Bricklaying and repointing in Wimborne Minster

Lime repointing on solid walls. The older houses in the town centre, and the peak of Wimborne's stock is pre-1900 with 18.9 per cent of it built before 1919, are a single skin of soft handmade brick in lime mortar, built to let water in and let it back out through the joint. We rake out by hand to roughly twice the joint width, never with a disc cutter, because on brick this soft a cutter widens the joint permanently and takes the arris off. Back in goes an NHL lime mix, with the sand chosen for colour and grain from what came out of the wall. The profile is matched to what the wall actually has, usually a flush or slightly recessed joint on a period front rather than the weather struck bevel that gets put on everything. You approve a cured sample panel on your own wall before we start.

Taking cement pointing back out. A great deal of Wimborne brickwork was repointed in the middle of the last century in a hard sand and cement mix. Because the joint is now stronger than the brick, water that used to leave through the mortar leaves through the brick face instead, and the face spalls off with the first hard frost. Removing it is slow, careful hand work, and it is the single most worthwhile job on a period front here. We do it elevation by elevation so you can spread it. Gauged and rubbed arches over the windows are the other thing that moves once a lintel behind them has gone or a sash box has rotted out, so we ease and repoint fine joints, needle and support where an arch has dropped, and cut out spalled brick one at a time in a matched handmade or reclaimed stock.

Above the gutter line is where the town's brickwork takes its punishment, and on a terrace the stack is often shared. We rebuild from below the damage, reuse sound brick, renew cracked flaunching and reset coping so it throws water clear of the wall instead of feeding it. A third of the homes in Wimborne, 33.9 per cent, are flats, and a lot of them are conversions where one elevation belongs to several people. We quote in a way a management company or a group of leaseholders can actually use: each elevation, each stack and the access on separate lines, so it can be split fairly and put out for comparison. Where the bill is going to leaseholders, the consultation under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 has its own timetable, and it is far easier to plan the work around it than to discover it halfway. Behind the streets there are boundary and retaining walls holding back raised gardens on very little footing, in ground that shrinks and swells, so we rebuild bowed lengths off a proper base and tie gate piers in rather than leave them on the end of a wall.

No rate per square metre. Access first: a terrace front tight against a pavement, a stack shared with next door and a yard wall you can only reach through the house are three different set ups, and in the town centre the pavement itself is part of the plan. How long the platform stands matters as much as its size, and work at height rules are why it is a priced line. Taking cement back out of a lime wall is the slowest hour on the job. Ask what the mix is and whether the scaffold is included.

Wimborne is under seven miles from the yard and we are in the town most weeks. We cover BH21 and the villages around it, Colehill, Merley, Corfe Mullen, Pamphill, Furzehill and Holt, along with the rest of east Dorset.

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.