Bricklaying and repointing in Lyndhurst

Repointing period brickwork. Much of the village is later nineteenth century brick, and a fair amount of it is more ambitious than it first looks: banded and polychrome courses, corbelled detail under the eaves, gauged arches over the windows. Nearly four in ten homes here predate 1919, so solid walls are the norm rather than the exception, and a solid wall has to stay breathable. We rake by hand to roughly twice the joint width, wash out and point in an NHL lime gauged with a sand chosen for colour, finished flush or slightly back so the brick reads and the joint does not. Where an original weather struck finish survives we put that back rather than default to a bucket handle profile because it is faster.

Matching, which is most of the job. A Victorian facing brick is not a standard size and the colour range in a single elevation can be wide. We work from samples: a small trial panel of the proposed mortar left to dry and judged in daylight, and brick samples, usually reclaimed or handmade, brought to you before anything is ordered. It adds a week at the front of a job and it is the difference between a repair you stop noticing and one you see every time you come up the path. In a village that is a conservation area in its own right, inside the National Park, that week is also what keeps the elevation looking like the rest of the street.

Stacks here are tall, often shared between two houses, and they take weather from every direction. Re-flaunching, repointing, rebedding pots and rebuilding from the last sound course where there is movement. Arches over windows drop when the timber or steel behind them gives up, and cutting in a new lintel and rebuilding the arch above it is a careful day rather than a quick one. Anything structural like that is building control work and we say so up front.

Faces flaking off, particularly low down and on the weather side, are usually the legacy of a cement repoint or of ground piled up over the damp proof course. We cut the failed bricks out individually and bed matched stock in, and where the cause is levels or a broken gully we tell you, because pointing over it only buys a couple of winters. The ground here shrinks and swells, so where the rainwater goes beside a footing is worth sorting before the wall is.

Boundary walls to the road with brick piers, coping and gate piers get rebuilt off their own footing where a length has bowed. And new building when it is wanted: extensions and garden rooms in cavity construction, blockwork inner leaf, outer leaf in stretcher bond, wall ties at proper centres and a visible damp proof course. Planning Portal guidance on garden walls covers the height a new wall can go to, and the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 covers anything on the line with a neighbour.

No rate per square metre: the metre of wall tells you nothing until you see the joints. A front boundary wall off the pavement, a rendered rear return and a shared stack three storeys up are three different jobs. How long the platform stands matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules are why it is a priced line. Raking by hand is slow, so joint depth and spalled faces decide the hours, and matching a mortar or sourcing a brick takes trial panels. Ask how deep joints are raked, by hand or disc, and whether the scaffold is in.

We cover Lyndhurst, Emery Down, Minstead, Bank, Brockenhurst and Ashurst, and out across SO43 and the middle of the Forest. 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.