Broadstone repointing, from the stack down
The chimney is usually where the open joints are. We survey the stack and every wall, then price the access separately so you can see it.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Look at the chimney before you look at the walls. On most Broadstone houses the stack is the most exposed masonry on the building, and its joints go sandy and open years before the walls do, so repointing here often starts at the top: scaffold, rake out, repoint and renew the flaunching. The walls below are judged face by face. A stack that leans or has cracked brick needs rebuilding from the roof line, not pointing.
The first sign is usually a damp patch on a ceiling, or grit collecting in the gutter, or a dark stain spreading down a chimney breast in a back bedroom. The walls turn out to be perfectly serviceable. The mortar that has failed is thirty feet up.
So the free site visit covers the whole building. We look at the stack with binoculars and then properly, test joints at low level with a key, tap along courses for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick, and photograph every face. You get a written itemised quote, elevation by elevation, with the stack priced separately, because that is where the access money goes.
The work
Stacks, long low walls and the odd blown face
Work down the building, not up it. Thirty feet up. A Broadstone stack takes weather on four sides, has a cold flue up the middle and nothing heating it from inside, so its mortar goes friable and washes out while the house walls are still fine.
Open joints let water into the stack, down into the roof space, and out as penetrating damp on a bedroom ceiling. We rake it out, repoint in a mix matched to the brickwork, cut out the frost damaged bricks and renew the flaunching around the pots. That is work at height, so it wants a scaffold rather than a tower, and the platform is the honest bulk of the cost. Do everything up there in one visit.
At eye level, and a long way along. Over four in ten homes in Broadstone are bungalows, and a bungalow gives you a lot of wall spread thin: a house worth of floor area in one storey, nearly all of it inside reach of a tower or trestles. That takes the biggest single line out of a wall quote. It also puts the finished joint at eye level along the whole elevation, so the colour match and the profile have to be right, struck to whatever the wall already carries, usually bucket handle or weather struck on this stock.
What is behind those joints. Nearly two thirds of the housing in Broadstone went up between 1945 and 1982, busiest in the late fifties and early sixties. Mortar of that period was often gauged with lime as well as cement, so it is more forgiving than later mixes and it fails gently: the joint erodes at the arris, water stands in it, frost takes the surface off in flakes. Matching means matching the sand and the gauge, not just the colour, and you see a trial panel in daylight before we carry on. Joints come out to about twice their width, the perpends by hand, and the angle grinder stays in the van on anything soft. A small share of the village predates 1919 and is solid wall, which sheds water only by letting it evaporate back out through the joint: those get an NHL lime or lime putty matched to the original sand, and nothing ruins one faster than hard cement.
Where a face has blown. On a Broadstone wall the brick is cut out and turned or replaced against a sample held on the wall. Fill the hollow with mortar and you get a patch that never matches and drops out in a couple of winters. Look under sills, beside downpipes, at bay corners, and just above the damp proof course where a drive has been laid against the house.
At ankle height. Broadstone porch brickwork, the piers either side of a garage opening and the low wall along the front of a plot have no shelter and often no coping worth the name. Rain gets into the top, freezes and pushes the wall apart from inside. Repointing the coping and the exposed face is quick work next to a rebuild.
How it runs
Repointing a chimney stack or a gable, step by step
On a Broadstone bungalow the repointing that matters most is usually the chimney, because the stack stands clear of the roof in every wind. Thomas comes and looks at it himself, through binoculars from the garden and from the loft where the breast comes through, and checks the gable ends and the garden walls while he is there.
The quote puts access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines. One company is responsible for the raking and the repointing. Joints are raked by hand or with a slim chisel so the arrises stay sharp, then packed and struck to match the joint profile you already have. Dust sheets cover the paths and beds, and the raked-out mortar is bagged and removed at the end of each day. If a brick crumbles as the old joint comes out, we show you and price its replacement before it is cut out.
Like for like repointing counts as repair. You need no planning permission, and building control has no role. There are conservation areas by the centre of Broadstone, and a few listed houses. In a conservation area like for like pointing needs nothing, though a change of colour or profile is worth checking with BCP; on a listed house, a change affecting its character needs listed building consent, and BCP Council keeps the list. We check your address before we start.
Cost
How deep the joints go, and what goes back in
We do not price repointing by area, because the area says very little until somebody has looked closely at the joints.
Getting to it. A chimney on the ridge of a hipped Broadstone bungalow needs a scaffold round the stack and a crawl board up the tiles from the eaves. A chalet dormer gable can often be done off a tower, and a low front wall needs nothing at all. The work at height rules mean the scaffold round a stack is costed separately, never guessed at.
What comes out. Most of the mortar in Broadstone is post-war cement mix, which is hard. Raking it by hand is slow. A disc is quicker but widens the joint and takes the arris off the brick on either side, and on a chimney you can see that from the road. Depth, and whether the faces have spalled, set the hours.
What goes back in. On a post-war wall the new mortar should match the strength and colour of the old, not be stronger. On the few older houses near the centre of Broadstone, lime is the right answer, because cement holds water against a soft brick and the face blows in a hard frost.
The flashings. Repointing a stack is the right time to check the lead where it meets the roof.
Ask any other quote how deep the joints are raked and with what, and what the mix is.
If water is getting in
Damp round the chimney breast after heavy rain
If you see a damp patch on the ceiling beside a chimney breast, or on the chimney breast itself, look at the stack from outside. Washed out joints let driven rain straight through, and at roof level the water finds the flashings too.
Ring and tell us what you can see. We come and look, sheet or temporarily point the worst of it, and price the full job once the brickwork has dried enough to show what is sound. Planned repointing runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Please phone rather than use the form for this, and if we miss you we call back.
Worth knowing
On a bungalow the mortar bill is mostly the chimney
Bungalow country, by a wide margin, and that changes the shape of a repointing quote more than most people expect. On a two storey house the walls are the expensive part, because you cannot reach them without a scaffold.
On a bungalow the walls are the cheap part, since a tower or a set of trestles will reach nearly all of them. The chimney becomes the expensive part, because it is the one place you cannot get to without a proper platform.
Plan around the access, then, rather than around the mortar. If the stack needs repointing and the roof also wants attention, or the gutters and fascia are due, get the lot looked at together and done off one scaffold. Split it into three visits and you pay for the platform three times, and the platform is the part of the price that does not get cheaper. It also means asking any quote you get to show the access as its own line, so you can see what you are paying for the mortar and what you are paying to stand next to it. We break it out that way as a matter of course.
Who you are dealing with
Who you deal with for your stack
We work out of Boscombe, 7.3 miles from Broadstone, and repoint stacks and walls across BH17, BH18 and BH21, including Merley, Corfe Mullen and Canford Heath.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council is the authority for Broadstone, Merley and Canford Heath, and Dorset Council for Corfe Mullen. Thomas Hannen owns the business and prices the joints himself, rather than sending somebody else to do it. It trades as Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. A verified customer rates us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. We charge nothing to come out, and nothing for the written quote either. Before you book a visit in Broadstone, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Broadstone?
Most repairs in Broadstone 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 Broadstone |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Broadstone. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Ridgeway and Broadstone Park Conservation Area and Tudor Road and Golf Links Road Conservation Area. They cover parts of Broadstone, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Broadstone. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Broadstone. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Broadstone
Can our chimney be repointed without a full scaffold?
A Broadstone chimney cannot be repointed off a ladder. Repointing a stack means working with both hands for hours, which is exactly what a ladder is not for. A tower will sometimes reach a low stack on a single storey extension. For anything on a main ridge it is a scaffold, shown as its own line on the quote.
Is it cheaper to repoint a bungalow than a house?
For the walls, generally yes, because a single storey elevation can mostly be worked from a tower with no scaffold to hire and stand. The area of wall is often larger than people expect, so the mortar and labour are not necessarily less. The saving is almost entirely on access.
The pointing looks fine from the ground. Should we still get the stack checked?
Yes. You cannot judge a stack from the ground, and the failures that cost the most start there. Sand and grit in the gutter, or a stain appearing on the chimney breast inside, is the stack telling you. We look at it as part of the free visit.
What mortar goes back on a nineteen sixties wall?
A cement and sand mortar gauged to sit a little under the strength of the brick and matched to the original sand. Plenty of walls from that period had lime in the mix too, which is softer than a modern mortar, and matching that matters. Put a hard mix into a softer old joint and the joint outlives the brick, so the faces spall.
Will you sort out the gutters while you are up there?
If they need it, yes, and it makes sense while the access is standing. A downpipe running over onto brickwork is one of the commonest reasons a strip of wall loses its mortar, so the cause is worth dealing with at the same time.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Broadstone
Nearby places we also cover for repointing, with straight-line distances from Broadstone, and the other trades we offer in Broadstone itself.
Repointing nearby
Our other trades in Broadstone
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 Broadstone Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get the stack and the walls surveyed together
Thomas comes out, photographs every elevation, tests the joints and sends a written itemised quote with the access shown as its own line. Free.