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.
Two things decide a repointing job at Hangersley. The property is inside the Western Escarpment conservation area and inside the New Forest National Park, so the profile the joint is struck to is part of how the building looks and appearance is controlled. And the walls along one lane can be a century apart, so there is no single right mortar.
The work comes in a handful of shapes. 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
Two kinds of wall along the same lane
The older, softer half. Around one property in seven here 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 half. More than half the property around here 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 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 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 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 rather than 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
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting. The quote is itemised rather than a figure on the back of a card: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal all on separate lines.
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. If something turns up that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price first.
The New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority here, not the district council, which surprises people. Repointing like for like is repair rather than development and needs no application. Appearance is the controlled part: this is inside the Western Escarpment conservation area, so a different mortar colour or joint profile on a visible elevation is a change of appearance rather than maintenance. There are twelve listed entries in the area, and on a listed building the mortar is protected fabric, so works affecting the character of a listed building need consent. The National Park publishes its own heritage and conservation guidance.
Cost
What decides the price of a repointing job
No rate per square metre: the square metres tell you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.
Getting to it. A detached house set back off the lane with a tall stack, a period frontage close to the road and a long boundary wall are three different set ups. A chimney or gable wants a scaffold, a low wall a tower or nothing at all. How long the platform stands matters as much as how big it is, and the work at height rules make it a priced line.
The joints decide it, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow, and on soft brick the only safe way, because a disc cutter widens the joint and takes the arris off. How deep the joints come back, and whether faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does. The mix matters as much: cement holds water against a soft brick and the face blows off in the first frost, while lime is the right answer on most pre-1919 walls here.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked, by hand or by disc, what the mix is and whether it was matched, how many spalled bricks are cut out, and whether the scaffold is in. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.
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 penetrating damp on a chimney will find the flashings as well. We look, sheet or temporarily point the worst if the weather is against us, and price the full elevation once it has dried enough. The escarpment takes the weather off open ground to the west, so it is usually that elevation or the chimney that goes first. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs 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
A local firm you can check
We cover Hangersley, Ringwood, Poulner, Ashley Heath, Ellingham and across to Burley and Bransgore, broadly BH24, with planning here under the New Forest National Park Authority. 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 prices every job himself. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The site visit and the written quote are free.
Questions
Hangersley questions we get asked
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.
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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.