Repointing in Hyde, starting at the foot of the wall

The first thing people in Hyde describe is rarely the joint: a dark band along the bottom of an outside wall that climbs a little further every wet winter, brick faces flaking off in the courses just above the ground, or salty white powder inside a wall that used to be dry. Now and again it is a chimney dropping grit, the same problem at the other end of the building.

Almost all of that is mortar. We look at the whole of a Hyde house rather than the patch you have noticed, run a key along the joints, tap the courses for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick, and look at what the ground is doing outside. The survey is written up elevation by elevation, itemised, with the bands we would do now separated from the ones that can wait. The visit and the quote are free.

The bottom three or four courses. Ground that drains slowly holds water against the foot of a wall for days after heavy rain, and rain bouncing off a path throws more back into the same band.

Those joints stay saturated, salts crystallise in them and in the brick, and the frost finishes the job. On a Hyde wall we rake that band out to depth, replace the bricks whose faces have blown, and point it back in a mix more permeable than the brick so the wall can dry outwards.

Raking out. Joints come back twice their width, deeper wherever the mortar behind is friable, and by hand. An angle grinder widens the joint, wanders off the line and takes the arris off the brick, and on soft old brick that damage is permanent. Joints are brushed out and damped down before filling, and struck once the mix has taken up.

Lime on solid walls. The older buildings in Hyde have no cavity behind the brick. They are breathable walls that shed water by letting it evaporate back out through the joint, so the mortar has to stay softer and more open than the brick. Those get an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to match the sand in your own mortar, struck flush or slightly recessed to what the wall carries. Where a wall has been repointed in sand and cement, that hard mix is why the brick faces beside it spall, and taking it out is the repair.

Matching. Mortar colour comes mostly from its sand, so a match is found rather than mixed from a tin. We take a sample of the soundest original from a sheltered spot and put a trial panel up on a discreet part of the wall for you to judge in daylight.

Chimneys. A Hyde stack has weather on four sides and nothing warming it, so it goes friable early and the penetrating damp from an open joint arrives on a bedroom ceiling. Pointing it, cutting out frost damaged brick and renewing the flaunching need one platform and one visit.

Nothing is priced until Thomas has seen the wall. He works out what the old mortar is and how far it has eroded, whether the brick is soft or hard, and which face takes the weather. Some older walls around Hyde are laid in lime, and repointing those in cement does real damage. Your quote sets out, line by line, the access, how much raking out there is, brick replacement, the area of each elevation, the mortar mix and disposal.

On soft brick the joints are raked by hand. Doors and windows are sheeted, and the dust is swept up daily. Lime has to be kept from frost and from drying out too fast, so the work follows the weather and hessian goes over the wall when it is needed. Waste goes with us. If spalled bricks prove worse than they looked, photographs and a price for replacements come to you first.

Repointing like for like counts as repair. Nothing needs applying for, and building control has no part in it. Hyde is in the New Forest National Park, which is its own planning authority. Hyde is in the Western Escarpment Conservation Area, so ask the Authority before any change of mortar. On a listed building the mortar is protected fabric, so a different mix, colour or joint profile needs listed building consent. National Park heritage and conservation guidance sets out the process.

Damp showing on an inside wall means ringing us, not filling in the form. Once joints have washed out, driven rain gets through to the inside, and on a chimney it gets under the flashings as well.

We come out, sheet or temporarily point the worst area, and price the elevation when it is dry enough to judge properly. If the damp is down at skirting level, tell us, as the lowest joints often fail first and we will check the outside ground levels on that visit. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. When the line is busy, Thomas returns missed calls as soon as he can.

Call now: 07435 839745

Hyde is not in a river flood zone and Huckles Brook is far enough off not to be the issue. What affects brickwork here is surface water. The ground here sheds slowly, so after a heavy spell water stands and moves across the surface instead of soaking away, and where it reaches the foot of a wall it stays.

A joint wet for weeks never carbonates properly if it is new and never dries if it is old, which is why the bottom band of a wall out in Hyde fails a generation before the rest.

At the base the mix has to be soft, permeable and able to give water up, never a strong joint and never a cement fillet where the wall meets the ground. Then there is the ground itself. If a path, a drive or raised borders have brought the level up over the damp proof course, no mortar solves that, and the channel is better dug back down before the pointing than after. You can check what the ground does at your address on the government flood risk service, and we will look at the levels on the free visit either way.

Nearby places we also cover for repointing, with straight-line distances from Hyde, and the other trades we offer in Hyde itself.

Everything we do in Ringwood Repointing, all areas Every area we cover