Bricklaying 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.
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The work
Washed out joints and blown brick faces in Ridge
On a house this exposed the south west elevation 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.
Ridge brickwork gives the same handful of problems. 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
Brickwork jobs around Ridge
The face that takes the weather. Usually 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 in Ridge catches wind from every side and is usually the first thing on the building to go.
How it runs
Brickwork repairs and rebuilt walls at Ridge, how the job goes
Thomas comes out and looks at the wall with you: how far it has moved, whether the bricks are sound or spalled, what the mortar is and what it is sitting on. The written quote is broken down by elevation or by length of wall, with access, taking down, new or reclaimed bricks to match, the mortar mix, making good and disposal on separate lines.
A roadside wall on a narrow lane is worked with the lane kept passable, and the spoil goes into bags, not onto the verge. A stack or a gable needs a tower or a scaffold. The site is cleared each evening, loose work is propped, and the old brick and rubble leave with us. If taking down shows a failed footing or a buried drain, that gets photographed and priced for you before the plan changes.
Like for like repair needs nothing from the council at an ordinary address. Ridge has no conservation area, but on a listed building or wall even plain repointing counts as alteration and needs listed building consent from Dorset Council. Changing the look of an elevation can need planning permission, and the Planning Portal sets out where that falls. A rebuilt boundary wall has height limits under the guidance on walls and fences, and a shared wall brings in the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Cost
What decides the price of rebuilding or repairing brickwork here
We do not price brickwork by the square metre, because the same metre can be an hour or a day.
Why it moved. Ridge is on cohesive clay that shrinks in a dry summer and swells in a wet winter. A stepped crack beside a downpipe that spills at the foot of the wall is often the ground moving, not the bricks failing. Rebuilding without sorting the water just rebuilds the crack, so taking that downpipe to a drain goes on the quote as its own line, and Approved Document H covers how.
The bricks. Matching size, colour and texture on an older wall can mean reclaimed brick, and that is sourced and priced separately from new.
The mortar. Older soft brick wants a lime mix. A hard cement mortar holds water against the face and the brick blows in the next frost. The mix is matched, not guessed.
Access. A gable onto the lane, a garden wall you can barrow to, and a chimney stack are three set ups. The work at height rules decide how a stack is reached.
Ask anyone quoting whether they have looked at why the wall moved, what mix they are using and whether the bricks will match.
If something has moved
A leaning garden wall or a stack that has shifted
Ring, do not use the form, if a wall is leaning, bricks have dropped from a stack, or a vehicle has clipped a boundary wall on the lane. Keep everyone out of the fall zone, which is at least the height of the wall, and do not try to push it back.
The first visit makes it safe. That can mean taking down the loose courses, propping the rest or fencing it off. The permanent rebuild is priced once we can see how far the movement goes and whether the ground under it has shifted. Planned work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Ring for anything urgent, and if nobody is free to pick up, we return your call as soon as we can.
The one local thing
Why it is always the south west wall
Ridge sits on open ground across the Frome from Wareham, and the prevailing weather comes in 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 bricklayer for Ridge, Arne and the BH20 villages
Ridge is 11.9 miles from our base in Boscombe, and we cover it along with Wareham, Stoborough, Sandford, Holton Heath and out to Arne. Dorset Council deals with planning, listed building consent and building control here.
The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. It is owned by Thomas Hannen, and he is the one who looks at your wall and prices it, rather than someone sent to sell you a job. We have a verified 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade from a customer. The survey is free, and so is the written quote with every item listed. Before you book a visit in Ridge, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Ridge?
Most repairs in Ridge 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 Ridge |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Ridge. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Ridge, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Ridge. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Dorset National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about bricklaying in Ridge
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 instead of repairing. 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 rebuild the head first and repoint the rest afterwards.
Which buildings around here are actually listed?
The best known listed buildings nearby, the Parish Church of Lady St Mary and the Priory, are across the Frome in Wareham rather than in Ridge, so check the Historic England list for your own address. 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.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near Ridge
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Get a price for the brickwork in Ridge
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.