Lymington repointing, in lime where lime belongs

Lime pointing on the old streets. Roughly one home in fourteen here predates 1919, concentrated rather than 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. 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 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 the town. 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 here is a flat and better than a fifth are terraced, so a lot of the brickwork we look at 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.

No rate per square metre, because the square metres tell you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.

Getting to it. A three storey house on the High Street with the pavement hard against it, a post-war semi with a gable you can reach off a tower and a low wall along a plot are three different set ups. How long the platform stands matters as much as how big it is, and the work at height rules are why access is a priced line rather than one absorbed into a rate.

The joints decide it, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow, and on soft brick the only safe way. How deep the joints come back, and whether the faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than the 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 is slower to work and to cure, and it is the right answer on most pre-1919 walls.

We cover Lymington, Pennington, Boldre, Everton, Milford on Sea and across towards New Milton, broadly SO41, under New Forest District 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'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.