Repointing in Boscombe
Hand raked joints, lime mortar matched to the wall, and spalled bricks replaced on Boscombe's villas, terraces and garden walls.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Repointing a Boscombe villa or terrace usually means raking out old joints by hand and refilling them in lime, not cement, because most of the brickwork here is Victorian or Edwardian solid wall that needs to dry out through its mortar.
Scrape a joint with a key. If it comes away as sand, sits well back behind the brick face, or rings hollow when you tap along the course, it is due. The other signs are a damp patch inside that only appears after a wet south-westerly, brick faces flaking off under a sill, or the opposite problem: a wall pointed in thick grey cement some decades ago, with the bricks now crumbling around joints that look perfectly sound.
We are based in Boscombe. We look at every elevation rather than the one you have spotted, scrape a few joints to see how deep the decay goes, and photograph it. You get it back in writing elevation by elevation, with the faces that can wait marked as such.
The work
Lime, soft brick and the cement that came later
Which wall you have. The villas around the chine, Knole Road and Boscombe Manor, and the terraces either side of Christchurch Road, are mostly solid walls of soft fired brick in a lime mortar.
That wall handles rain by soaking some up and letting it evaporate back out through the joints, which only works while the mortar is softer and more breathable than the brick. The blocks and houses built in Boscombe since the turn of the century are cavity walls in cement mortar and a different job altogether.
Raking out. On soft brick the joints come out by hand, with a plugging chisel and a rake, to roughly twice the joint height or back to sound mortar. An angle grinder or disc cutter is quick, but it widens the joint and takes the arris off the brick either side, and on a period frontage that damage shows for good. On sound modern brick with cement joints a careful disc is acceptable, and we say which we are using on the quote.
The mix. For the older walls it is a natural hydraulic lime, NHL, or a lime putty mix, gauged with a sand chosen to match the original for colour and texture. BS EN 459 covers the limes themselves. We damp the wall down before filling so the joint cures rather than drying out too fast, pack it in layers where it is deep, and brush it back once it has stiffened to show the sand. Lime wants mild weather and protection from frost and hard sun while it cures, so it is a spring to autumn job for the bulk of a wall.
The finish. The profile goes back to what the wall had. On most period brick in Boscombe that is flush or slightly recessed, not the weather struck or bucket handle joint found on later houses, and never the raised strap pointing some walls were given later, which traps water on its top edge.
Stacks and seaward faces. Chimney stacks on Boscombe's converted villas go friable years before the walls do, because they take weather on all sides and nothing warms them. The south and west elevations on the roads near the cliff take salt and driven rain and are usually ahead of the sheltered faces. So we rarely price a whole house: we price the elevations that need it.
Matching. We take a sample, mix a trial panel on a quiet part of your Boscombe wall, and let you see it before the real work starts. Fresh lime reads lighter than old, so judge it on how it will weather.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One person to ring from the first visit to the last. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, any brick replacement and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Repointing in a matching mortar and profile is a repair and needs no application. Boscombe has five conservation areas of its own, Boscombe Spa, Boscombe Manor, Churchill Gardens, Knole Road and Undercliff Road, and the council keeps the list. On a listed building, a change of mortar or joint profile can need listed building consent, and we check before we start.
Cost
What decides the price of a repointing job
No rate per square metre, because the square metres tell you almost nothing until somebody has looked at what the joints are actually like.
Getting to it. A front garden wall on a Boscombe terrace needs nothing but a kneeling mat, a gable on a three storey converted villa needs a full scaffold, and a stack above a shop on Christchurch Road needs scaffold over the pavement and a licence. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold, a boundary wall wants nothing at all. How long the platform stands matters as much as how big it is, and the work at height rules are why it is a priced line rather than something absorbed into a rate.
The joints decide it, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow, and on soft brick it is the only safe way, because a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off either side. How deep the joints have to come back, and whether the faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does.
Matching is the part that shows. Too strong a mix is the classic mistake: cement holds water against a soft brick and the face blows off in the first hard frost. Lime is slower to work and slower to cure, and it is the right answer on most pre-1919 walls in Boscombe.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are being raked and whether by hand or by disc, what the mortar mix is and whether it has been matched to what is there, how many spalled bricks are being cut out and replaced, and whether the scaffold is in the price. Each answer changes what the price actually buys.
If water is getting in
Open joints, and water coming through the wall
Ring rather than use the form. A wall with the joints washed out lets driven rain straight through to the inside face, and on a chimney it will find the flashings as well.
We come and look, sheet or temporarily point the worst of it if the weather is against us, and price the full elevation once it has dried out enough to see what is sound. If the damp is showing inside a flat in a converted house, tell the managing agent too, because the outside walls are usually the freeholder's. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
A lot of Boscombe was repointed in the wrong mix
More than half of the homes here predate 1919, so most of the brickwork in Boscombe was built to be pointed in lime. Through the middle of the last century a lot of it was repointed in hard cement instead, because cement was cheap and people believed harder meant longer lasting.
On soft brick it is the other way round. A cement joint will not let the wall breathe, so moisture and salt leave through the face of the brick instead, and frost pops the face off. That is why you see walls in Boscombe where the joints stand proud and sound and the bricks between them are crumbling.
What this means for you: if your wall has been pointed in cement, repointing it in more cement will not stop the spalling. The hard mortar has to come out, carefully, without taking more of the brick with it, and the joint goes back in lime. Spalled bricks are cut out and replaced or turned, never filled with mortar. Historic Environment Scotland publishes a clear guide to why lime and cement behave so differently. Ask anyone quoting what mix they plan to use on an old wall, and be wary if the answer is a standard sand and cement.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We are based at 80a Wolverton Road in Boscombe and repoint houses, villas and garden walls across BH1, BH5 and BH7, from the cliff top to Springbourne, Pokesdown and King's Park. BCP Council covers planning and building control.
You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of 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. Before you book a visit in Boscombe, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Boscombe?
Most repairs in Boscombe 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 Boscombe |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Boscombe. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Boscombe Manor Conservation Area, Boscombe Spa Conservation Area and Churchill Gardens Conservation Area, among others. They cover parts of Boscombe, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Boscombe. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Boscombe. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Boscombe
The joints look fine but the bricks are flaking. Why?
Usually because the wall was repointed in a mix harder than the brick. Water leaves through the face instead of the joint, and frost takes the face off. The fix is to cut the hard mortar out, repoint in lime, and replace the bricks that have gone.
Do you need to do the whole house at once?
Almost never: we price by elevation. The seaward faces are usually well ahead of the sheltered ones, so you do the ones that are due and leave the rest.
How long does repointing take?
A garden wall is a day or two. A gable or a stack is days once the scaffold is up. A three storey villa in lime takes longer, because hand raking is slow and lime has to be protected while it cures.
Will repointing stop the damp on my inside wall?
If it is penetrating damp coming through open joints on the weather side, yes. If the wall is wet only at the bottom, the water is coming from below and pointing will not touch it. We look at both faces before saying which you have.
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Repointing near Boscombe
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Repointing guides
Lime or cement mortar: which do you need? Reading a repointing quote: rake out Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in Boscombe Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Get a price for repointing your Boscombe wall
Tell us which walls are bothering you. We will scrape a few joints, look at every elevation, and put an itemised price in writing, free.