Repointing and mortar matching in Freshwater and Totland

Solid walls in lime. Better than a quarter of the housing here predates 1919 and is solid wall with no cavity behind it. They shed water only by evaporation through the joint, so the mortar has to stay softer and more open than the masonry. The joints come out by hand to about twice their width, the angle grinder stays in the van, and they are damped down and brushed out before going back in an NHL lime or lime putty gauged against a sample of the original, which is what keeps the wall breathable. BS EN 459 is the standard the binder is bought to, and a Victorian wall here gets the same treatment.

Hard cement pointing, cut back out. The commonest fault on an old wall in this part of the Island is a repoint in dense cement. the case against hard cement on soft masonry reads plainly on the wall: the joints look almost new while the masonry between them is crumbling. Taking it back out is patient hand work with quirks and small chisels. Where the arris has gone with it, we price the replacement alongside.

Blown faces, cut out rather than filled. Filling a spalled hollow leaves a dark patch that never matches and drops out inside a couple of winters. The brick comes out whole and is turned where the back face is sound, or replaced against a sample held on the wall. On a house this close to the water the damage concentrates on one or two elevations rather than spreading evenly.

Bungalow walls, top and bottom. Close to a third of the dwellings here are bungalows, which gives you a lot of wall spread thin, most of it reachable from a tower. Under a deep eaves overhang the wall stays comparatively dry, so failure gathers in the courses just above the damp proof course, where rain splashes back off a path and the hard fired brick starts spalling. Where a hard surface has been laid up above that course, pointing without dropping the level back is money spent twice.

Stacks and flaunching. A chimney has weather on four sides and nothing warming it from inside, so its joints go friable years ahead of the house walls. Open joints up there send water into the roof space and it shows as a stain on a ceiling. Anything above the eaves wants a proper platform, so the high level work is worth doing in one visit.

What we will not do is point over movement, or point a wall that is wet because water is arriving from somewhere else. A gutter running over or a downpipe discharging into nothing strips mortar faster than the weather does.

No rate per square metre. The area tells you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.

Getting to it. A bungalow elevation off a tower, a two storey gable taking the weather off the down, and a garden wall behind the house are three different set ups before a joint is raked. 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.

We cover Freshwater, Totland, Colwell, Norton and the western end of the Island, broadly PO39 and PO40, under the Isle of Wight 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.