Lime repointing in Cranborne

Two situations bring people to the phone here. The first is age: a joint washed out behind the face of the brick, sand collecting at the foot of the wall, mortar friable enough to crumble under a key. The second is somebody else's repair, an elevation pointed in a hard sand and cement mix at some point in the last few decades, the brick faces beside it now flaking while the joints look untouched.

Both are mortar work and neither means the wall is in trouble. What they mean is that the mix matters more than the schedule. We look at every elevation, test joints with a key, tap the courses for the hollow note that says the pointing has parted from the brick, take a sample of the soundest original mortar we can find, and photograph what is there before anything is touched. That comes back as a written itemised quote, elevation by elevation, free.

Raking out. Joints come back to twice their width, deeper where the mortar behind is soft, and they come back by hand. On old brickwork an angle grinder is not a shortcut but damage: it widens the joint, wanders off the line and takes the arris off the brick, and once an arris has gone no pointing puts it back. Perpends are worked with a plugging chisel. Everything is brushed out and damped down before a trowel goes near it.

Choosing the mix. A natural hydraulic lime is graded by how much set it has, and the right grade on a sheltered elevation is not the right one on a wall taking driven rain off open country. Lime putty gauged with a well graded sand is softer still, and right on the most porous handmade brick. The rule that never changes is that the mortar must be weaker and more permeable than the brick, so that when the wall takes water the joint gives up rather than the brick face.

Cement pointing, taken off. Where a solid wall has been pointed in sand and cement, the joint has stopped a breathable wall breathing. The moisture that used to leave through the mortar leaves through the brick instead, and the first hard frost lifts the face away. Removing a hard mix without chipping the edges is slow, quiet work with hand tools, and it reverses the damage rather than covering it.

The joint profile. Old brickwork here is generally struck flush or very slightly recessed, following the face of the brick. A weather struck or heavily recessed joint on a period frontage reads wrong, and a ribbon of mortar standing proud of the brick, which happens when a wall is pointed over rather than raked out, is the worst thing done to a building like this. If a wall has had that treatment we take it off rather than work over it.

Spalled faces. Where a brick face has blown we cut it out whole and turn it if the back is sound, or replace it against a sample from the wall. Filling the hollow with mortar makes a patch that never matches and drops out within a few winters.

Chimneys and flaunching. A stack takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it from inside, so its joints wash out first and the penetrating damp that follows shows as a stain on a ceiling. Pointing a stack, cutting out frost damaged bricks and renewing the flaunching round the pots want the same platform and one visit.

Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting. The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mortar 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, the site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. Anything nobody could have foreseen gets a photograph and a price before we carry on.

Repointing like for like is repair rather than development, so no planning application is involved. Appearance is a different matter here. Cranborne has its own conservation area and twenty five listed entries in the village and the country around it, concentrated around Cranborne Manor House and the older centre rather than the newer housing. On a listed building the mortar is protected fabric and a change of mix, colour or joint profile needs listed building consent before a joint is opened, while inside the conservation area a change of appearance wants a word with Dorset Council first. We check an address before anything is agreed.

Ring rather than use the form. A wall with the joints washed out lets driven rain straight through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings too. We come and look, sheet or temporarily point the worst of it, and price the full elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. Out here the elevation that goes first faces open country, and on a listed building anything done in a hurry is sheeting and protection rather than mortar, because temporary work has to come off without a mark. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

Call now: 07435 839745

In a village where the listed entries run into the twenties and the whole centre sits inside a conservation area, the mortar on your wall is not only a technical choice. It is what tells anyone looking what the building was. The moment a joint is raked out that record is gone, and if the work turns out to have needed consent there is nothing left to show what the original was like.

So the sequence matters. Before a chisel goes into a wall here, photograph the existing joints close up in daylight, keep a lump of sound original mortar from somewhere sheltered, and note the profile the joints are struck to. Those three things take twenty minutes and they become the evidence for the specification, the basis for matching the sand, and the answer if a conservation officer asks what was there before. It is also what makes a trial panel meaningful: the panel is judged against the sample, not a colour chart. We do all of it as a matter of course and leave you the photographs.

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