Repointing in Bransgore, lime and cement both

First, working out which wall you have. Measure the wall at a window reveal: about nine inches of brick and it is probably solid; eleven inches or more and it is probably cavity. Look at the bond, because a solid wall shows headers, the short ends of bricks, at regular intervals while a cavity skin is stretchers throughout. Press a key into the joint: an old lime joint powders away to sand, a cement joint comes out in hard lumps.

Solid wall, pointed back in lime. Getting on for one home in five in Bransgore predates 1919 and has no cavity behind the brick. A wall like that keeps water out by letting it evaporate back through the joint, which only works while the mortar stays softer and more permeable than the brick. Those come out by hand to roughly twice the joint width, never with a disc cutter, and go back in an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to the original sand. The joints are damped down, filled and brushed off, and the finish is normally flush or slightly recessed rather than weather struck.

Cavity brickwork from the seventies onwards. Around half of Bransgore went up between 1945 and 1982, the busiest stretch being the 1970s. That is a single skin of hard fired brick in a cement and sand mortar, struck weather struck or bucket handle. It fails differently: the joint pits and opens at the arris rather than washing out, and once rain stands in the recess a frost lifts the face off the brick. It wants a gauged mix of similar strength going back in, not lime.

The wall that has had both. The Bransgore wall that goes wrong most often is an old solid wall that somebody pointed in sand and cement thirty years ago. A hard joint on a soft wall stops the wall breathing, so moisture and salts leave through the brick face instead and the faces spall while the joints still look sound. The repair is to take the cement out carefully and put a matched lime mix back, cutting out and replacing the faces that have gone.

Listed cottages and outbuildings. There are thirteen listed entries in and around Bransgore, among them thatched cottages, a farmhouse with an attached barn and the parish church. On a listed building the mortar is part of what is protected, so a change of mix, colour or joint profile is not a free decision. We sample and photograph the existing joint before anything comes out.

Stacks, spalled faces and garden walls. A chimney takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it from inside, so its joints go friable and open long before the walls below, and the penetrating damp that follows lands on a ceiling. Blown brick faces get cut out and replaced against a sample rather than filled. Free standing garden walls have weather on both faces and usually a coping that has lost its bedding.

How deep the joints have gone. Pointing is raked back to sound mortar, usually about twice the joint's height. Shallow weathering is quick. Joints that have washed out deep, which is common on an exposed gable, take far longer to rake and fill.

Lime or cement. The Bransgore houses from the seventies onwards were built in hard brick and a cement mortar, and a matching mix goes back in. The older cottages were built in softer brick and lime. Pointing those with cement traps water in the brick and the faces blow off in the first hard frost. Lime is slower to work and to cure, and it is the right mortar there.

By hand or by disc. Hand raking is slow but keeps the brick edges crisp. A disc is quicker, but on a soft brick it can widen the joint and round off the arris. Ask which is being used.

Spalled bricks. Every brick with a blown face is cut out and replaced, and matching an older brick can mean sourcing reclaimed.

Getting up there. A stack sits on the ridge and needs a full scaffold. The work at height rules apply, so access is its own line.

Ask any other quote how deep the joints will be raked, what mix is going in and whether it was matched, and how many bricks are being replaced.

Thomas Hannen owns the business, and he is the one who decides between lime and cement at your house and writes the price. Boscombe, where he is based, is 5.6 miles from Bransgore.

Hinton, Thorney Hill, the lanes towards Sopley, and Christchurch and Highcliffe are covered too, and planning sits with New Forest District Council for Bransgore and Sopley, the National Park Authority for Thorney Hill, and BCP Council for Christchurch and Highcliffe. Look the company up before you book: Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719, registered in England and Wales. A verified customer on Checkatrade gave it 10 out of 10. The first visit to look at the joints is free, and the written quote, line by line, costs nothing either. Before you book a visit in Bransgore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Bransgore 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.