Bricklaying and repointing in Milford on Sea

Repointing the seaward elevations. Most of the village went up between the 1950s and the early 1980s, built as a brick outer skin in stretcher bond with blockwork behind and a cavity between the two. On any street running down towards the cliff, the south and west walls lose their pointing decades before the sheltered elevations do. We rake the joints back to sound mortar by hand, match the mix, the sand and the colour, and finish bucket handle or weather struck rather than flush, so rain is thrown off the joint instead of sitting on a little ledge. On the older brick and flint round the green we use a soft NHL lime instead, because a solid wall has to stay breathable and cement pointing simply pushes the damage into the brick face.

Two skins are only a wall while the ties across the cavity are still doing their job. On houses of this period they are galvanised steel, and less than a kilometre from the water they corrode from the outer end inwards. As they corrode they swell, lifting the outer skin a fraction at every tie, which is the regular horizontal cracking people describe as a stripe up the gable. Remedial ties go in from outside without taking the wall down, and the holes are made good in matched mortar.

Flats and communal brickwork. A quarter of the homes here are flats, and a good number of those look straight out over Christchurch Bay. The work is parapets, balcony fronts, the brick panels between windows and the pointing on the exposed corners, and we price it for management companies and residents' associations as readily as for a single owner. If you are a leaseholder, major works are usually subject to consultation under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, so ask your freeholder where that process has got to before anyone books a scaffold.

The walls round the green and along the lanes towards Keyhaven are mostly flint with brick quoins and lacing courses, and almost none of them have a damp proof course. They draw water up, the bottom courses go soft and spalling starts there. We rebuild bowed and leaning lengths on a proper footing, put a DPC in where the wall allows it, reset or replace the coping, and rebuild gate piers so they are bonded into something rather than standing on their own. A stack here takes the weather from three sides, so repointing above roof level, cutting out perished brick, renewing the flaunching around the pots and rebuilding from the flashing up are all regular work, and that is where most of the cost of a small job actually sits. Where frost and salt have taken the face off a brick we cut the unit out and replace it, and the match is the awkward part: much of what was laid here in the 1960s and 1970s is long out of production, so it means reclaimed stock or a handmade equivalent and a trial panel left up for a fortnight. New brickwork means extension skins, porches, dwarf walls, low retaining walls between split level plots and new piers, built off a dug foundation with ties at proper centres.

There is no rate per square metre, because a wall tells you little until somebody has looked at its joints. A seafront block with a communal gable, a 1970s detached house set back behind a front garden and a flint boundary wall at the roadside are three different set ups. Access is a priced line rather than an extra, since work at height rules cover how long a platform stands as well as how big it is. Hand raking is the only safe way on soft old brick. Ask about rake depth, the mix, and how many bricks are being replaced.

We are about twelve miles from Milford on Sea and along this stretch of coast constantly, covering SO41 from Everton and Keyhaven across to Hordle, Lymington and New Milton. 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.