Bricklaying and repointing in Spetisbury
Repointing, retaining and garden walls, chimney stacks and brick repairs in Spetisbury and the Blandford villages.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Bricklaying and repointing
Brickwork in Spetisbury: what we do, and what we talk people out of
Spetisbury runs in a line along one road, and a good share of the brickwork we are asked to look at here is holding something up: a garden that sits above the footway, a bank behind a boundary wall, a frontage that takes a wing mirror every few years. A retaining wall and a free standing wall look alike and fail for completely different reasons, so we work out which one you have before quoting anything.
Three things bring people to the phone. A frontage wall that has started to lean out over the pavement, usually after a wet winter. Joints on a cottage elevation eroded back far enough to put a finger in. And the everyday list: a stack, a pier, a spalled patch of brickwork under a window, an opening that needs a lintel over it.
We come and look at the wall itself, get behind it where we can, and say plainly whether the problem is the pointing, the coping, the water behind it or the ground under it. You get a survey of what needs doing now, what will keep, and an itemised written price for the part that will not wait. The site visit and the quote are both free.
The work
The brickwork jobs we do in Spetisbury
Retaining and frontage walls along the road. Where a garden sits above the footway the wall is holding back wet ground, and almost every failure we see starts with water rather than mortar: no weep holes, no drainage behind the wall, a coping that has let water into the core, and eventually the wall bows out and the bed joints open on the face. Repointing a bowed retaining wall is money thrown away. We take it down to sound work, rebuild it with the drainage and weep holes it never had, and put a proper coping back on.
Two kinds of wall in one village. A fifth of the stock along the street is period fabric, soft brick with some flint laid in lime. It is solid wall and has to stay breathable, so it gets an NHL lime mix matched on sand for colour and grain, raked out by hand and finished in the profile the wall already carries. Half the village is post-war, hard brick in a strong sand and cement mortar that has eroded on one elevation and is sound on the others, and that gets a cement based mix to match and a bucket handle joint. There is no sense in pointing all four sides when one has failed, so we price by elevation and tell you which can be left.
Stacks come with cracked flaunching, top courses gone soft and a lean that has crept in. We rebuild course for course, reuse sound brick and match the rest, and re-form the flaunching so it sheds. That is work at height off a tower or a scaffold under work at height rules, and the platform appears as its own line. Once frost has taken the face off a brick, pointing round it only makes the damage tidy, so we cut out and replace with reclaimed or handmade stock, usually taking the replacements from a hidden wall so the front stays right.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised by elevation: access, raking out, the mix, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines. Spetisbury is Dorset Council and no conservation area covers the village, so for most addresses here repointing is maintenance and needs no planning permission. There are eighteen listed entries here though, and on a listed building repointing counts as alteration and needs listed building consent before a joint is opened, even where you are putting back exactly what was there. A new or raised boundary wall has height limits set out in Planning Portal guidance on garden walls, structural work goes through building control, and a wall on a shared boundary brings in the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Cost
What decides the price of a brickwork job
No rate per square metre: the metre of wall tells you nothing until you know what the joints are like. A cottage on the main road with a footway right under the wall, a semi with a side gate, and a house set back behind its own drive. How long a platform stands matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules are why it is a priced line rather than an optional extra. On the old fabric the rake depth sets the hours; on the post-war houses it is how many elevations have failed. Ask which of yours are priced.
If something has moved
Loose brickwork, or a wall that has shifted
Ring rather than use the form. Anything overhead or leaning goes to the front of the queue: the first visit makes it safe, and we price the permanent repair once we can see how far the movement goes. On the road through the village it is most often a frontage wall clipped by a vehicle or leaning over the pavement. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
Listed here is address by address, and it catches the garden wall too
There is no conservation area over Spetisbury, which surprises people, but there are eighteen listed entries strung along it. That combination is worth understanding before you collect prices. It means there is no blanket control on what the village looks like, so on an ordinary house the material and the mortar are your choice.
It also means the control that does exist is absolute and lands on individual addresses, and a listing is not always obvious from the street: a plain looking cottage in a terrace can be listed while the smarter house next door is not.
Two things catch people out. First, a listing covers the whole curtilage, so the garden wall, the outbuilding and the old privy at the end are usually caught by it as well, and those are exactly the structures somebody repoints on a Saturday without thinking. Second, consent is needed even for like for like work, so the application is about proving what was there rather than arguing for a change.
Photograph the joint before anybody opens it and keep a lump of the old mortar, because that is the evidence, and allow weeks rather than days for the paperwork. We check the record for your address at the survey and tell you which side of the line you are on before you spend anything.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Spetisbury, Blandford Forum, Bryanston, Charlton Marshall and the DT11 villages, and we are about thirteen miles out, so looking at a wall is a morning rather than an expedition. 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
Spetisbury questions we get asked
Eighteen buildings here are listed. How do I check ours?
Search the national list by address, or ask Dorset Council, who hold the same records. Spetisbury has 18 listed entries, Cedar Court and the barn and outbuilding range north east of Tarrant Abbey House among them. Being next door to a listed building does not catch you, but being inside its curtilage can, and that is where people come unstuck with garden walls and old outbuildings. Consent comes before work, not after it.
There are almost no flats here. Does that make it simpler?
It makes the instruction simpler. Flats are 1.6% of the housing in Spetisbury, so nearly every job is a freeholder ordering work on their own building rather than a leaseholder waiting on a managing agent and a consultation before anything can be signed off. We can look at it, price it and book it with one person. Where a wall is shared with a neighbour we still agree the access and the finish with both.
Half the village is post-war. Does the mortar differ?
It does, and the difference matters more than the colour. 50.5% of Spetisbury dates from between 1945 and 1982, peaking in the late 1960s and early 1970s at 34.8%, and those cavity walls were built in a cement mortar matched to a hard machine made brick. Repointing them in something soft would wash straight out. The pre-1919 fifth of the village, 20.1%, is the opposite problem and wants lime.
What is actually written on the quote?
Each elevation as its own line, the length or area of joint being raked, the mortar going back in, whether a tower or a scaffold is needed, the making good, and the removal of waste. If a lintel, a cill or a section of rebuilding is involved, that sits on its own line so you can include it or leave it. Thomas writes it up after the visit in Spetisbury rather than sending a figure from the van.
Can we do one wall now and the rest later?
That is usually the sensible way round. Walls do not weather evenly, so there is rarely a case for doing four elevations because one has gone. We price them separately, start with whichever is losing mortar fastest, and leave the others until they need it. The one reason to do two together is where a single scaffold covers both, in which case it saves setting the same access up twice.
Nearby, and next door
Bricklaying and repointing near Spetisbury
Bricklaying and repointing nearby
Our other trades in Spetisbury
Everything we do in Blandford Forum Bricklaying and repointing, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a written price for your brickwork in Spetisbury
Send us a photograph and we will come and look at the wall properly. Free visit, itemised written quote, and a straight answer about what is actually wrong.