Repointing in Ashley, one elevation at a time

The weather side goes first. Driven rain from the south west works at the edges and openings rather than the middle of a wall: around window heads and sills, at the verge, at a corner, and anywhere a joint has opened enough for water to stand in it. That face gets raked deeper and pointed in a mortar a shade softer than the sheltered walls, so it gives the water back through the joint rather than the brick face.

Late fifties and early sixties brickwork. Nearly half the housing in Ashley dates from between 1945 and 1982, the busiest years being the late fifties and early sixties. That is a single skin of fired brick over a cavity, and the mortar of that period was often gauged with lime as well as cement, so it fails gently: the joint erodes at the arris, water stands in it, and frost takes the surface off in flakes. A hard modern mix in a softer old joint gives sound pointing and spalling brick.

The inter-war and pre-1919 properties. A useful share of the housing in Ashley is from between the wars, and the oldest of it is period solid wall construction with no cavity, breathable by design. Those want an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to the original sand and raked by hand to about twice the joint width, flush or slightly recessed rather than weather struck. The angle grinder stays in the van: a disc cutter widens the joint and takes the arris off a soft brick. Joints are damped down before filling and brushed back once the mix has taken up.

Chimney stacks and flaunching. A chimney stack in Ashley is weathered on four sides with nothing warming it, so its joints go loose, friable and crumbling well before the walls do, and the water that gets in arrives as penetrating damp on a bedroom ceiling. We repoint the stack, cut out the frost damaged bricks and renew the flaunching. The platform is its own line on the quote.

Spalled faces, cut out and replaced. Where a face has blown we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall, rather than filling the hollow with mortar, which never matches. Spalling collects under sills, beside downpipes, at the corners of a bay and just above the damp proof course where a drive or patio has been built up against the house.

Porches, garages and low front walls. Short lengths of brickwork around a porch, beside a garage opening or along the front of a plot have no shelter and often a coping that has stopped shedding water. Rain gets in at the top, freezes and opens the joints from inside. Repointing the coping bed is small work at the right time. What we will not do is point a wall being soaked by a gutter running over.

We never price by the square metre, because the area tells you little until the joints have been looked at. Reaching it. Bungalow walls in Ashley are low, so a tower from the lawn does most of it. The gable of a two storey semi, or a chimney, needs a scaffold, and that is costed separately under the work at height rules.

Depth and damage. A disc cutter is fast, but it widens the joint and chips the arris, so on a soft brick the raking is done by hand. How far back the old mortar has gone, and how many faces have spalled, decides the hours.

The mix. Post-war bricks in Ashley were mostly laid in cement mortar, and repointing them in a matched cement or hydraulic lime mix is normal. On the few older walls, lime is right, because a hard cement mortar traps moisture in a soft brick, and frost then pops the face off.

Exposure. The south west face takes the driven rain, so a weather-struck joint that sheds water matters more there than on a sheltered side, which is why BS 8104 treats exposure as the first question.

Ask how deep the joints are raked and with what, which mix is used and whether it was matched, and whether the scaffold is included.

We repoint across BH25 and into SO41: Ashley, New Milton, Bashley, Barton on Sea, Milford on Sea and Everton, mostly under New Forest District Council, though part of Bashley lies inside the National Park, and Ashley itself is 8.9 miles from Boscombe.

It is Thomas Hannen's company, Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales as number 15471719, and Thomas scrapes the joints and prices each job himself. One customer, verified by Checkatrade, gave us 10 out of 10. The visit is free, and the written quote setting out each item is free as well. Before you book a visit in Ashley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Ashley 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.