Bricklaying in Sopley

Later houses are cavity brickwork. A house built between the war and the early 1980s has a facing brick outer leaf, a cavity behind it and a cement and sand mortar in the joints. That mortar fails from the face inwards.

The first sign is a joint you can rub out with a thumbnail, then the arris of the brick starts losing its edge where water sits. We rake out to at least twice the width of the joint, back to something solid, then point in a mix knocked up to match what is already there, usually cement, lime and sand rather than neat cement. The profile goes back the way the house was built, which on this Sopley stock is normally a bucket handle or a weather struck finish rather than flush.

The crack that runs sideways. Worth knowing the difference before you panic. A crack that steps down diagonally through the mortar joints is movement. A crack that runs dead level, repeating every fifth or sixth course on one elevation, is nearly always wall tie corrosion: the tie rusts, swells and jacks the brickwork apart. On a cavity built Sopley house it is common and it is fixable. We cut out the failed ties, install remedial ties on a set pattern, replace any brick that has been split, and make the pointing good so the repair is not a stripe across the front.

Nearer the church and the river in Sopley the fabric changes. Soft red brick, some flint, a solid wall with no cavity and often no damp proof course under it. On that sort of period wall the joint is the sacrificial part and it wants a lime mortar, usually an NHL, so the wall dries out through the mortar, not through the brick face. Point a soft wall in something hard and the faces spall off at the first sharp frost while the pointing still looks perfect.

A cracked concrete sill, a soldier course that has dropped, or brickwork bulging over a window where the lintel bearing has moved all get propped, cut out and rebuilt on the original line in brick sourced to match. Along the Sopley lanes it is roots, vehicles and water standing on an open top that do most of the damage, and once a length of garden wall is bowed the honest answer is to take that section down and rebuild it off the same footing, with the coping reset so the top sheds water. A stack takes weather from four sides, so its joints go first and then the flaunching cracks and feeds water down inside.

New brickwork and blockwork covers extensions, garden rooms, a new pier, an opening formed with a lintel over it, a garage in blockwork behind a facing leaf. New cavity work goes up in stretcher bond with the wall ties, cavity trays and the damp proof course carried through, the foundation dug to depth, and the structural parts signed off by building control. In a conservation area the brick and the bond are worth agreeing before anything is ordered.

Mortar and the brick it holds. A later house in cement mortar can take a similar mix back. A cottage laid in lime needs lime again, because a hard cement pointing traps water in a soft brick and the face spalls in the frost. Lime is slower to work and slower to cure.

Getting a platform up. A front elevation on a mid-terrace means a scaffold across the neighbours, and on an end terrace every bag may come through the house. A bungalow gable is tower work. Work at height rules make the platform a priced line.

Ground that moves. Sopley sits on clay that shrinks in dry summers and swells in wet winters. A crack that opens and closes with the seasons is often ground movement rather than poor brickwork, so we check the rainwater and the drains beside it before pricing a repair. A garden wall that has to be rebuilt may need its footings taken deeper.

Matching brick. Finding a brick to match a particular house takes time, and reclaimed brick for an older cottage costs more than new.

Ask any competing quote how deep the joints are raked, what mix is going back, and whether the scaffold is included.

We are 3.7 miles away, at our base in Boscombe. We work across the village, Bransgore, Thorney Hill, Winkton, Burton and the rest of BH23, and planning for Sopley sits with New Forest District Council.

The business is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Thomas Hannen runs it, and it is Thomas who comes to see the wall and prices it. A verified Checkatrade customer scored the firm 10 out of 10. Neither the visit nor the itemised written quote costs you anything. Before you book a visit in Sopley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Sopley 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.