Repointing in Corfe Mullen, elevation by elevation
Joints raked out by hand, a mortar gauged to match what is already in the wall, and blown brick faces cut out and replaced.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Your joints are due when they have pitted and opened at the arris, crumble under a key, or let frost lift the brick face. Repointing in Corfe Mullen is usually a matching job, not a lime job: most houses here went up between the 1950s and the early 1980s in cement and sand, so the repair is a gauged mix matched to that wall, raked out on the elevation that has gone. Blown bricks are cut out and replaced.
Most walls in Corfe Mullen give plenty of warning before the pointing fails outright. Grit and sand collecting on a path under a wall. Joints on a gable gone back far enough to get a finger into. Flakes of brick face in the border below a window, which means frost has found a way in. And a damp patch inside that only shows after a long wet spell off the south west.
None of that needs a wall taking down, and none of it is bricklaying. It is mortar, and on Corfe Mullen stock usually one elevation rather than a whole house. We walk all four sides, scrape a joint on each with a key to see how deep the decay goes, tap a course for the hollow note that says the pointing has parted, and photograph what we find.
Back comes a written itemised quote, split elevation by elevation, with the faces we would leave marked as such. Corfe Mullen is eight and a half miles from us, so the visit is easy to arrange and it costs nothing.
The work
What the mortar is actually doing on these walls
Cavity walls in a gauged cement mortar. Something over six in ten homes in Corfe Mullen were built between 1945 and 1982, the busiest stretch being the 1970s. That is cavity construction: hard fired brick laid in a cement and sand mortar gauged with a little lime.
Those joints pit and open at the arris rather than washing out, and once rain stands in the recess a hard frost lifts the face off the brick. We rake back to twice the joint width, cut the perpends by hand, damp down, fill and brush off. The profile goes back to what the wall carries, weather struck or bucket handle.
Spalled faces, cut out and not filled. Where a brick face has blown we cut the brick out and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall. Packing the hollow with mortar leaves a patch that never matches and drops out within a couple of winters. The damage gathers under sills, beside downpipes, just above the damp proof course where a drive has been laid against the house, and on the corner of a bay.
Chimney stacks and flaunching. A Corfe Mullen stack takes weather on four sides with a cold flue up the middle and nothing warming it, so its mortar goes friable and then open years before the walls below need touching. What follows is penetrating damp on a bedroom ceiling rather than anything visible from the garden. We rake the stack out, repoint it in a matched mix, replace frost damaged bricks and renew the flaunching around the pots. That is work at height.
The older end of the village. A small share of Corfe Mullen predates 1919 and is solid wall rather than cavity. A wall like that sheds water by letting it evaporate back out through the joint, so the mortar has to stay breathable and softer than the brick. Those get an NHL lime or lime putty mix matched to the original sand, raked out with hand tools only. The angle grinder never goes near one.
Porches, garages and the low wall along the front. The brickwork around a Corfe Mullen porch, either side of a garage opening and along the front of a plot has no shelter and often a coping that has lost its bedding. Water gets in at the top, freezes and pushes the wall apart from inside, which is why a garden wall runs a decade ahead of the house. Repointing the coping bed and the top courses stops the rest.
The one thing we will not do is point over movement. Fine horizontal cracking that repeats every fifth or sixth course is not tired mortar, and filling those joints hides it for a season. We say so on the visit.
How it runs
Repointing estate brick and the older village walls
Thomas comes out and prices the repointing himself, and first he works out what the wall was built with. Most houses in Corfe Mullen are brick laid in cement mortar in the seventies and early eighties; the older cottages in the village were laid in lime.
The two are raked and pointed differently. On the quote you will see access, raking out, which mortar, the area of every elevation, bricks to replace and disposal, each as a line. The whole wall is raked and pointed under that quote.
Hard cement joints are cut out carefully so the brick arrises are not chipped, and windows and doors are sheeted against the dust. The site is cleared at the end of each day. If more bricks have spalled than we could see, or a joint behind a downpipe turns out hollow, we take a photograph and give you a price before doing more.
Repointing like for like counts as repair, not development: no planning application and no building control, as the Planning Portal guidance on external walls confirms. It stops being like for like when the look changes. If your house is on or near Brogg Street or Sleight Lane, check whether it falls in the conservation area there, because a change of mortar colour or joint profile inside it deserves a word with Dorset Council, and on a listed building a change of mix, colour or profile needs listed building consent.
Cost
Hard joints, soft bricks and the mix: what repointing costs
We never price by the square metre, because until someone has looked at the joints, the area of a wall tells you very little.
Getting to it. A detached Corfe Mullen house with a chimney up on the ridge, a bungalow whose walls come off a tower, and a low wall along the front of a plot are three set ups. Chimneys and gables need scaffolding, and under the work at height rules the hire period counts as well as the size.
How hard the old joint is. Cement mortar from that period is tough to cut out without damaging the brick. A grinder speeds it up but widens the joint and knocks the arris off, so the last of it is done by hand. The depth of raking sets the hours.
The mix. On the estate houses, a cement-lime mortar that suits the brick is right. On the few older village walls lime is the answer, because a hard mix holds water against a soft brick and the face blows in frost.
Matching. A patch that reads lighter or darker shows from the road, so the sand and colour are tried on a small panel first.
Ask any competing quote how deep the joints are raked, by hand or disc, what mix and sand they will use, how many spalled bricks are being replaced, and whether the scaffold is included.
If water is getting in
Open joints, and damp coming through a gable
Phone rather than use the form. Washed-out joints let driven rain reach the inside face, and at a chimney it gets to the flashings as well.
We come and look, cover the worst of it with a sheet if more rain is on the way, and give you a price for the wall once it has dried and we can see what is sound. The wettest side is usually a gable or the stack, so tell us where the damp shows inside. Repointing is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Miss our call and we will phone you back as soon as we can make it.
Worth knowing
A village that was built all at once
Corfe Mullen is unusual in how tightly its building dates cluster. Whole roads went up inside a couple of seasons, in the same brick, out of the same mixer, and fifty years on they are reaching the end of that mortar together. It is why one house in a road can look fine while three others on the same side are dropping sand onto the path.
The joints decide it, not the wall. How deep the joints have to come back, and whether the faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does. Hand raking is slow, but a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off.
Matching is the part that shows. Too strong a mix holds water against a soft brick and the face blows off in the first hard frost. Lime is the right answer on most pre-1919 walls in Corfe Mullen.
Who you are dealing with
Who repoints your house, and where we come from
We repoint in Corfe Mullen, Broadstone, Merley, Lytchett Matravers and Upton, and across into Wimborne, broadly BH21 and BH18. Corfe Mullen, Lytchett Matravers and Upton are under Dorset Council; Broadstone and Merley are under BCP Council. The drive from Boscombe to Corfe Mullen is about eight and a half miles.
Thomas Hannen, who owns the firm, comes to look at the joints and prices the work in person. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company 15471719. Checkatrade shows a 10 out of 10 left by a verified customer. There is no fee for the visit, and the written, itemised quote is also free. Before you book a visit in Corfe Mullen, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Corfe Mullen?
Most repairs in Corfe Mullen 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 Corfe Mullen |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Corfe Mullen. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Brogg Street / Sleight Lane Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Corfe Mullen. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Corfe Mullen. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Corfe Mullen
Our house went up in the 1970s. Is lime mortar the right thing for it?
A 1970s house in Corfe Mullen almost certainly does not need lime. Lime belongs on a solid wall built before about 1919, where the mortar has to stay softer and more breathable than the brick. A 1970s cavity wall was built in a cement and sand mortar and wants a gauged mix of similar strength. Pointing it in a soft lime looks right for a year and then erodes back faster than the joint it replaced.
What are the orange flakes collecting under our windows?
Brick face: water has got into the outer few millimetres of the brick, frozen, and lifted the fired face off in slivers. It gathers below sills and beside downpipes because those are the wettest parts of the wall. The usual cause is a joint open enough to hold water, or a previous repointing in a mix harder than the brick.
Half our road has had the pointing redone. Does that mean ours is due?
It means it is worth a look, not that it is due. Roads here were built in a rush and the mortar in them is the same age, but exposure varies house by house and a sheltered elevation can be twenty years behind the one next to it. Scrape a joint with a door key. If it powders away to sand, ring us.
Do we need consent to repoint a house in Corfe Mullen?
Not for a like for like repair on an ordinary house. Repointing in the same material, colour and profile is maintenance, so there is no planning application and no building control involvement. Consent comes into it on a listed building, where the mortar counts as protected fabric.
Is there a wrong time of year to have repointing done?
Frost is the problem, not cold. A mix that freezes before it has set is ruined, and a drying wind is nearly as bad because it pulls the water out before the mortar has cured. We work through most of the year, cover the fresh joints, and will say if a hard frost forecast means an elevation should wait.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Corfe Mullen
Nearby places we also cover for repointing, with straight-line distances from Corfe Mullen, and the other trades we offer in Corfe Mullen itself.
Repointing nearby
Our other trades in Corfe Mullen
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 Corfe Mullen Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Have the joints looked at before the frost finds them
Thomas comes out, scrapes a joint on every elevation, photographs what he finds and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.