Repointing around Matchams
Hand raking and repointing on the exposed heath fringe, where one elevation takes the weather and the other three rarely need touching.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Repointing at Matchams
Out on the heath, the wind picks the wall
Your joints are due when they have washed back on the weather side, crumble under a key, or damp shows inside after a long wet blow. Repointing at Matchams is nearly always one elevation, the south west one, and the job is raking it out and putting back a joint profile that sheds water as well as the right mix. A wall that has cracked or bowed needs rebuilding first.
Properties out in Matchams stand in the open, with heath and forest around them and almost nothing to break a south westerly. What that does to brickwork is particular. Rain arrives sideways and lands on the wall rather than falling past it, so the joints on that one face wear back while the sheltered elevations stay sound for another twenty years.
Walls on the heath at Matchams fail in consistent ways. Joints washed out and friable on the weather face. A chimney losing mortar out of the top courses. An outbuilding or a boundary wall gone soft along the top of the joint. Penetrating damp appearing on an inside face after a long wet blow rather than after a shower.
We look at all four elevations, because the honest answer is usually that one needs doing and the others do not. The visit and the itemised written quote are free.
The work
What driven rain does to a joint, and how we put it back
The wall is read first. We tap and we probe. Mortar crumbling under a thumb, a joint friable and sandy ten or fifteen millimetres in, a section that sounds hollow behind the face, and the loose material that comes away on its own all say different things about how far it has gone. That sets the depth of the rake, and the rake sets the hours.
Raking out. By hand, back to roughly twice the joint width and no further, so the new mortar keys in without disturbing what is sound behind it. A disc cutter is quicker, widens the joint and takes the arris off either side, which on an exposed wall gives the weather more edge to work at. Joints are brushed out and damped down before pointing.
The mix, matched to the brick. A soft handmade or period brick in a solid wall wants a breathable NHL lime or lime putty gauge, because that wall dries out through its joints. A modern cavity wall wants a cement, lime and sand gauge of the same strength as what came out. Too strong a mix against a soft brick and the fired face spalls at the first hard frost, which is worse than the open joint you started with.
The joint profile, which matters more here than anywhere. On a sheltered wall the profile is mostly appearance. On a wall taking driven rain it is drainage. A weather struck joint is cut back at the top and left proud at the bottom so water runs off. A bucket handle joint is compressed hard and copes well. A recessed joint leaves a ledge at every course for water to stand on. On the south west elevation we point weather struck or bucket handle unless there is a reason not to.
Faces, stacks and outbuildings. Frost damage on an exposed face means cutting the brick out and putting a match in, not filling the crater with mortar. A chimney is the most exposed masonry on any building out in Matchams and sits above the flashings, so an open joint there goes into the roof. Stables, garages, workshops and long runs of boundary wall are pointing jobs in their own right. A stack wants a scaffold, a single storey elevation often comes off a tower, a wall by the lane neither.
How it runs
Repointing a weather-beaten wall, face by face
Thomas looks at each wall himself, drawing a key along a joint or two to feel how soft it is, and prices every face separately. The quote shows access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each face, bricks to replace, and waste. One point of contact runs it, from start to finish.
On a Matchams house the south west faces usually need most, because that is where driven rain and frost have worked on the mortar longest. We sheet a wall if hard rain or frost is coming, wipe mortar off the brick faces before it sets, and clear up daily. Anything hidden until a joint is open, like a cracked brick behind it, is photographed and costed before we act.
Repointing like for like is maintenance, so there is no planning permission to get and no building control. Matchams is free of listings and conservation area rules, which is unusual round here. We still look at Dorset Council's listed building records during the survey; we never assume, because the age of a wall changes the mix.
Cost
Driven rain, joint depth and the right mortar
The area of a wall says little until the joints have been looked at. How far the rain has got. On an exposed south west face the joints can be eroded well back while the other walls are fine. We price each face on its own, so you are not paying to rake out joints that are sound.
Hand or disc. Raking by hand takes longer. On soft brick it is still the right way, since a grinder cuts the joint wider and chips the arrises, and that shows for good.
Matching the mix. Too strong a mix is the common mistake: cement traps water in a soft brick and frost takes the face off. Lime suits an older, softer brick, and a matched sand and cement suits a harder modern one. We decide from the brick itself.
Access. A chimney or gable needs scaffold, and a long low Matchams wall by the lane needs nothing. The work at height rules govern the platform, so it has its own line, and how long it stands matters as much as its size.
Spalled bricks. Every face that has blown is counted, and cutting out and replacing those bricks is costed per brick.
Ask another quote how deep and by what method, what mix, how many spalled bricks, and whether scaffold is included.
If water is getting in
Rain coming through a south west wall
Washed-out joints let driven rain through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings too. At Matchams it tends to show after a long spell of wind and rain rather than a shower, as a damp patch inside the most exposed wall that dries out and comes back with the next blow.
Ring instead of using the form. We look, sheet the wall or point the worst as a stopgap, and price the face once it is dry enough for us to judge what can stay. Booked repointing runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Missed calls are returned as soon as we can.
The one local thing
Exposure, and why the joint finish is a technical choice
The most exposed wall on almost everything around Matchams faces south west, and there is very little standing between it and the weather. BS 8104 is the code of practice for working out how much wind driven rain a wall actually takes, and the reason it exists is that two identical walls a mile apart can sit in different exposure categories.
What that changes for you is simple. On a sheltered elevation, choose the profile that suits the building. On the exposed one, choose the profile that sheds water: weather struck, or a bucket handle compressed hard into the joint. Avoid a recessed finish there however smart it looks on a sample board, because every course becomes a small shelf.
Expect, too, to repoint the weather side while the other three still carry their original mortar. Out in Matchams that is normal, not a sign of a bad wall, and doing one elevation properly costs a great deal less than treating a whole house.
Exposure out in Matchams is a local matter, not a postcode one. A house tucked behind a belt of forestry sits in a different position from one on the open heath two fields away, and the joints tell you which you have long before any map does. So we read the wall on the visit and set the profile from that.
Who you are dealing with
Who rakes and repoints your walls
Thomas Hannen prices the job himself, and his is the one company you deal with. Five and a half miles separate our Boscombe base from Matchams. St Ives, St Leonards and Ashley Heath are the same BH24 patch under Dorset Council, and we also cover Ringwood over the Hampshire border.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719. A verified customer on Checkatrade scored us 10 out of 10. We do not charge for the survey visit, nor for the written, itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Matchams, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Matchams?
Most repairs in Matchams 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.
| Question | In Matchams |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Matchams. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Matchams, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Nothing in Matchams is on the statutory list, so listed building consent does not come into it. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Matchams. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Matchams
Only one wall has gone. Should we do the whole house?
Repointing the whole house in Matchams is rarely worth it when only one wall has gone. Exposure here is so one sided that the south west face can be badly open while the sheltered elevations are still on original mortar and perfectly sound. We survey all of them, price them separately and tell you which are years away. Doing sound joints early buys you nothing.
Which joint profile is right for an exposed wall?
Weather struck or a hard compressed bucket handle. Both shed water off the face of the joint instead of holding it. A recessed finish leaves a ledge at every course, and on a wall that takes driven rain that is where the frost gets a start. On sheltered elevations you can please yourself.
Can you point out here in the winter?
Cement gauge work, within reason and with an eye on the forecast. Lime, no. Green lime mortar that catches a frost is ruined and has to be raked out and done again, so we would rather book a lime elevation for the spring than gamble a week's work on a mild snap.
How long will the repointing last on the weather side?
We will not put a number on it, because it depends on the mix, the profile and how hard that wall gets hit. What we can say is that a mortar stronger than the brick shortens it, and so does a joint finish that holds water, and both are avoidable at the quote stage rather than afterwards.
Is there anything listed at Matchams we need to check?
There is no conservation area over the area, and the nearest listed entries sit a mile or so off, so on an ordinary house a repair needs no application, and listed building consent does not arise. We check the records instead of assuming, because a property just up the road can sit under a different answer, and that is worth knowing before a specification is agreed.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Matchams
Nearby places we also cover for repointing, with straight-line distances from Matchams, and the other trades we offer in Matchams itself.
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Our other trades in Matchams
Repointing guides
Lime or cement mortar: which do you need? Reading a repointing quote: rake out Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in West Moors Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Price the elevation that has actually gone
A free site visit, all four walls looked at properly, and an itemised written quote naming the mix and the joint profile.