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.
Repointing in Corfe Mullen is usually a matching job rather than a lime job. Most of the village was built between the 1950s and the early 1980s in a cement and sand mortar, and the right repair is a gauged mix matched to that wall, not the softest thing on the shelf.
Four things bring people to the phone. 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 this 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 seven 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 rather than 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 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 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
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out. The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines.
Nothing is left open overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Repointing like for like is repair rather than development, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control to sign off, as the Planning Portal guidance on external walls confirms. Where it stops being like for like is appearance. Corfe Mullen has no conservation area of its own and a single listed entry, with the nearest designated areas at Ashington and Brogg Street. On anything listed the mortar is protected fabric and a change of mix, colour or joint profile needs listed building consent from Dorset Council first.
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 what the joints are actually like.
Getting to it. A detached house with a stack up on the ridge, a bungalow whose walls you can reach off a tower, and a low wall along the front of a plot are three different set ups. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold, and how long the platform stands matters as much as how big it is. Access under the work at height rules is a priced line, not something absorbed into a rate.
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 either side.
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 here.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked and by hand or 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 straight through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings as well. 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. Around here that is nearly always the south west gable or the stack. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
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 here.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Corfe Mullen, Broadstone, Merley, Lytchett Matravers, Upton and across into Wimborne, broadly BH21 and BH18, all of it under Dorset Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Corfe Mullen questions we get asked
Our house went up in the 1970s. Is lime mortar the right thing for it?
Almost certainly not. 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.
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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.