Repointing brick and flint walls in Bryanston

Solid walls, pointed back in lime. The older housing in Bryanston is solid wall, one thickness of masonry with no cavity behind it, and it only sheds water by evaporation through the joint, which works while the mortar stays softer and more open than what it sits between.

We rake those joints by hand to roughly twice their width, keep the angle grinder in the van, damp them down and brush them out before filling, then fill back in an NHL lime or lime putty gauged to the original for sand and colour, so the wall stays breathable. The same goes for the Victorian and Edwardian houses in Bryanston. BS EN 459 is the standard the binder is bought against, so the quote names which lime is going in.

Old cement pointing, taken back out. It is the commonest fault on period walls around Bryanston. the case against hard cement on soft masonry reads plainly on the wall: the joint stands proud and looks almost new while the masonry either side of it is crumbling. Cutting hard mortar out of a soft joint is slow hand work with quirks and small chisels. Where the arris has already gone with it, we price the replacement alongside.

Blown brick faces, cut out and never filled. Filling a spalled face with mortar leaves a dark patch that never matches and drops out inside a couple of winters. We cut the brick out whole and turn it where the back face is sound, or replace it against a sample held on the wall. Frost damage collects under sills, beside downpipes and just above the damp proof course.

Copings, and the top of a wall. A boundary wall in Bryanston nearly always fails from the top. Rain gets into the bed joint under a coping, freezes and lifts it, and the wall then wets through from above and the face starts letting go. Rebedding a coping and repointing the top three courses is a fraction of a rebuild, and worth doing the season you notice it.

Chimney stacks and flaunching. A Bryanston stack takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it from inside, so its mortar washes out years before anything at eye level does, and what gets in shows as a stain on a bedroom ceiling. Stacks want a proper platform rather than a ladder, and on a shared stack the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 sets a notice period before cutting starts.

Postwar walls, where lime would be wrong. A good deal of the newer housing in Bryanston is cavity work in hard fired brick and cement and sand, struck weather struck or bucket handle rather than the flush or slightly recessed joints of the older walls, and most of it comes off a tower. Point one of those in soft lime and the joint erodes back within a decade. We take a sample off every wall and match what is there.

The one thing we will not do is point a wall whose real problem is water arriving from somewhere else. A gutter running over or an overflow discharging down a face strips mortar faster than any weather.

A repointing quote cannot come from the size of the wall alone. The condition of the joints decides the hours.

Setting up. A long boundary wall along the lane is worked from the ground. A cottage gable or a chimney stack needs a scaffold, and the work at height rules mean that is priced as its own line.

How far back the old mortar has gone. Shallow weathering rakes out quickly. Joints that have washed back deep, or crumble when touched, take far longer, and so does any brick whose face has spalled and needs cutting out.

Lime, and matching it. On Bryanston's pre-1919 brick and flint the mortar should be lime. It is slower to mix, slower to lay and must be kept damp and covered while it cures. Matching the colour and texture of the old joints takes sample panels before the main work.

Flint. Pointing around flints is slower than around bricks, because each joint is a different shape and has to be packed by hand.

Ask any other repointer how deep they rake and whether by hand or disc, what mix they use and whether it was matched, and whether the scaffold is included.

Bryanston is 17.3 miles from our Boscombe base. We repoint there and in Blandford Forum, Blandford St Mary, Durweston and Stourpaine, broadly DT11, with Dorset Council as the planning authority. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Bryanston, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Every repointing job is looked at and priced by Thomas Hannen, whose business it is. One verified customer rated us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Both the site visit and the written quote, with every item broken out, are free.

Most repairs in Bryanston 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.