Bricklaying in Sandford
Repointing, brick repairs, chimney stacks and boundary walls across Sandford and the Wareham villages.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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The work
Brick repairs in Sandford: what we do, and what can wait
Nearly all of Sandford was built in one long stretch either side of 1970, and on brickwork of that age the mortar joint is what gives way first. Raking out a weather-facing elevation and repointing it in a matched mix is a few days of work, and on most houses here it is all the wall actually needs.
Brickwork in the village gives three warnings before it fails. Joints on the south west elevation that have washed back until the edge of every brick stands proud of them. A crack running dead level along one bed joint, in the same line right across a wall. And a garden wall or a gate pier that has been shoved out by a car, a root or thirty winters of a loose coping.
We come and look at the wall rather than at a photograph of it, because a crack has three or four possible causes and only one of them is the pointing. You get a plain survey of what needs doing now, what will keep for a few years, and an itemised written price for the part that will not. The site visit and the quote are both free.
The work
Brickwork jobs in Sandford
Cavity-built elevations. Most of Sandford is cavity work in a hard facing brick, bedded in a sand and cement mortar that was mixed strong and has still lost its face on the weather side.
You can spot it from the pavement: the joints on one elevation sit well back and every brick edge stands proud. We rake those joints out by hand to a depth the new mortar can hold in, damp the wall down, and repoint in a mix matched on sand and colour to what survives on the sheltered elevations. On stock of this age the profile is nearly always a bucket handle joint and it goes back that way.
Wall ties, and one cohort ageing together. Three fifths of the houses in Sandford went up between 1945 and 1982, peaking in the late sixties and early seventies, so they arrive at the same faults within a few years of each other. That level crack along one course is not settlement and it is not the pointing: it is the wall ties across the cavity rusting and swelling, and on brickwork of that generation it is the structural fault to expect in the village. It is not a rebuild. We drill and fit replacement ties on a set pattern, make the holes good so they do not show, and repoint the courses that have cracked.
Where frost has got into a wet brick the face pops off, so we cut it out and replace it matched on size, colour and texture. A lot of stacks in Sandford now do nothing but stand in the weather: they go soft in the top courses, crack their flaunching and start to lean. We rebuild them course for course, reuse the sound brick, and cap a redundant flue with a vented cap so the stack stays dry inside. That is work at height off a tower or a scaffold under work at height rules, and the platform is its own line in the quote.
The boundary walls went up with the houses, usually a single skin with no pier to stiffen them and a coping loose for years. We rebuild bowed lengths, put a proper coping back on, rebuild gate piers, and set a damp proof course in at the base; where a raised border has buried the DPC we take the level back down. The handful of period buildings in Sandford, the pottery kiln among the four listed entries, are solid wall and want an NHL lime mix rather than cement.
How it runs
From a look at the wall to the last joint struck
Thomas comes to see the wall itself, not a photograph. On Sandford's houses that is usually sixties or seventies facing brick in cement mortar: a garden wall, a gable, a porch or a chimney stack.
He rakes a joint to see how deep the damage goes and checks for cracks that suggest movement, because this ground shrinks and swells with the seasons. The quote is written wall by wall, so the scaffold, the raking out, the mortar, any bricks or lintel to replace and the clearing up are each shown with their own figure. One company and one written quote cover the whole job.
A low front wall needs no platform. A gable or stack on a semi needs a scaffold, which may stand partly on next door's path, so that conversation happens early. Sheets go down over paths and plants, cut bricks and spoil are cleared every evening, and the waste leaves with us. A blown brick face or a rotten lintel is shown to you in a photo, with its cost, before the job goes further.
Sandford is Dorset Council and no conservation area covers it, so repair is maintenance. A listed building or its wall needs listed building consent before a joint is opened. New or raised walls follow Planning Portal guidance on garden walls, structural work goes to building control, and a shared boundary brings in the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. We sort that out at the survey.
Cost
What makes one brickwork job cost more than another
Brickwork is not priced by the square metre. You need to know what the joints and the bricks are like first.
What the job really is. Repointing, cutting out spalled bricks, rebuilding a leaning garden wall and forming a new opening are very different amounts of work, even on the same wall.
Getting set up. With a driveway running beside the gable, a seventies semi is simple to work from. A fence hard up against a bungalow wall, or a terrace where the mixer and every barrow load go through the hall, costs time. Scaffold hire runs by the week, and work at height rules are the reason it appears as its own line.
Movement. On clay that shrinks in a dry summer, a stepped crack may be old and settled or still opening. One that is still moving needs its cause found before a trowel goes near it, and that can mean a leaking drain or a downpipe emptying at the footings.
Matching. Finding a brick to match a sixties facing is often the slow part, and a reclaimed brick and a close modern match cost differently.
Depth and method. How deep the joints are raked out, and whether by hand or disc, decides the hours more than the area.
Ask any other quote for the raking depth, hand or disc, the mix, and how many bricks are being replaced.
If something has moved
A wall leaning, cracked through or knocked
If a garden wall is leaning, a coping has come loose or a car has clipped a pier, keep children and pets away from it and do not try to push it back. Anything overhead, like a chimney stack or loose bricks at a gable, comes first.
Our first visit makes it safe by propping, taking down loose courses or fencing it off, and then we price the permanent repair once we can see how far the movement goes. On this clay a new crack after a dry spell is worth reporting too. We do booked work Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For something unsafe, call us straight away rather than writing in. Get no answer and we will ring you back.
The one local thing
The village is all one age, so the brickwork fails together
Roughly six in ten homes in Sandford went up between 1945 and 1982, and the biggest single block of them arrived in the late sixties and early seventies. That is worth knowing because it means the walls were built by the same trades, to the same detail, within a few years of each other, and they are reaching the same point at the same time.
When the weather elevation on one house has had enough, the two either side usually have as well. Corroded ties in one house usually mean corroded ties next door.
Do not let anybody sell you a patch: if the joints have gone across a whole elevation, pointing the worst two square metres leaves a line you can see from the road and the rest follows within a couple of winters, so price the elevation.
And talk to a neighbour who has had it done, because for once the comparison is a fair one. If two of you go at the same time on a semi, the scaffold and the setting up are shared rather than paid for twice, and that is a real saving on a wall that runs across both houses anyway.
Who you are dealing with
The bricklayer who prices your wall
Our base in Boscombe is 11.7 miles from Sandford, so looking at a wall here is a morning's trip. For brickwork we cover the village, Wareham, Holton Heath, Ridge and the rest of BH20. Dorset Council deals with planning and building regulations here.
The company is registered in England and Wales as Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719. It is Thomas Hannen's own firm, and Thomas is the person who rakes a joint and writes your price. We have a verified 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade from a customer. The visit is free and the itemised written quote is free. Before you book a visit in Sandford, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Sandford?
Most repairs in Sandford 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 Sandford |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Sandford. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Sandford, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, Sandford has listed buildings. If yours is one, or stands in the grounds of one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Sandford. |
Questions
Questions about bricklaying in Sandford
What tends to fail on the post-war houses here?
The edges and the ties, not the brick. 60.7% of Sandford went up between 1945 and 1982, peaking in the late 1960s and early 1970s at 24.0%, which means cavity walls with galvanised ties and a mortar never meant to outlast the brick. Ties rust, expand and lift the bed joint, so you get a horizontal crack repeating at regular height up the elevation. That is a tie job with local rebuilding, not a repoint.
Sandford has only a few listed buildings. Do I need consent?
For a repoint on an ordinary house, none. There are four listed entries here and no conservation area, so Dorset Council has no interest in the colour of your mortar or the profile of your joint. Building regulations are a separate thing and they do apply where structure moves: a new lintel, an opening formed or widened, a wall rebuilt off its footing. We say at the visit which side of that line the work sits.
Our bungalow wall is damp low down. What causes that?
Ground level, almost always. Bungalows are 22.7% of the housing in Sandford and a bungalow puts a long low wall very close to the soil, so a raised border, a path laid over the original one or a patio built up against the brick will bridge the damp course. Water rises into the wall above it and the pointing gets the blame. Dig the ground back below the course and the wall usually dries out on its own.
Does the Poole Harbour designation apply to a garden wall?
Not a garden wall, no: nutrient neutrality for Poole Harbour engages only where a scheme adds overnight accommodation, which means bedrooms and foul drainage, so a rebuilt boundary wall, a new pier or a repoint in Sandford falls outside it entirely. The rules would come into a garage conversion or an annexe with a bedroom in it. For brickwork repairs there is no application to make and no calculation to do.
Will a patch of new brickwork stand out on our house?
At first, yes, and much less so after a couple of winters. Most of Sandford is machine made brick from the late 1960s and early 1970s, which is easier to match than a handmade stock because the colour runs consistently through the batch. We work from reclaimed brick of the same era where we can, and take replacements from an inconspicuous elevation where we cannot. The mortar matters more than the brick for how a patch reads from the road.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying near Sandford
Nearby places we also cover for bricklaying, with straight-line distances from Sandford, and the other trades we offer in Sandford itself.
Bricklaying nearby
Our other trades in Sandford
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Get a written price for your brickwork in Sandford
Tell us what the wall is doing and we will come and look at it. Free visit, itemised written quote, no pressure afterwards.