Longham repointing and mortar repair

Repointing, done at the right depth. Joints come out to roughly twice their own width, around twenty millimetres on most Longham brickwork, and the back of the joint is cleaned rather than left as a shelf of old mortar. Where the brick is hard and modern a small disc can be used with care on the bed joints, but the perpends come out by hand, and on anything soft the angle grinder stays in the van. Joints are damped down before filling, packed in layers rather than buttered over, and brushed back once the mix has taken up.

The mix, matched to the wall it is going into. Six homes in ten here date from between 1945 and 1982: cavity work in a cement and sand mortar, wanting a gauge chosen to sit just under the strength of the brick. The older cottages are a different animal, solid wall with soft brick, and they want an NHL lime or a lime putty mix so the wall stays breathable. Getting that the wrong way round is the most expensive mistake on this trade. We take a sample of sound original mortar from a sheltered spot, match the sand for colour and texture, and put up a trial panel to look at in daylight first.

Spalled and frost damaged faces. Where a face has blown, filling the hollow with mortar is a patch that shows and then falls out. We cut the brick out and turn or replace it with a match. Frost damage clusters below sills, behind downpipes, at bay corners, and just above the damp proof course where a path or drive has been laid against the house.

Chimneys, and the joints that let water into the roof. A stack is exposed on all four sides and gets no warmth from the house below, so its mortar goes friable and washes out years ahead of the walls. Open joints send penetrating damp down into the roof space and out onto a ceiling, and past the flashings as well. Repointing a stack and renewing the flaunching is a proper access job, and needs a scaffold rather than a tower.

Boundary walls and outbuildings. Longham plots tend to be generous, and with them come front walls, dividing walls and outbuilding walls, all taking weather on both faces with nothing to shelter them. Coping joints are the usual failure: rain gets into the top, freezes, and pushes the brickwork apart from inside. Repointing the coping and the exposed face puts off a rebuild for a long time.

No rate per square metre. The area tells you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.

Getting to it. A detached bungalow off the Ringwood Road, a chalet house with a gable and a stack, and a long boundary wall between two plots are three different set ups before a joint is raked. The work at height rules are why access is its own priced line.

The joints decide it, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow, and on soft brick the only safe way: a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off. Depth, and whether faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than area does.

Matching is the part that shows. Too strong a mix is the classic mistake: cement holds water against a soft brick and the face blows off in the first hard frost. Lime cures slower, and suits most pre-1919 walls here.

Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked and by what, what the mix is, how many spalled bricks come out, and whether the scaffold is in the price. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.

Six out of ten homes in Longham went up between the end of the war and the early eighties, busiest by some way in the late sixties and early seventies. Whole roads were laid out, built and pointed within a season or two of one another, by the same firms, out of the same brick, using the same mortar gauge. That is why the pointing on a Longham street reaches the end of its life all at once rather than house by house.

Two practical consequences. First, if a neighbour with the same house type and orientation has open joints on their gable, yours are probably at the same stage even if they look acceptable from the pavement, so have them checked rather than waiting for a face to spall. Second, shared and boundary walls are best done once, together: a dividing wall between two drives is one wall with two owners, and pointing one side while the other stays open just means water keeps getting into the middle. We will survey and quote both properties on the same visit.

We cover Longham, Hampreston, Dudsbury, West Parley and across into Ferndown and Wimborne, broadly BH22, 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. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written itemised quote are free.