimed stock of the same size and colour, which usually means finding it before we start rather than hoping. On an elevation that is more than a third gone we will tell you honestly that a patch will read as a patch, and give you the choice.
On a stack it is re-flaunching, repointing, rebedding pots and rebuilding from the last sound course where there is movement. Down at the bottom of the wall the usual culprit is ground: a path or a bed built up over the damp proof course, or on the oldest cottages no damp proof course at all, which changes what is worth doing. We look at the footing and the levels before we quote pointing that would only fail again.
Brick and flint garden walls, brick piers and gate piers give plenty of warning: the coping loosens, the core wets up, then the wall bows. Taking a bowed length down to sound work and rebuilding it off the original footing, reusing the old bricks where they are worth reusing, is a day or two of work. For a new wall, Planning Portal guidance on garden walls sets the height you can go to without planning permission, and the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 covers anything built on the line with a neighbour. Extensions, garages and rebuilt gables go up in cavity construction: blockwork inner leaf, facing outer leaf in stretcher bond, ties at the right centres and a visible damp proof course. The difficult part is never the building, it is getting new brick and mortar to sit beside a hundred year old wall without shouting, so we bring samples out and agree them before anything is ordered.
How it runs
Brick repairs on an older building, and how we run them
Thomas comes out, looks at the wall and at why it has failed, and prices the job himself. Out in Lover the brickwork might be a house wall, a chimney stack, a boundary wall on the lane, or an outbuilding or stable block nobody has looked at properly for years, and each needs a different approach.
The written price names each piece: scaffold or tower, cutting out, the mortar to be used, the square metres on each face, bricks to be swapped, and carting the rubble. Where the old wall is soft brick in lime, the new mortar is lime too. We track down matching bricks, reclaimed if need be, before the job starts, because Lover is 18.1 miles from our base and a wasted trip helps nobody. One company takes it from start to finish. Mortar is mixed on boards, the site is swept daily and rubble leaves with us. If a wall opens up worse than it looked, you see photos and an extra price before anything more is done.
Lover is inside the New Forest National Park, so the Authority is your planning authority, and building control is Wiltshire Council. No conservation area covers the village and there are only eight listed entries in the parish, so most repair here needs nothing. We look your address up on the National Park Authority's interactive property map before quoting, in case it is an exception.
Cost
Lime or cement, bricks and access: brickwork costs
A price per square metre would be a guess. The joints, the bricks and the reason the wall failed decide the job.
The mortar. Older walls were built in lime. Repairing them in hard cement traps water in the brick, and the faces blow off in frost. Lime takes longer to work and cannot go on in freezing weather, and that shows in the price.
Matching the brick. Old handmade bricks vary in size and colour. Finding reclaimed ones that match, and building a trial panel for the mortar colour, takes time, and on a visible wall inside the National Park a good match matters.
The weather face. South west elevations take the driven rain, so that is where joints wash out and faces spall. Raking out by hand is slow, and joint depth and the count of spalled bricks decide the hours.
Rebuild or repair. A bowed boundary or outbuilding wall might be tied back, or might need taking down and rebuilding on a new footing. Finding out which is part of the survey.
Access. A wall worked from the ground is quick. A cottage gable or a stack needs a tower or scaffold, and the work at height rules make that a priced line.
Ask the other quotes: is it lime or cement, and why? How deep are joints raked, by hand or disc? Is the scaffold included?
If something has moved
A wall bowing, a stack loose or bricks falling
Ring rather than use the form. A boundary wall on the lean, loose bricks at the top of a stack, or an outbuilding wall that has bowed needs looking at before it goes. Keep people, cars and animals away from it, and do not push it to see.
When you ring, tell us whether it is overhead, next to a lane or where animals are kept, and a picture on your phone helps us bring props that fit. The first visit makes it safe, by propping it or taking down what is loose, and then we price the repair. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If nobody can answer, we ring you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Solid walls have to breathe, and that decides the mortar
The old cottages around Lover have solid walls: one thickness of brick or stone, no cavity, no barrier inside it. A wall like that is never bone dry and was never meant to be. Rain wets the outer face, the moisture moves through and comes back out again, mostly through the joints, which is exactly why the mortar was made softer than the brick.
It is a sacrificial layer. When it has taken a beating for eighty years you replace it, and the wall behind it is untouched. Point that same wall in cement and you have put a hard, impermeable frame around every soft brick. The water still gets in, but now the only way out is through the brick face, and one cold night is all it takes to pop it off.
So the single most useful thing you can do before accepting any quote here is find out which kind of wall you have and ask what mortar is going on it. A quick test: measure the thickness at a window reveal. Roughly nine inches or an odd number of brick lengths usually means solid; around eleven inches with a neat regular stretcher bond outside usually means cavity.
If it is solid, the answer should be lime, and a builder who shrugs at the question is the wrong one for this wall. If it is cavity, cement based mortar is right and lime would be soft for no reason. We write which one we propose, and why, into the quote before you decide anything.
Who you are dealing with
Who does your brickwork, and where from
Brick repairs from Lover across to Redlynch, Landford, Nomansland, Whiteparish, Downton and that edge of the Forest are handled from Boscombe, 18.1 miles off. For Lover and the hamlets inside the Park, planning is the New Forest National Park Authority. Downton, Redlynch village and Whiteparish plan with Wiltshire Council, which also handles building regulations.
We trade as Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, on the register for England and Wales as company 15471719. Thomas Hannen, who owns it, looks at your wall and does the pricing. You can read a verified 10 out of 10 from a customer on Checkatrade. His visit is free, and the quote comes in writing, itemised, at no cost. Before you book a visit in Lover, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Lover?
Most repairs in Lover 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 Lover |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Lover. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Lover, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Lover. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the New Forest National Park, where design is looked at more closely and permitted development rights are narrower. |
Questions
Questions about bricklaying in Lover
What does failed pointing look like from the garden?
Joints sitting back a few millimetres behind the face of the brick, sand gathering on the sill or the path beneath, and mortar you can pick out with a fingernail. Look at the north east and south west faces first, since those are the exposed elevations at Lover and they go before the rest.
Green algae low down, and a dark band that stays dark for days after rain, both say water is getting into the wall instead of running off it.
Our place is Victorian. Is cement mortar wrong on it?
On a solid wall, yes. Walls of that age deal with water by letting it evaporate back out through the joints, which is precisely what a cement mix prevents. The moisture then leaves through the brick face and takes the surface with it, which is why hard pointed old walls end up crisp at the joint and eaten away across the brick. We use lime, matched to the original sand.
Do the National Park rules apply out at Lover?
The Authority is your planning authority, but Lover has no conservation area of its own and only 8 listed entries, so most repair work here needs nothing at all. Where the Park does bite is on anything new and visible: an outbuilding, a raised boundary wall on a lane, a change of material across a frontage. Repointing in matching mortar and rebuilding a wall as it stood are maintenance. We say at the survey which side of that line you are on.
What is on a written quote for lime work on soft brick?
The elevations priced and the ones deliberately left, the depth we are raking back to, the mix and the sand being matched, how we are reaching the wall, and the making good and clearing at the end. Thomas Hannen writes it after standing in front of the wall at Lover, not off a photograph. It costs nothing and carries no obligation. Anything found once the joints are open gets priced and agreed before we carry on rather than afterwards.
Will the nutrient rules catch a barn conversion here?
If the conversion creates somewhere to sleep, it will. Lover drains to the Solent catchment, where the nutrient rules engage on schemes adding overnight accommodation, so a barn turned into an annexe is caught while the same barn repointed and re roofed is not. The New Forest National Park Authority handles that side. It is worth resolving before any new brickwork is set out, because the outcome can change what you are permitted to build.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near Lover
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Free quote
Get the right mortar on your wall
A free site visit around Lover, a sample panel before the elevation, and an itemised written quote with the mix written into it.