Repointing around Holt, and the listed question

Soft brick, and why the grinder stays in the van. A lot of what we point around Holt is handmade brick in a lime mortar, in solid walls with no cavity behind them. A solid wall is breathable by design: it sheds water by letting it evaporate back out through the joint, so the mortar has to stay weaker and more open than the brick. Raking is done by hand, to a depth of roughly twice the joint width, perpends included. A disc cutter or an angle grinder widens the joint and takes the arris off the brick either side, so neither comes out on soft fabric. Joints are damped down before filling so the mix cures instead of flashing off, then brushed back once the mortar has taken up. The finish matches what the wall already carries, on a period cottage usually flush or a shade recessed rather than the weather struck joint of later Victorian and Edwardian brickwork.

Undoing a cement repair. The commonest damage on old walls here is not neglect, it is a previous repointing in sand and cement. A dense joint stops the wall breathing, so moisture leaves through the brick face instead and frost takes the face off. The joints survive and the brick does not. Cutting that mortar out without breaking the brick around it is slow work, and it is the only repair that changes the outcome.

Matching the mix, and proving it first. We take a sample of sound original mortar from somewhere sheltered, read the sand in it for colour and grade, and gauge an NHL lime or lime putty mix against it. A trial panel then goes up on a discreet part of the wall so you can judge colour and texture in daylight. Fresh mortar reads lighter than aged mortar, so the panel is judged on where it will end up.

Blown faces, cut out rather than filled. Where a brick face has spalled we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample. Filling the hollow with mortar leaves a patch that never matches and drops out inside a couple of winters. The damage gathers low down, where the wall draws water out of the ground, and at the top where the coping has failed.

Wall heads, copings and stacks. Water into the top of a wall does more harm than anything landing on the face, because it runs down inside the brickwork rather than off it. Rebedding a loose coping and pointing the wall head is short work and stops most of what follows. Chimneys are the same story higher up: weather on four sides, joints going friable years ahead of everything below. That is work at height and wants a proper platform.

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 brick cottage on the village street, a farm building set back behind a yard and a stack on a steep roof are three different set ups. 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. 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.

There are 13 listed entries in and around Holt, a lot for a village of this size, and the part that catches people out is not the house. Listing generally extends to other structures within the curtilage that stood there before July 1948: a barn, a former stable, an outbuilding across the yard, or the wall attached to any of them. Owners know the cottage is listed. Few realise the wall along the front of it may be too.

For mortar that matters, because the mix, the colour and the joint profile are all part of what the listing protects. Pointing an old wall in a bright cement mortar is a change to a listed structure whatever anybody intended. Find out what your entry covers before agreeing a specification, and get the mortar and the profile written into the quote. We will make the enquiry to Dorset Council with you if you would rather not.

We cover Holt, Wimborne Minster, Furzehill, Colehill and across to Broadstone and Verwood, broadly BH21, 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.