Repointing in Furzehill, house and outbuildings
A plot out here usually comes with more than a house, and the wall nobody looks at is generally the one that has gone.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
The brickwork that fails first around Furzehill is rarely the house. It is the garden wall, the coping and the old outbuilding, because those are single skin with weather on both faces and no heat on either side, so their joints stay wet far longer than a house wall does.
People ring us about a mix of things, seldom on the same building. A boundary wall dropping mortar onto the verge with a coping that rocks under your hand. An outbuilding with joints you can get a finger into. A gable where the pointing has gone back behind the face of the brick. Or grit collecting in the gutter under a stack.
None of it needs a wall taking down. It is mortar, and the useful thing on a plot like these is to have the whole lot looked at in one visit. We walk the house, the outbuildings and the walls, scrape joints with a key, tap the courses for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted, and photograph everything.
Back comes a written itemised quote, structure by structure and elevation by elevation, so you can see which is urgent and which will go another few winters. The survey and the quote cost nothing.
The work
The walls out here that nobody looks at
Garden and boundary walls. A free standing wall is a single skin with weather on both faces and nothing warming either side, so it never dries between one wet spell and the next. Water gets in through the top first, wherever the coping has lost its bedding or a joint under it has opened, then freezes and pushes the courses apart. We take the coping bed and the top courses first, rake the faces back to about twice the joint width and point in a permeable mix so the wall can dry both ways.
Outbuildings, granaries and old dairies. An unheated building is wet on the inside face as well as the outside, so its joints go friable years ahead of anything lived in. Most of the older ones are solid wall, built before 1919 with no cavity, and they have to stay breathable: an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to the original sand, raked out with hand tools only, damped down, filled and protected while it cures. There are listed farmhouses around Furzehill, Wilksworth Farmhouse among them, and on anything listed the mortar is part of the protected fabric.
The house itself. Getting on for half the homes here went up between 1945 and 1982, and that is cavity work: a single skin of hard fired brick in a cement and sand mortar. It fails the other way round from lime. The joint pits and opens at the arris rather than washing out, water stands in the recess, and a hard frost lifts the fired face off in flakes. It wants a gauged mix of similar strength going back in, struck to whatever profile is there, usually weather struck or bucket handle.
Spalled faces, cut out and replaced. Where a face has blown we cut the brick out and turn or replace it against a sample held up on the wall. Filling the hollow with mortar leaves a patch that never matches and drops out within a couple of winters. On these plots the damage collects under sills, beside downpipes, along the tops of walls and just above the damp proof course.
Chimney stacks and flaunching. A detached house out here often has two, and a stack has weather on four sides with a cold flue up the middle. The mortar goes friable, then open, and the penetrating damp that follows lands on a bedroom ceiling. Repointing in a matched mix and renewing the flaunching around the pots is work at height.
Sampling each structure separately. The mistake worth avoiding on a plot with several ages of brickwork is buying one mortar for all of it. The house, the outbuilding and the garden wall can be a century apart, in different brick with different sand, so each gets its own sample and trial panel.
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. Furzehill has no conservation area of its own, the nearest being at Burts Hill and Wimborne Minster, but there are fourteen listed entries in the area and several are farm buildings rather than houses. On a listed building the mortar is protected fabric, so a change of mix, colour or 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 two stacks, a single storey outbuilding a tower will cover, and a boundary wall that needs nothing at all are three separate arrangements on one plot. 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. Out here the wall that lets go in a storm is usually the free standing one, so if a coping has shifted, tell us when you ring. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Weather on both faces
A house wall is heated on one side. It dries. A garden wall and an unheated outbuilding are wet on both faces at once and stay that way for weeks in a normal winter, which is why the brickwork nobody looks at is nearly always the brickwork that has gone. It also decides the mix. On a wall that can only dry outwards, a dense mortar refuses to let water leave through the joint, so it leaves through the fired face and takes the face with it.
The practical bit is the order of work. Water gets into a free standing wall or an outbuilding through the top, so pointing the faces while the coping is still open is money spent on a wall that is filling from above. Do the coping bed and the top courses first, then the faces. If you are only paying for one thing this year, pay for the top of the wall.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Furzehill, Colehill, Holt, Wimborne Minster, Stone and across to Ferndown and Broadstone, broadly BH21 and BH22, 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
Furzehill questions we get asked
Should the garden wall be repointed at the same time as the house?
Not necessarily at the same time, but it should be looked at on the same visit. A free standing wall weathers on both faces and normally needs attention a good deal sooner than the house behind it. They are separate lines on the quote and you can take either one.
Our outbuilding is older than the house. Does it need a different mortar?
Almost certainly. An older outbuilding is usually solid wall built in lime, and it needs a soft, breathable lime mix so water can leave through the joint. The house, if it is post-war cavity work, needs a gauged cement mix of similar strength. One mortar across a whole plot is how the wrong mix ends up on the oldest building.
The coping on our wall is loose. Is that part of a repointing job?
Yes, and it is normally the first part. The coping keeps water out of the top of a wall, and once its bedding has failed the whole structure fills from above however good the pointing is. We rebed the coping and point the joints under it before working down the faces.
There are listed farmhouses around here. Does that affect an ordinary house?
Only if your own building carries a listing, and quite a few entries in this area are farm buildings and cottages rather than modern houses. Where a property is listed, the mortar counts as protected fabric and any change to the mix, colour or joint profile needs consent first. We check an address before pricing.
How long before new pointing weathers in and stops looking new?
A season or two on most walls. Fresh mortar carries the pale dust of its sand on the surface and only settles into the tone of the brickwork once weather has worked on it, which is why a trial panel is judged on how it will look aged.
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Repointing near Furzehill
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Free quote
One visit for the house, the walls and the outbuildings
Thomas comes out, tests the joints on every structure on the plot, photographs what he finds and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.