Bricklaying and repointing in Ridge
Repointing, brick and stone repair, boundary walls and chimney stacks in Ridge, Stoborough and the harbour side of Wareham.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Bricklaying and repointing
Washed out joints and blown brick faces in Ridge
On a house this close to the water the elevation that faces the harbour is the one that fails, and the other three are usually fine. It goes at the openings, the copings and the top few courses before it goes anywhere near the middle of the wall. So the honest answer on most Ridge buildings is one face repointed and a handful of bricks cut out, not the whole house.
People here ring us about the same handful of things. Joints on the south west face raked back by the wind until you can get a finger into them. A brick face that has blown and left a soft pocket behind it. A garden wall along the lane leaning further over every winter. Or a chimney that has started to look out of square from the road.
What we do first is come and look at the wall. Ridge and the lanes around it mix old brickwork, brick with stone coursed into it, and much newer cavity work, and the material decides the mortar before anything else does. You get a straight answer about what genuinely needs doing this year, what will keep, and an itemised written price for whichever of it you want done. The site visit and the quote are both free.
The work
The brickwork jobs we do around Ridge
Repointing the face that takes the weather. Nine times out of ten it is one elevation. Joints are raked out by hand to roughly twice their width, deep enough to get a proper key and no deeper, and we keep a disc cutter away from any soft handmade brick because the cut widens the joint for good and takes the arris off. What goes back is matched: an NHL lime mix on the older solid walls, a measured cement and sand mix on anything post-war, with the sand chosen for colour and grain against what came out. The profile goes back as the wall has it, and you approve a sample panel on your own wall in daylight before we start an elevation.
Mixed fabric, lane walls and stacks. Plenty of the older fabric between here and Stoborough is brick with Purbeck stone coursed into it, or stone below and brick above. The two weather at different rates, so the joints around the stone open up while the brick courses still look sound, and those joints want a fatter, softer mix than a brick bed does and want filling properly rather than skimming over. Once a face has lost its skin to a frost we cut out and replace the spalling bricks one at a time, matched from a reclaimed batch, and on a solid wall we work out what soaked it in the first place, because a wall that is still being wetted will do the same thing again. The lanes down towards the water are lined with boundary walls sitting on next to no footing, and once the coping loses its bedding the top fills with water and pushes out, so we reset coping, rebuild bowed lengths off a proper foundation with a damp proof course at the base where the wall will take one, and tie gate piers into the wall. A rusting lintel over a wide opening lifts the course above it and gets cut out rather than pointed over. A stack out here catches wind from every side and is usually the first thing on the building to go.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
You get one person to ring and a price broken down by elevation, so it can be compared properly. On permission: repointing and like for like brick repair are repair, so at an ordinary address in Ridge there is nothing to apply for. There is no conservation area over the settlement, but the parish has twelve listed entries, and on a listed building or wall even straight repointing counts as alteration and needs listed building consent from Dorset Council first. Changing the look of an elevation rather than putting it back can need planning permission, and the Planning Portal sets out where that line falls. A rebuilt boundary wall has height limits under the guidance on walls and fences, and where a wall is shared the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 applies.
Cost
What decides the price of a brickwork job
We do not price by the square metre. A cottage gable that is also the lane boundary, a bungalow you can walk a barrow all the way round and a farm outbuilding with a tractor yard in front of it are three different set ups. Getting a tower or a scaffold to a stack or a gable is its own line on the quote, because work at height rules govern how long it stands. What sets the hours is how deep the joints have to come out and whether the faces have already spalled. Ask whether the mix was matched.
If something has moved
Loose brickwork, or a wall that has shifted
Ring, do not use the form. Anything overhead or leaning goes to the front of the queue. The first visit makes it safe and stable, and the permanent repair is priced once we can see how far the movement goes. Around Ridge it is a roadside wall clipped in a narrow lane, or a stack moved in a gale. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
Why it is always the south west wall
Ridge sits on open ground on the harbour side of Wareham, and the weather comes in off the water from the south west with nothing much in the way. That is why the same house can have one elevation with the joints washed back to the depth of a fingernail and three that look like they were pointed last year.
Driven rain does not attack a wall evenly. It works on the edges and the openings: the reveals, the heads over windows, the verge, the coping, the top courses of a stack and the corner where two walls meet. The middle of a panel is the last part to go.
That changes what is worth doing. Repointing all four sides of a house here is usually money spent to keep three walls looking tidy. We would rather do the exposed face properly, with the joints raked back far enough and a weather struck profile that sheds instead of holding water, and then spend the rest of the budget on the details that are actually letting water in.
Check the coping and the flaunching before you look at the pointing. Look at where the downpipe discharges, because on an exposed wall a splash at low level does more damage than the rain does. And do not let anyone talk you into a water repellent coating on a solid wall: the wall needs to stay breathable, and sealing the outside traps what gets in behind the openings anyway.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
Ridge is under ten miles from the yard, so it is an easy run for us and we do not charge you for the distance. We cover the BH20 villages around Wareham, Stoborough, Sandford, Holton Heath and out to Arne, along with the rest of Purbeck.
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.
Questions
Ridge questions we get asked
Is a disc cutter ever right for old joints?
Only where the wall can stand it. On hard cement joints in a modern cavity wall a fine blade is quicker and cleaner than a chisel and does no harm. On older brick or stone around Ridge a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off the brick, and the wall never looks right again, so that comes out by hand. We decide wall by wall and the quote names the method.
Is it worth pointing a wall that is bulging?
Pointing a bulging wall hides the problem. A bulge means the wall has lost its bond through the thickness, so the outer skin is carrying itself, and new mortar in the face joints does nothing to tie it back. We run a line down the face or use a straight edge before quoting anything at Ridge. The repair is rebuilding that section or tying it, and pointing comes after.
Does the landscape designation affect a wall we can see?
It affects new work rather than repair. Ridge sits inside the Dorset landscape designation, which means design scrutiny on anything visible, so a new boundary wall, an outbuilding or a change of material on a road frontage gets looked at properly. Putting back what is already there is not caught by it. Dorset Council will tell you which side of that line a scheme falls.
Why does a field wall wear out faster than the house?
It has weather on both faces and nothing keeping it dry. The most exposed face at Ridge looks south west, and a free standing wall takes that from both sides at once with no roof over it and no heat behind it, so the joints wash back from top to bottom rather than in patches. We usually rebuild the head first and repoint the rest afterwards.
Which buildings around here are actually listed?
There are 12 listed entries in the area, the Parish Church of Lady St Mary and the Priory of Lady St Mary among them, and the priory listing takes in the walls immediately to the west of it. Ridge has no conservation area of its own. So on an unlisted house the repair is ordinary work, and on a listed one the consent and the mortar are agreed with Dorset Council first.
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Bricklaying and repointing near Ridge
Bricklaying and repointing nearby
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Tell us what the wall is doing and we will come and look at it. Free site visit, free itemised written quote, and a straight answer on what can wait.