Holton Heath repointing: find the cause first

Nineteen eighties cavity brickwork. A lot of the housing in Holton Heath went up in the eighties and after. That is all cavity work: a single outer skin of fired brick in a cement and sand mortar, struck weather or bucket handle.

It pits and opens at the arris rather than washing out, water stands in the hollow, and a hard frost lifts flakes off the brick faces either side. Matching it means matching the sand, the gauge and the strength rather than only the colour, so a trial panel goes up on a discreet elevation for you to judge in daylight.

Finding the cause before pointing the strip. On Holton Heath brickwork this age an open joint is almost always local. A downpipe letting go at the shoe and throwing water at the same square metre of wall. A gutter running over. A drive or patio laid up above the damp proof course so the bottom courses never dry. We deal with the cause at the same time as the mortar.

Raking, filling and finishing. Joints come out to about twice their width, perpends by hand. An angle grinder is faster along a straight bed joint and it is also how a wall loses its arris, which is why it stays in the van. Joints are damped down before filling, struck to the profile the wall already carries, and brushed back once the mortar has taken up.

Blown faces. Where a face has spalled we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall. A mortar fill never matches and falls out inside a couple of winters. The frost damage collects above the damp proof course, under sills and beside downpipes rather than spreading evenly.

Chimneys, and the rest at low level. A stack takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it from inside, so its joints go friable well before the walls below and the penetrating damp that follows lands on a ceiling. That is work at height and wants a scaffold, priced on its own line. With plenty of bungalows in Holton Heath, many walls come off a tower instead.

The older handful. A small share of property here predates 1919 and is solid wall rather than cavity, which means lime and nothing harder. We check which you have before quoting, because the two need opposite mixes.

The square metres of a wall tell you almost nothing. The state of the joints does. Access. A bungalow with its long side facing the weather can be pointed from a low platform.

A detached Holton Heath house with a chimney stack on the ridge needs a scaffold to the top, and a short strip of wall under a leaking gutter may need nothing at all. How long a platform stands matters as much as how big it is, and the work at height rules make access its own line.

Depth and damage. Joints that have to come back deep take far longer than a shallow rake. Where brick faces have already spalled, those bricks come out. Cutting out with a disc is faster than raking by hand, but it widens the joint and chips the arris, and the wall shows it.

The right mix. Pointing that is harder than the brick traps water in it, and a hard frost then pops the face off. Most houses in Holton Heath are post-war and take a sand and cement mix matched to the brick. Lime is right on the older pre-1919 cottages, and the standard for building lime sets out the grades.

Ask any competing quote how deep the joints are raked, whether by hand or disc, what mix is proposed and why, and whether the scaffold is included.

A large share of the brickwork at Holton Heath dates from the 1980s onwards, and where yours does, that is worth knowing because the mortar changed during the decades either side of it. Older cement mixes were usually gauged with lime as well, which left a joint that was softer than the brick and eroded gently as it aged.

By the eighties the lime had largely gone, replaced by an air entraining plasticiser, and mixes were specified stronger. The result is a joint that stays hard while the brick beside it takes the punishment, so the failure shows up as pitting at the arris and spalled faces rather than as washed out joints.

So matching a mortar on a house this age means matching its strength as well as its sand and colour, because a mix that is too soft erodes out of a modern joint just as surely as one that is too hard wrecks an old wall. And do not let anybody tell you an eighties house wants lime: it does not, unless yours is one of the few here that predates 1919. Ask whoever is quoting what mix they propose and why.

Our base is in Boscombe, 10.7 miles from Holton Heath, and we cover the village with Sandford, Lytchett Minster and Upton, across to Wareham, with Dorset Council as the authority for Holton Heath.

When you book, you are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. The owner, Thomas Hannen, is the person who comes out, checks the joints and writes your price. A verified customer on Checkatrade has given us a score of 10 out of 10. The first visit is free, and the written quote with its itemised lines costs you nothing either. Before you book a visit in Holton Heath, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Holton Heath 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.