Repointing in Highcliffe, houses and blocks alike
Nearly four homes in ten here are flats, so a lot of the mortar work is communal and has to be agreed before it can be booked.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On a Highcliffe block the mortar decision gets made once and applies to everyone: one matched mix, one joint profile, one trial panel, then the elevations tackled in the order the weather has worn them. We price it that way so a freeholder or a residents' association can put it in front of leaseholders.
The calls come from two directions. A managing agent with a survey saying the parapets and the flank wall need attention, or a leaseholder with damp coming through a bedroom wall on the corner of a block facing the sea. Alongside those are the houses and bungalows: grit dropping out of a joint onto a path, a stack shedding sand into the gutter, brick faces flaking below a sill.
None of it needs a wall taken down. It is mortar, and on a building of any size the useful question is which elevation goes first. We look at every face, test joints with a key, tap the courses for the hollow note that says the pointing has parted from the brick, and photograph the lot.
Back comes a written itemised quote broken down elevation by elevation, with the access on its own line, so a whole block can be phased over several years. The survey and the quote cost nothing.
The work
Parapets, flank walls and the corner facing the sea
Communal elevations on a block. Close to four homes in ten in Highcliffe are flats, a lot of them in low rise blocks built from the late 1950s onwards. The mortar work on those is parapets, the brick panels between windows, the returns at the corners and the long flank walls that take the weather. Where leaseholders are paying, major works are usually subject to consultation under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, so it is worth finding out where that has got to before anyone books access.
The seaward face, and why it is always ahead. The beach is a couple of hundred metres from these streets, and on a blowing day the weather arrives as spray carried inland rather than clean rain. Salt sits in the outer few millimetres of a joint, holds damp in the wall between showers and then crystallises as it dries, breaking the joint apart from inside. The south and west faces here can be a decade ahead of the sheltered ones, and the order of work follows the exposure.
Late fifties and early sixties cavity brickwork. Around two thirds of Highcliffe was built between 1945 and 1982, with the peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Mortar from that period was often gauged with lime as well as cement, so it fails gently: the joint erodes back at the arris, water stands in it, and frost lifts the fired face off the brick in flakes. Joints come out to about twice their width, the perpends by hand, damped down before filling and brushed off. The profile goes back as weather struck or bucket handle.
Matching across a large elevation. On a block you need enough matched mortar for hundreds of square metres, and if the sand changes part way through, the colour steps and you can see the join from the road for thirty years. We take a sample of sound original mortar from a sheltered spot, work out the sand and the gauge, put a trial panel up to be looked at in daylight, then hold the sand from one source for the whole building.
Spalled faces, stacks and the older properties. Where a brick face has blown we cut the brick out and turn or replace it against a sample, because packing the hollow with mortar leaves a patch that never matches. Chimney stacks go friable and open years before the walls beneath, and the penetrating damp that follows shows on a top floor ceiling. A small share of Highcliffe predates 1919 and is solid wall with no cavity, which has to stay breathable and gets an NHL lime or lime putty mix matched to the original sand.
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. Highcliffe has no conservation area of its own and the nearest designated areas sit just outside it, but there are eighteen listed entries in and around the village, Highcliffe Castle among them. On a listed building the mortar is part of the protected fabric and any change of mix, colour or profile needs listed building consent first. Highcliffe falls under Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, which keeps the list of conservation areas.
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 three storey block with parapets, a bungalow whose walls a tower will reach, and a low wall along the front of a plot are three different platforms. 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.
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. On a block, tell us which flat and which corner when you ring, because on this coast the water usually comes through one exposed elevation rather than the whole building. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
One block, one mix, and one decision that lasts
Getting to it. A three storey block with parapets, a bungalow whose walls a tower will reach, and a low wall along the front of a plot are three different platforms. 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 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.
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.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Highcliffe, Walkford, Mudeford, Friars Cliff, Somerford and across into Christchurch and New Milton, broadly BH23 and BH25, under Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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
Highcliffe questions we get asked
Who decides on the mortar when the building is flats?
The freeholder or the management company, normally on the advice of whoever is specifying the work. Leaseholders get consulted on the cost rather than on the sand. What we can do is make the choice visible: a trial panel on a discreet elevation, left up long enough for people to see it in different light.
Can a block be repointed one elevation at a time?
Yes, and on a larger building it is usually the sensible way. The exposed faces genuinely are years ahead of the sheltered ones, so doing everything at once means paying to repoint walls that did not need it. The one thing to hold constant is the mix, so we keep the sand from a single source.
Why is the wall facing the sea so much worse than the back of the building?
Salt. It arrives as spray on a windy day, gets into the outer few millimetres of the joint and then crystallises as it dries, and that crystal growth breaks the material apart from within. It is also why a hard, dense mix is exactly the wrong answer on the seaward side.
Do you take on work for managing agents and residents' associations?
Yes, on the same basis as for a single owner: a survey of every elevation, photographs, and a written itemised quote broken down so each face can be approved separately. Where leaseholders are paying, the consultation runs on its own timetable, so we price the work early rather than promise a start date it cannot meet.
Our block is not listed. Is there anything to check before we start?
Not much, for a genuine like for like repair. Repointing in the same material, colour and profile is maintenance and needs no application. It is worth checking the address against the council's conservation area map anyway, and confirming whether any part of the structure carries its own listing, because boundary walls and gate piers sometimes do.
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Get every elevation surveyed and priced separately
Thomas comes out, tests the joints on each face, photographs what he finds and puts the price in writing, broken down elevation by elevation, at no cost to you.