Lymington repointing, in lime where lime belongs

Lime pointing on the old streets. Roughly one home in fourteen in Lymington predates 1919, concentrated, not scattered: the streets behind the quay and either side of the High Street. Those walls are solid, with no cavity, and shed water only by letting it evaporate back out through the joint.

On a Lymington frontage we rake by hand to twice the joint width, keep the angle grinder in the van, and point back in an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to the original sand, damped down before filling and brushed back once it has taken up. The profile matters as much as the mix on a frontage the whole street sees, and at that age it is usually flush or slightly recessed rather than weather struck, so we agree it and photograph the existing joint first.

Taking off cement that should never have gone on. Plenty of the old Lymington stock was repointed in sand and cement between the sixties and the nineties. A solid wall of that period has to stay breathable, and a hard joint on a soft handmade brick traps water, so it leaves through the brick face instead. If your joints look sharp and your bricks look eaten, that is what has happened, and there is published work on why in the research on lime and cement in traditional mortars. Removing it is hand work, joint by joint, priced as its own line.

Post-war and eighties brickwork, which is most of Lymington. Close to half the housing here went up between 1945 and 1982, the busiest decade being the eighties. That is cavity construction: one skin of fired brick outside, struck weather or bucket handle, in a cement and sand mortar. The joint pits and opens at the arris rather than washing out, and once water stands in it a hard frost lifts the face off the brick. We match the sand and the gauge, not just the colour, and put a trial panel up for you to judge in daylight.

Communal elevations on flats and terraces. About one home in seven in Lymington is a flat and better than a fifth are terraced, so a lot of the brickwork here is shared. Where a face has spalled the brick is cut out and replaced against a sample held on the wall. We price communal work for freeholders, management companies and residents' associations as readily as for a single owner: parapets, the panels between windows, shared stacks and the corners taking weather off the water. Major works on a lease are usually subject to consultation under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

We will not give a rate per square metre until somebody has looked at the joints. How deep the old mortar has gone. Where joints have weathered back a little, raking out is quick. Where they have washed out deep on an exposed gable, or the last repair was hard cement smeared over the face, getting it out without damaging the brick arrises is slow hand work.

Lime or cement. A post-war or eighties wall in hard brick takes a cement mix and goes quickly. A pre-1919 wall in soft brick needs lime: slower to mix, slower to lay, and it has to be looked after while it cures. Cement on soft brick is the classic mistake, because it holds water in the brick and the face spalls in the first hard frost.

Access. A garden wall is ground level. A three storey house on the Lymington High Street with the pavement against it needs scaffold and maybe a licence, while a two storey gable in Pennington may come off a tower. The work at height rules make access a priced line.

Ask a competing quote how deep the joints are raked and with what tool, whether the mix is lime or cement and why, and how many spalled bricks are allowed for.

From our base in Boscombe it is 12.5 miles to Lymington. We cover the town, Pennington, Boldre and Everton, and out to Milford on Sea and New Milton, where planning sits with New Forest District Council.

You would be dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Its owner, Thomas Hannen, comes to see the wall and prices the repointing himself. A customer verified by Checkatrade scored us 10 out of 10 there. You pay nothing for the visit or for the written, itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Lymington, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Lymington 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.