Merley repointing and mortar repairs
Raking out and repointing on the estate brickwork, stacks and boundary walls of Merley and Canford Magna, in a mix matched to what came out.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Repointing in Merley
Hard mortar does not crack, it wears away
On a Merley house the mortar nearly always goes before the brick does, and it goes on one wall first: joints eroded back behind the face, or crumbling under a key. Raking out and repointing that elevation is a repair, and matching the cement gauge already in the wall matters far more here than reaching for lime. A crack stepping through the bricks, or a wall that has moved, is a rebuild, not repointing.
Merley went up mostly in the 1970s and early 1980s, and the faults arrive in a pattern. Joints on the south west gable worn back behind the brick face. A chimney with the mortar washed out of the top courses. A front or retaining wall beside the drive where the joint has gone friable and the coping is loose.
None of that is a Merley wall in trouble. A cavity wall of that period has a hard cement mortar in it, and hard mortar erodes rather than cracks: it goes at the surface, on the elevation that takes the weather, and stops. Reading how far back it has gone is what decides the job.
We tap and probe the joints on each elevation and tell you which walls want doing now and which are ten years off. The visit and the written itemised quote are free, and we are about six and a half miles away.
The work
Where the joints go first on a Merley house
The weather side, and only the weather side. The exposed wall on a Merley house faces south west, and it is the one that opens up. We rake by hand to about twice the joint width, far enough for the new mortar to key and no further.
A disc cutter is tempting on the stubborn seventies mortar in Merley, so it is kept to the hard bed joints and used with care, because it widens the joint and takes the arris off. Perpends and the final clean are done by hand. Joints are brushed out and damped down before anything is filled.
Matching the mix, which is not a lime job. A pre-1919 solid wall needs a soft breathable lime because it dries through the joint. A 1970s cavity wall does not, and an NHL lime or lime putty mix on it would wash out inside a few winters. What goes back is a cement, lime and sand gauge matched for strength first, then colour and texture. We mix a sample, leave a trial panel on the wall and look at it dry.
The joint profile. Most of Merley was built with a bucket handle joint struck with a rounded tool, and that is what goes back unless there is a reason to change. A weather struck joint sheds better on a badly exposed gable. A recessed joint looks sharp and leaves a ledge at every course for water to sit on. It is a decision, and it belongs in the quote rather than on the day.
Brick faces and feature panels. Where frost has lifted the fired face off a brick, pointing around it hides nothing. Those are cut out and replaced with a matched stock, or turned where the back is sound. Watch the soldier courses over openings and the panels of snapped headers of that era: they carry far more joint per square metre than the rest of the wall and open up first.
Stacks, garages and boundary walls. A chimney is the most weathered masonry on a Merley house and sits above the flashings, so an open joint there goes into the roof rather than the wall. Single skin garages, low front walls with no coping and planters beside the drive are all pointing jobs in their own right. A stack wants a scaffold, a gable comes off a tower, a garden wall neither.
How it runs
Raking out and repointing, from survey to swept path
Thomas does the survey and the pricing himself. He scratches a few joints to see how soft the mortar is, checks the chimney and the weather side, and decides whether the whole elevation needs doing or only the worst patches.
On most Merley houses the brick is seventies machine-made and the original mortar is cement based, which changes what goes back in. The quote itemises access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, any brick replacement and disposal.
A Merley repoint has one company accountable for it, start to finish. A tower from the drive covers most Merley bungalows; a stack on a two storey house needs a scaffold. Joints are never left raked and open to the weather overnight, dust sheets cover paths and windowsills, the site is swept daily, and what comes out leaves with us. Should spalled bricks or a cracked lintel appear, you are shown it, with a photo and a figure, before anything extra is done.
Repointing like for like is maintenance: no planning permission and no building control. Two conservation areas sit close by, one at Oakley Lane and a larger one at Canford Magna, but the estates are outside them, and the council's conservation area list shows the lines. Inside those boundaries the mortar colour and joint profile stop being a matter of taste, so we check the address first.
Cost
Why the joints, not the wall area, set the price
Area tells you little until someone has looked at the joints, so we don't work to a rate per square metre.
How the mortar comes out. Hard cement mortar is slow to rake. A disc is quicker, but it widens the joint and chips the arris, so we use it with care and finish by hand. Joints have to come back to sound mortar, however deep that turns out to be.
The mix. Most walls in Merley are post-war brick where a sand and cement mortar suits. The handful of older buildings towards Canford Magna are different: soft brick wants a lime mortar, because cement holds water against the face and frost blows it off.
Access. A bungalow gable is a tower; a chimney stack on a two storey detached house is a scaffold. The work at height rules put that on its own line.
Spalled bricks. Each face that has blown needs cutting out and replacing with a matching brick, and seventies colours can take some finding.
Where it is failing. The weather side and the stack usually go first, so repointing those alone can make sense and saves doing sound walls.
Ask a competing quote how deep the joints are raked and with what, what the mortar mix is and why, how many bricks are being replaced, and whether the scaffold is included.
If water is getting in
Damp coming through where the joints have washed out
If rain is getting through open joints, you will usually see it as a damp patch on the inside of an outside wall, or round the chimney breast upstairs. Note which wall and whether it shows after wind from the south west, then give us a ring instead of sending the form.
On the first visit we look at the joints, the flashings on the stack and the gutters above, because water from a leaking gutter looks just like failed pointing. We sheet or temporarily point the worst area, then price the elevation once it has dried. Scheduled work: Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. No answer? We ring back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
One estate, one mortar, one set of joints
Nearly eight in ten homes in Merley went up between 1945 and 1982, about half of it in the 1970s and early 1980s. That is a single cohort: the same mortar out of the same mixers within a few years of itself, onto houses facing the same weather, ageing side by side ever since.
So when one house on a road needs its south west elevation pointing, the neighbours usually do too, and a mortar matched properly on one is matched for the street. And you can plan it: no urgency in a joint gone back two or three millimetres on a sheltered wall, real urgency in one gone back fifteen on the exposed face.
The third thing is what not to do. Very little of the housing here is pre-1919, so the lime argument that governs the old towns does not govern most walls. The exceptions are the older buildings in and around Canford Magna, where the listed entries and the Canford Magna and Oakley Lane conservation areas are. The Merley estates themselves sit outside both. What is left is a technical decision, which is the right way round.
The mortar on these estates was mixed hard by the standards of the day, so where it fails it fails at the surface rather than through the wall. That is why so much of the work here is fifteen millimetres deep and no more, and why the honest answer on many of these walls is that they will keep a few winters yet.
Who you are dealing with
Where we repoint, and the company behind it
We work out of a base on Wolverton Road, Boscombe, 6.6 miles from Merley. Our repointing covers Merley, Canford Magna, Bearwood, Broadstone (BCP Council), and across to Wimborne (Dorset Council). You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719: Thomas Hannen's company. Before you book a visit in Merley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
He prices each wall himself after scratching at the joints. There is a verified customer's rating of 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The site visit is free, as is the itemised quote in writing.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Merley?
Most repairs in Merley 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 Merley |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Merley. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Merley, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Merley. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Merley. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Merley
Should a seventies house be pointed in lime?
No, and it is one of the commonest mistakes on walls of this age. Lime belongs on a soft, pre-1919 solid wall that dries through its joints. Yours is a cavity built in a cement gauge, and a soft lime in it erodes again quickly. We match the gauge that came out.
Only the back gable looks bad. Is that normal?
It is the normal pattern here. Wind driven rain arrives on one face and barely touches the others, so the exposed elevation can be fifteen millimetres open while the sheltered wall is still original. We survey all four, price them separately, and you can do just the one that has gone.
Is Merley in a conservation area?
No, Merley has none of its own. Canford Magna and Oakley Lane are conservation areas, so if your address is over that way it is worth checking the boundary before agreeing a colour or a joint finish.
Can you match the colour of what is there?
Most of the time, closely: sand does the matching more than cement does, so we choose the sand against a raked out sample and then set the gauge. A trial panel goes up first and is looked at dry. New work sits a shade fresher for a winter, then weathers in.
The top of our garden wall is crumbling. Repoint or rebuild?
Repoint, in most cases. A free standing wall takes water on the top and both faces, so its joints go long before anything structural does. If the coping is loose or missing we reset it, because that is what feeds the wall. Where whole courses have gone hollow, we say so rather than point over it.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Merley
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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 Broadstone Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Get the exposed wall priced properly
A free site visit, an honest answer on which elevations need doing, and an itemised written quote before anything starts.