Repointing brick and flint walls in Bryanston
Lime pointing worked by hand, hard cement mortar taken back out, and spalled faces cut out and replaced, across Bryanston and the villages along the Stour.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Flint takes up almost no water, so on a flint and brick wall the mortar does all of the drying the brickwork would normally share. That is why hard cement pointing fails so quickly on the walls around Bryanston, and why nearly everything we point here goes back in lime.
Three things bring people to ring us from this side of the Stour. A cottage or estate house where the joints have gone friable, crumbling under a key. A wall pointed in hard grey mortar a while ago, where the joints still look new and the brick faces around them are spalling off. And a boundary wall shedding mortar out of the top course after a wet winter, with penetrating damp inside to go with it.
None of those is a job for a builder taking a wall down. All of them are mortar, priced by elevation rather than by the whole building. The site visit is a survey rather than a look: every face gets gone over, joints are scraped to see how far the decay runs, and courses are tapped for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the masonry. You get it back in writing, itemised, with the elevations that would wait marked as such. The visit and the written quote cost you nothing.
The work
Mortar repairs on the village walls and the estate houses
Solid walls, pointed back in lime. The older housing here 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 the parish. 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 here. 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 rather than 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. Nearly every boundary wall failure we see here started at 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 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 the parish 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.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, no sub-contracting. The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open overnight and the site is swept at the end of each day. If something turns up that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price first.
Repointing like for like is repair rather than development, so there is nothing to apply for and nothing for building control to sign off. Appearance is where it changes. Bryanston sits inside the Blandford St Mary and Bryanston Conservation Area, where a like for like repoint is maintenance and a change of mortar colour or joint profile is not. There are eleven listed entries in the area, concentrated on the Bryanston School estate rather than in the housing, so on a listed wall listed building consent has to be in place first and doing it without consent is a criminal offence. We check an address against Dorset Council's maps before a mixer is filled.
Cost
What decides the price of a repointing job
No rate per square metre. The area tells you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.
Getting to it. A cottage gable, a stack on a pair of estate houses and a long boundary wall are three different set ups before a joint is touched. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold; a boundary wall wants nothing. The work at height rules are why access is a priced line rather than a rate.
The joints decide it, not the wall. How deep they come back, and whether the faces have spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does.
Matching is the part that shows. Lime is slower to work and slower to cure, and right on most pre-1919 walls here.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked and by hand or by disc, what the mix is and whether it was matched, how many spalled bricks are being replaced, and whether the scaffold is in the price.
If water is getting in
Open joints, and water coming through the wall
Ring rather than use the form. Joints washed out let driven rain through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings. We come and look, sheet the worst if the weather is against us, and price the elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. Here that is usually a south west facing gable, or a boundary wall where a coping has lifted and the wall is filling from above. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Flint needs a softer mortar than brick does
A lot of the older walling in and around Bryanston is flint, on its own or banded and quoined with brick, and flint behaves nothing like brick. It absorbs almost no water and gives almost none back, so every drop that gets into the wall has to leave through the mortar. On a flint wall the mortar is often half of what you are looking at and does the drying on its own.
Two things follow. First, the mix has to be soft and open, a lime rather than anything gauged with cement, because a dense joint on a flint wall has nowhere to send the water and sheds off in sheets after a couple of frosts. Second, the raking has to be shallower and far more careful than on brickwork. Flints are held by nothing but the mortar around them, and a disc cutter or a heavy chisel will loosen a stone you then have to reset. So we work in short lifts, take the joints back only as far as sound material, and fill in two or three passes.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Bryanston, Blandford Forum, Blandford St Mary, Durweston, Stourpaine and the villages either side of the Stour, broadly DT11, under Dorset Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen's business, and he prices every job himself rather than sending a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are free.
Questions
Bryanston questions we get asked
Can a flint wall be repointed without loosening the flints?
Yes, if it is worked in short lifts by hand. The flints are held by the mortar and nothing else, so the joints come back only as far as sound material, and anything that moves gets reset before the next pass. It is why we keep a disc cutter away from a flint face.
Should the joints on a flint wall finish flush or set back?
Generally slightly back off the face of the stone, so the flints read as flints rather than as a mortar wall with pebbles in it. What we will not do is bring the mortar out over the edges of the flints. The finish is agreed on a trial panel first.
Is galleting worth putting back when a wall is repointed?
Where the wall already has it, yes. Galleting is the small chips of flint pushed into the wet joint on the original build, and it is not decoration: it reduces the width of mortar exposed to the weather. Leave it out of a repair and you see the difference from the road.
Our boundary wall is losing mortar from the top course. Is that urgent?
Before the winter rather than after. The top of a wall is the only part with no shelter at all, and once the bed joint under a coping is open it fills from above every time it rains. That is what turns a pointing job into a rebuild, so the top courses and the coping bed are the first thing we look at on a freestanding wall.
Does mortar colour matter if the house is not listed?
It matters to the look of the building and, in a designated area, to what is allowed. A like for like repoint is maintenance wherever you are. A visibly different colour or profile is a change of appearance, and in a conservation area worth raising with the council first.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Bryanston
Repointing nearby
Our other trades in Bryanston
Everything we do in Blandford Forum Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Have the joints looked at before the frost gets in
Thomas comes out, scrapes a few joints, photographs each elevation and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.