Repointing in Hangersley and the Western Escarpment
Older walls want lime, post-war walls want a gauged cement mix, and inside the conservation area the profile you strike the joint to is part of the appearance.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Your joints are due when they have weathered back behind the brick, crumble under a key, or let damp through after rain. Hangersley is inside the Western Escarpment conservation area and the New Forest National Park, so the joint profile is part of how the building looks, and walls on one lane can be a century apart: the job is sampling the old mortar and matching it, raked out by hand. A cracked or leaning wall calls for rebuilding, not repointing.
Hangersley has old lime walls and later cement ones side by side, and the faults on them differ. A frontage where the joints have weathered back behind the face of the brick. A chimney putting sand into the gutter. Brick faces flaking off in plates while the mortar between them looks untouched, which nearly always means the wrong mix. A repair struck to the wrong profile that reads as a stripe across the elevation.
The site visit covers the whole property rather than the wall you noticed: we scrape joints to see how deep the wear runs, tap courses for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick, and find a sheltered length of original joint to match to. Everything is photographed, and it comes back as a written itemised quote, elevation by elevation. Free.
The work
Old and newer walls along the same lane
The older walls. Around one property in seven in Hangersley predates 1919: period solid wall construction, no cavity behind the brick, staying dry only by being breathable. Those walls get an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to the original sand, raked by hand to roughly twice the joint width, perpends included.
The angle grinder stays in the van on soft brick, because a disc cutter widens the joint and takes the arris off. Joints are damped down before filling and brushed back once the mix has taken up.
The post-war majority. More than half the property around Hangersley went up between 1945 and 1982, much of it detached: cavity work, a single skin of fired brick in cement and sand. The earlier mixes were often gauged with lime as well. That erodes back at the arris rather than washing out, water stands in the open joint, and frost lifts the surface off in flakes. Matching one means matching the gauge and the sand, not only the colour.
Why that matters more than it sounds. Those two Hangersley walls want opposite mortars. A hard modern mix in a soft old joint pushes damp out through the brick face and the frost takes the face with it. A soft lime mix in a hard modern wall weathers back in a few winters. Anyone arriving with one mix for the day is wrong at one of the two addresses, which is why we take a sample before we price.
Joint profiles, and putting back what was there. Flush and slightly recessed joints belong on the older Hangersley frontages. Weather struck sheds water off the face and is what most post-war brickwork carries. Bucket handle is compacted with a rounded iron. Each throws a different shadow, which is why a change of profile reads from a distance even when the colour is right.
Chimney stacks, flaunching and copings. The Hangersley escarpment is exposed, and a stack takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it. Its joints go loose, friable and crumbling years before the walls do, and the penetrating damp that follows shows on a bedroom ceiling. We repoint the stack, cut out frost damaged bricks and renew the flaunching. Open joints under a coping do the same lower down.
Spalled faces, cut out and not filled. Where a face has blown we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall. A hollow filled with mortar never matches, and inside a conservation area it is the sort of repair that has to be undone later.
How it runs
Repointing a Hangersley elevation in the right mortar
Thomas scratches at the existing mortar, looks closely at the brick and prices the work himself. On the quote, raking out, brick replacement, the mortar mix, each elevation's area, access and disposal are listed one by one. The price, and the responsibility for the finished work, sit with one company.
Seventies houses in Hangersley were built in cement mortar with hard brick; older cottages were built in lime, and cement pointing on them traps water. We rake by hand on soft brick, damp the joints, point in lifts and protect the work from sun, wind and frost. A tall stack or gable wants a scaffold, levelled on sloping ground. Dust and old mortar are cleared daily and leave with us. A cracked brick or a failed lintel spotted on the way is photographed and priced for you first.
Hangersley is National Park land, so planning belongs to the Park Authority rather than the district council. Repointing like for like is repair and needs no application. A change of mortar colour or joint profile on a visible elevation is different, especially if your address is in a conservation area, which is worth checking with the Authority. On a listed building the lime in the joints counts as part of the historic fabric, so works affecting the character of a listed building need consent. The Authority publishes its own heritage and conservation guidance.
Cost
Soft brick, lime and tall stacks: pricing a repoint
We will not put a figure per square metre on a wall we have not looked at closely, because the joints decide the job.
Stacks and frontages. A detached Hangersley house set back off the lane may have a tall stack and a two storey gable that need a scaffold. A period frontage near the road may need a licence for the platform. A long boundary wall can be done from the ground. The work at height rules decide the platform, and it is priced on its own.
Raking out. On soft brick, raking by hand is the only safe way, because a disc cutter widens the joint and chips the arris. It is slow work. The depth of raking needed, and the number of spalled faces to cut out, set most of the hours.
The mix. Cement pointing on a soft brick keeps the brick wet, and frost then flakes its face away; lime is right on most of the older walls in Hangersley. On the post-war houses a matched cement mix is fine.
The weather side. Elevations facing open ground take more driven rain and usually need deeper work than the sheltered ones.
Ask a rival quote: raked by hand or disc and how deep, which mortar and matched to what, and is the scaffold in?
If water is getting in
Driven rain coming through open joints
Open joints let driven rain soak through to the inside of the wall, and on a stack the water gets in around the lead flashings as well. Damp showing indoors on the wall that faces the weather is the usual sign; pull furniture back from it.
Please phone instead of using the form; if we miss you we call back. In bad weather we sheet the wall or put in temporary pointing, then price the elevation once it has dried out enough to see what is sound. Repointing is scheduled Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The joint profile is part of the appearance, and here that is controlled
The Western Escarpment conservation area is drawn along the ridge and takes in scattered properties rather than a village street, so a good many people are inside it without anything around them to make it obvious. Inside one, appearance is what is controlled.
Repointing a wall exactly as it was is maintenance. A different profile is a bigger change than people expect: it decides the shadow line along the whole elevation, so a weather struck joint on a wall that has always been flush makes a nineteenth century frontage read like a modern one from the far side of the lane.
What to do about it is simple. Find the original profile before anything is opened up, in the places the weather has not reached: under a deep eaves, behind a downpipe, inside a porch or on the sheltered face of a chimney breast. Check your address against the National Park interactive property map. Then get the profile and the mix written into the quote as their own lines. We photograph the original joint and put the same back.
Who you are dealing with
Who repoints walls around Hangersley
We repoint across Hangersley, Ringwood, Poulner, Ashley Heath, Ellingham, Burley and Bransgore, broadly BH24, about nine and a half miles from our Boscombe base. For planning, Hangersley answers to the National Park Authority, and building control is New Forest District Council.
Behind the work is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company 15471719, registered in England and Wales. The owner, Thomas Hannen, looks at the joints and prices every repointing job himself. A verified Checkatrade review gives us 10 out of 10. The site visit and the written, itemised quote are free. Before you book a visit in Hangersley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Hangersley?
Most repairs in Hangersley 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 Hangersley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Hangersley. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Western Escarpment Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Hangersley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the New Forest National Park, where design is looked at more closely and permitted development rights are narrower. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Hangersley
How do we find out if we are inside the Western Escarpment boundary?
The National Park Authority publishes a property map you can check an address against, and it is worth doing before you agree any specification. The boundary follows the landscape rather than a street, so it takes in isolated properties and leaves out neighbours. Being inside it does not stop a repair. It controls what the repair looks like.
What is a weather struck joint, and does it matter which we have?
It is a joint pressed back at the top and left proud at the bottom so rain runs off the face, and it is what most post-war brickwork here carries. Flush and recessed joints read quieter and belong on older walls. Swap one for the other and the elevation changes character from a distance.
Is the joint profile something we get to choose?
On an ordinary wall outside the boundary, yes, though we would steer you towards what the building was built with. Inside the conservation area it is not a free choice on anything visible from the road, and on a listed building not at all until consent says so.
Our neighbour was told lime and we were told cement. Why the difference?
Because you have different walls. Roughly one property in seven here is pre-1919 solid wall that has to breathe through the joint, and lime is the only sensible answer on those. Most of the rest is post-war cavity brickwork built for cement and sand. Either way the mortar goes back a shade weaker than the brick.
Do you have to match the sand as well as the colour?
Yes, and the sand does most of the matching. It sets the texture of the joint and how it catches the light, and a fine sand next to a coarse one shows even when the colour is right. We take a sample of the sound original and put up a trial panel to judge in daylight on how it will look weathered.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Hangersley
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Lime or cement mortar: which do you need? Reading a repointing quote: rake out Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in Ringwood Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Have the joints matched before anything is opened up
Thomas comes out, finds the original profile, takes a sample of the sound mortar and sends a written itemised quote with the mix and profile named. Free.