Repointing bungalow brickwork in Everton
Long single storey elevations, joints raked by hand and matched on a trial panel you can look at before we commit to the rest of the wall.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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On a single storey house nearly every joint is at eye level, so repointing in Everton is judged on the finish as much as the weathering. A joint is due when it crumbles under a key, sounds hollow as you tap the course, or has gone back behind the brick, and the job is raking it out and refilling to match the colour and texture around it. Cracked bricks or a leaning garden wall are a rebuild, not pointing.
Where it starts
What fails on Everton walls
On an Everton wall, look at the path, the lowest courses and the inside face. Sand and grit collecting on the path below a wall, which means a joint above it is washing out. Brick faces flaking off in the bottom two or three courses, where a path, a drive or a border sits tight against the house. Or a damp patch on an inside wall that appears only after a long wet blow from the west.
Everton is a village of low buildings, and that changes the survey. There is a lot of wall per house and most of it can be read from the ground, so we can be specific: which elevations are due, which have years left, and how deep the failed joints go. We scrape and tap, never guess, photograph each face, and put it in writing with the elevations priced separately. The visit and the written quote are free.
The work
Mortar repairs on low buildings
Late fifties and sixties outer skins. Much of the housing in Everton went up between 1945 and 1982, a lot of it in the late fifties and early sixties. That is cavity work: a single skin of fired brick in cement and sand mortar, struck bucket handle or weather struck.
Everton mortar of that period was often gauged with lime as well as cement, and it fails gently: the joint erodes back at the arris, water stands in the hollow, and frost takes the surface off in flakes. Matching means matching the gauge and the sand, not just the colour, so we take a sample of the sound original from a sheltered spot first.
Raking out, and how deep. Joints come back to twice their width, the perpends by hand, and the angle grinder stays in the van on anything soft, because a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off the brick. Joints are damped down before filling and brushed back once the mix has taken up, so the texture reads like the wall rather than a repair.
The bottom courses. On a low building the wall meets the ground almost everywhere, and rain bouncing off a path, a drive or a hard border throws water back into the same two or three courses. Those joints stay wet, take the frost first, and the faces above them spall first. We cut out and replace the blown bricks and never fill the hollow with mortar.
The older tenth of the village. A few older houses in Everton predate 1919 and are solid wall, not cavity: no gap behind the brick, and a wall that sheds water only by letting it evaporate back out through the joint. Those want an NHL lime or lime putty mix matched to the original sand, struck to whatever profile the wall carries, and nothing shortens the life of one faster than hard cement pointing. Lime is slow to work and slow to cure, which on a single storey elevation is easier to live with than it sounds, because the platform is trestles rather than a scaffold.
Chimneys. The stack is the one piece of masonry on an Everton bungalow you cannot reach from the ground, and it is the coldest and most weathered. Its joints go friable years before the walls do, and the water comes out as a stain on a ceiling. If it is due, that is the part of the job needing a proper platform, so the pointing and the flaunching round the pots go in one visit.
How it runs
Repointing bungalow walls, joint by joint
Thomas walks along each wall and scratches out a few joints to see how far the mortar has decayed and how soft the brick is. His written price separates out access, raking out, the mortar and its mix, each elevation by area, any brick replacement, and clearing up. One company is answerable from the first joint raked to the last one pointed.
On an Everton bungalow most walls can be reached from the ground or a low tower, and a chimney gets its own platform. Joints are raked by hand to an even depth, brushed out, dampened and filled in layers, then finished to the joint shape you agreed. Windows and paths are covered, dust is kept down, and no wall is left half done overnight. The site is swept each day and the old mortar goes with us. If a crumbling brick or a cracked lintel turns up, it is photographed and priced, and nothing extra happens until you agree.
Repointing like for like counts as repair: no planning application, and building control has no part in it. Everton has no conservation area and is in New Forest District, not the National Park. On a listed building the mortar is protected, and changing the mix, colour or joint profile needs consent first, so check the other permissions you may require.
Cost
How deep the joints go sets the repointing price
We never price by the square metre, because the area says little until someone has looked at the joints. Reaching them. A bungalow wall you can walk along is easy to reach. A chalet gable under a dormer, or a chimney on the main ridge, needs a platform, and perhaps scaffold for the stack. Hire runs for as long as it stands, and the work at height rules decide what kind it has to be.
How far gone. Hand raking is slow, and on soft brick it is the only safe way. Walls facing west and south west take the worst of the weather, so their joints are usually the deepest.
Getting the mix right. Mortar that is harder than the brick traps water, and frost then flakes the brick face off. Most post-war Everton bungalows need a sand and cement mix softer than the brick. Older cottages generally want lime, which takes longer to work and to set.
Salt on the seaward side. Salt carried in the wet can crystallise in the brick and push the faces off. Spalled bricks that need cutting out add time.
Ask every quote how deep the joints are raked and how, what mix goes back in, and whether the scaffold is included.
If water is getting in
Rain coming through open mortar joints
Please ring instead of using the form. Once the joints have washed out, wind-blown rain gets through to the inside, and round a chimney it finds its way behind the flashings. In a single storey house the damp tends to show low, near the skirting, rather than in the loft.
The chimney or the west-facing end wall are the usual culprits. We look first, then sheet the wall or fill the worst joints as a stopgap, and price the full elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. Repointing is scheduled from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Should no one answer, we return the call as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
When the wall is at eye level, the match is the risk
Bungalows are a big part of Everton's housing, and that changes what to watch in a repointing quote. On a two storey house the expensive line is getting to the wall, so that is where people look. Here most of the elevation can be worked from trestles or a low tower, the access line shrinks to almost nothing, and the money moves into raking out and matching. Those are the two lines that decide whether the job looks right.
So patching is a worse idea here than almost anywhere. A metre of fresh mortar in the middle of a wall you walk past at arm's length will show, and keep showing, because fresh mortar reads lighter than aged mortar for a couple of years. We point to a natural break instead: a corner, a downpipe, a change of course, the edge of a bay. That sometimes means doing more wall than the failure needs, and on a low building it is affordable precisely because there is no scaffold in the price. The trial panel goes up where you can judge it in daylight before the rest is committed.
Who you are dealing with
Checking who will repoint your walls
Our repointing work covers Everton, Hordle, Tiptoe and Milford on Sea, and on to Lymington and New Milton. We are 10.8 miles away in Boscombe, and planning questions here go to New Forest District Council.
Your contract would be with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns the business and comes out to rake a joint and price the walls himself. One verified customer on Checkatrade has rated us 10 out of 10. We charge nothing for the visit or the written quote, and each item is listed on it. Before you book a visit in Everton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Everton?
Most repairs in Everton 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 Everton |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Everton. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Everton, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Everton. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Everton. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Everton
The joints have gone dark and green. Is the mortar failing?
Not necessarily: colour is a poor guide. Growth sits happily on the surface of a sound joint, particularly on a north facing wall or under a tree. Run a key along it instead. If it powders or the point sinks in, the mortar has gone. If the key skates across, you have a cleaning job instead of a repointing one.
Why do the bricks just above the path lose their faces first?
Splash back: rain hitting a hard surface next to the house bounces into the same two or three courses, so those joints never dry and take the frost first. We replace the blown bricks and point the band in a mix that can dry. If the path sits up over the damp proof course we will say so, because otherwise it comes back.
How do you decide where a repointed section stops?
At something the eye already reads as a line: a corner, a downpipe, the edge of a bay, a change of course. Stopping in open wall leaves an edge no matching hides, because new mortar starts lighter than old. It sometimes means pointing more than the failure needs, and that extra is labour, not access.
How do you keep the fresh mortar off the brick faces?
By brushing at the right moment, not washing afterwards. Mortar is pressed in off a hawk with an iron sized to the joint, and once it has taken up but before it sets it is brushed back. Smeared mortar left to harden on a soft brick face stains it for good, and acid later does more damage than the smear. On a wall you stand a foot from, that timing is most of the finish.
Will the work make a mess of the borders and the drive?
There is dust and there is spoil, and on a low building both land in the garden rather than on a scaffold deck. We sheet the beds and the paving under the elevation being worked, and the old mortar and broken brick leave with us. Anything planted tight to the wall is better cut back first.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Everton
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Have the joints tested before the frost does it
Thomas comes out, runs a key along the joints on every elevation, photographs what he finds and writes the price down, itemised, at no cost to you.