Bricklaying in New Milton

Postwar and eighties brickwork. A great deal of New Milton went up between the sixties and the late eighties, and that brickwork was pointed in a strong sand and cement, struck flush or bucket handle, in joints thinner than a Victorian wall would have.

It does not fail evenly. What goes first is the exposed edge: the top course under a coping, the corner returns, the reveals round the openings and the whole of the south west face. We rake out to sound mortar, twice the joint width where the brick will take it, and point back in a mix matched for strength and colour, not whatever is in the mixer that week.

A cavity wall of that age was built with galvanised ties, and under three kilometres from the water they corrode from the outer leaf inwards. As a tie rusts it swells, and it lifts the course it is bedded in. The sign is horizontal cracking at regular heights up the wall, roughly every fifth or sixth course, on the exposed elevation only. The repair is remedial ties fixed through into the inner leaf on a set pattern, then cutting out and replacing the courses that have been jacked apart. It is not a job to point over, because the crack simply comes back through the new mortar. Mild steel lintels over garage doors, patio doors and wide window openings rust the same way, with a cracked joint following the line of the lintel and sometimes a dropped soldier course above it.

Terraces and shared stacks. A quarter of the homes in New Milton are terraced, and on a terrace the chimney stack often straddles the line between two houses. That matters practically: scaffold usually has to go up over both properties, and the sensible thing is a single quote for the whole stack, the pointing, the flaunching and the copings together, not each owner pointing their half of it a year apart. We are happy to price it that way and to talk to the neighbour. The low dwarf wall under a fence, the garden wall along the boundary, the gate pier at each side of a drive and the single skin garage return weather from both faces at once and are the first brickwork on a property to go, most of them on a shallow foundation with no damp proof course in them at all. Where a face has blown we cut out the failed bricks and replace them with a match, reclaimed where the original run has gone, and where a whole panel has gone we will say so, not dot new bricks through it.

Matching the brick takes time. A lot of post-war and eighties facing bricks came in colours that are no longer made. Finding a match can mean reclaimed stock, or bricks taken from somewhere out of sight, and that takes time to source.

Matching the mortar. Colour and strength both matter. Too strong a mix on a softer brick pushes the damage into the brick face instead of the joint, so we mix trial panels before the main work.

Ground movement. Much of New Milton sits on clay that shrinks in a dry summer and swells in a wet winter. A crack wider at the top, near a tree or a leaking downpipe, may be the ground moving, not the wall failing, and that changes the repair. Where the rainwater goes is part of it, and Approved Document H covers that.

Access. A terraced front reached across a pavement, a stack shared between two houses, and a bungalow gable down a narrow side passage are different set-ups. A stack or gable needs a scaffold and a low boundary wall needs none, and the work at height rules are why the platform is priced by time as well as size.

Ask anyone else quoting how deep the joints are raked, by hand or disc, how many bricks are being replaced, and whether the scaffold is included.

New Milton is a couple of miles back from the water, which is close enough that salt reaches the brickwork and far enough that people do not expect it to. Salt works on a wall from the surface to the steel. It holds moisture in the face between showers, so a brick that would have gone through ten freeze and thaw cycles in a winter goes through three times as many.

It crystallises inside the face and pushes the surface off from behind. And it eats galvanised metal, which is why ties, lintels and coping fixings on the seaward side of a house here fail a decade or two before the same components on the sheltered side. That is the practical point. Your house does not need one specification, it needs two.

So when you are comparing quotes, ask what is going on the exposed elevation as opposed to the rest. On the weather side we want a joint that sheds water rather than one that holds it, which usually means weather struck rather than deeply recessed, and a mortar mix strong enough to stand the exposure but still softer than the brick beside it.

Any replacement ties, straps or fixings within reach of the salt should be stainless rather than galvanised, and it is worth asking, because it is not a line most quotes make visible. One thing to say no to: a clear water repellent sealer over the face. On a wall that is carrying salt it traps what is already in there and pushes the spalling deeper in, and it makes the repointing underneath it harder to do later.

Our base is in Boscombe, eight miles west of New Milton. We cover BH25: the town centre, Old Milton Green, the estates either side of the railway, and out to Barton on Sea, Bashley, Ashley, Everton and Milford on Sea. New Forest District Council deals with planning and building control.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Owned by Thomas Hannen, who inspects the wall and prices the repair in person. Verified on Checkatrade: a customer's 10 out of 10. No charge for the site visit, and none for the itemised written quote. Before you book a visit in New Milton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in New Milton 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.