Repointing around Merritown and Hurn
Open ground, driven rain and one elevation taking all of it. We price the wall that needs doing and say what the others can wait for.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Out here the pointing on one elevation will be years ahead of the pointing on the other three. There is very little standing between a wall at Merritown and the weather, so the south west face takes the driven rain that the sheltered sides never see, and that is the face that wants raking out and doing properly.
The buildings around the lane are a mixed bunch. Older cottages, houses of various dates, farm outbuildings, stables and long stretches of boundary wall, and they do not all want the same treatment. What they have in common is exposure. Joints open up faster, faces spall sooner, and a stack that would be fine in a sheltered street loses its mortar here in half the time.
We survey the whole property, outbuildings included if you want them looked at, scrape a few joints to see how deep the decay goes, tap along the courses to find where the pointing has come away from the brick, and photograph it. Back comes a written itemised quote with each elevation on its own line. The visit is free and Thomas prices the job himself.
The work
Repointing on buildings with nothing in front of them
The exposed elevation, first. Almost every job out here starts as one wall rather than one house. We rake the failed joints out to about twice their width, clean the back of the joint rather than leaving a shelf of old mortar, damp the brickwork down, fill in layers and brush the face back once the mix has taken up. Perpends come out by hand. A disc has its place on a hard modern bed joint but never on soft brick: it widens the joint and takes the arris off either side, and on a cottage wall that is damage no pointing will hide.
Old solid wall, in lime. The older cottages and farm buildings here are solid wall with no cavity, built in soft brick and lime. Those have to stay breathable, since the only way the wall loses water is by letting it evaporate back out through the joint. The mix goes back as NHL lime or lime putty, gauged and matched to the original sand for colour and texture. Where such a wall was pointed in sand and cement in the last fifty years, the faces crumble while the joints look sound, and taking that hard mortar out is the repair that stops it.
Later brickwork, and the faces frost has taken. The more recent houses are cavity built in fired brick with a cement mortar, and their joints erode at the arris rather than washing out, until water stands in them and a hard frost lifts the mortar and the brick face with it. Spalled faces are cut out and the brick turned or replaced against a sample, never filled. A lot of lost faces along one course usually points at something above it, a blocked gutter or a failed downpipe.
Chimneys, gable ends and flaunching. A stack in open country is the most weathered masonry on the building and the least visited. Its joints go friable, then hollow, then open, and the penetrating damp that follows comes out on a bedroom ceiling long after the mortar went. Repointing a stack, cutting out the worst bricks and renewing the flaunching is work at height, so it wants a scaffold rather than a tower, priced as its own line.
Outbuildings, stables and boundary walls. Free standing walls take weather on both faces with no roof to keep the top dry, so the coping joints go first and rain gets into the core, freezes and pushes the wall apart. Repointing the coping and the exposed side, and cutting out the frost damaged bricks, is short work that saves a rebuild. We quote for a stable wall or a store as readily as for the house.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting. The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines.
Nothing is left open overnight, the site is swept daily, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Repointing like for like is repair, not development, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control to sign off. Merritown has no conservation area of its own, and there are three listed entries in the immediate area. On a listed building the mortar counts as part of the protected fabric, so repointing needs listed building consent before a joint is opened, and the council keeps the list for the whole of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. Where a wall is shared with a neighbouring property we sort out the ownership before anything is raked.
Cost
What decides the price of a repointing job
No rate per square metre. The area tells you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.
Getting to it. A cottage on the lane, a two storey house with a stack on the gable and a long free standing boundary wall are three different set ups, and only one of them needs anything more than a tower. 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.
If water is getting in
Open joints, and water coming through the wall
Ring rather than use the form. Washed out joints let driven rain straight through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings too. We come and look, sheet or temporarily point the worst, then price the elevation once it has dried enough to show what is sound. Out here it is nearly always the south west facing wall or the chimney, so tell us which when you ring. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Exposure decides the joint profile, not just the mix
There is almost nothing between these buildings and the prevailing weather. Wind driven rain does not fall on a wall, it is pushed into it, and it goes into the joint rather than the brick because the joint is the softer and more absorbent of the two. That is why the south west elevation of a building out here can have joints raked back by weather while the sheltered face of the same house still looks near enough new.
What most people do not know is that the shape you finish the joint to matters as much as what it is made of. A weather struck joint, cut back at the top and left proud at the bottom, sheds water off the face of the wall. A bucket handle joint does much the same and compacts the surface as it is formed, which is why it wears well. A recessed or square raked joint looks smart on a sheltered courtyard wall and is a poor idea on an exposed elevation, because it leaves a small ledge on every brick for water to sit on and freeze. So on a wall at Merritown we will normally recommend weather struck or bucket handle on the exposed face even where you would rather have something flatter, and we will explain why before you decide. If a quote does not say what profile the joints are being finished to, ask.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We work across Merritown, Hurn, Parley Green, Avon and out to Christchurch and Bournemouth Airport, broadly BH23, under Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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.
Questions
Merritown questions we get asked
Only one wall looks bad. Is it worth doing the rest?
Usually not yet. On an exposed site the difference between the weather face and the sheltered faces can be ten years or more, so doing all four at once means paying early for three of them. We price each elevation separately, tell you which ones we would leave, and put that in the quote so nobody has to take it on trust.
Can you quote for the outbuildings as well as the house?
Yes. Stables, stores, garden walls and old farm buildings all get looked at on the same visit if you want them included, and they go on the quote as separate lines so you can take them in whatever order suits you. Free standing walls are often the cheapest thing on the list and the thing that deteriorates fastest.
How do we know whether our wall is solid or cavity?
We can usually tell from the bond, because a solid wall shows headers, the short ends of bricks, at regular intervals and a cavity wall generally does not. Age helps too, and so does the depth of a window reveal. It matters because it decides whether the joint gets lime or cement, and that is the decision the whole job turns on.
What happens if the weather turns while you are working?
Fresh mortar does not want frost or driving rain on it before it has set, and out here it can get both in the same afternoon. We sheet the working face, we do not point into a forecast frost, and if a week has to move we will tell you rather than push on and leave you with a joint that fails early.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Merritown
Repointing nearby
Our other trades in Merritown
Everything we do in Ferndown Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Have the weather face looked at
Free site visit, every elevation photographed and tested, and a written itemised quote covering access, raking out, the mortar and any brick replacement.