Repointing in Milford on Sea
Joints raked out by hand, a mix matched to a wall that stands under a kilometre from the water, and blown brick faces cut out and replaced.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
A wall here is ready for repointing when the joint has weathered back behind the face of the brick, crumbles as soon as you run a key along it, or leaves a line of sand at the foot of the elevation. This close to the water, what goes back into that joint matters more than what month it goes back in.
Where it starts
The three calls we get from Milford on Sea
One is a seaward elevation where the joints have opened and the wall stays dark for a day after every blow. One is brick faces coming away in thin plates, under a sill or above a patio. The third is a chimney dropping grit into the gutter, noticed because a stain has turned up on a bedroom ceiling. None is structural: all three are mortar, and all three carry on until the failed joint comes out.
The survey covers every elevation, not the one you have spotted. Sheltered faces here often have years left while the exposed face has none, and pricing a whole house when half of it is due is the commonest way to overpay. We scrape joints for the depth of decay, tap for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick, and photograph each face, free.
The work
The mortar work we do along this stretch of coast
The exposed face, first and separately. Driven rain arrives here off the Channel with very little in front of it, and it works at the joint rather than the middle of the brick: once the mortar has gone back a few millimetres the wind holds water in the recess and the joint washes out from the outside in. We rake by hand to twice the joint width, perpends included, and the angle grinder stays in the van, because a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off the brick. Joints are damped down before filling and brushed back once the mix has taken up.
Solid wall, and the older end of the village. Around one home in nine here predates 1919, and those are solid wall: no cavity behind the brick, so it handles water by evaporating it back out through the joint, which works only while the mortar stays softer than the brick. Those get an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to match the original sand, struck back to the profile the wall carries. Hard cement pointing ruins a wall like that, and it is what we are most often taking off.
The post war stock and the mix it was built in. More than half the housing here went up between 1945 and 1982, and that is cavity work: a fired brick outer skin in cement and sand mortar, struck weather or bucket handle. It fails differently: the joint pits and opens at the arris rather than washing out, water stands in the pit, and the next hard frost lifts the face off the brick. That mortar was often gauged with lime as well as cement, so matching means matching the gauge and the sand.
Blown faces cut out rather than filled. Where a face has already spalled we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall. Packing the hollow with mortar leaves a patch that never matches and drops out inside a couple of winters. We make up a trial panel somewhere discreet for you to see in daylight.
Chimneys and flaunching. A stack takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it from inside, so its joints go friable long before the walls do and the water lands on a top floor ceiling. Pointing it and renewing the flaunching want the same platform and one visit.
Communal elevations. A quarter of the homes here are flats, and on a block the freeholder instructs the work, with leaseholders usually consulted under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
What we will talk you out of: pointing a wall still soaking from a split downpipe or a blocked gutter. Fix the water, let it dry, then point it.
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 your work out. The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open overnight, the site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. Anything nobody could have foreseen gets a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Repointing like for like is repair rather than development, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control to sign off. Milford on Sea has no conservation area of its own, and 28 entries in the village and the lanes around it are listed. On a listed building the mortar is protected fabric, so a change of mix, colour or joint profile needs consent before a joint is opened. This is New Forest District rather than the National Park, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out where repair ends and alteration begins. We check an address before a mixer is filled.
Cost
What decides the price of a repointing job
No rate per square metre, because the square metres tell you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.
Getting to it. A sea facing gable, a bungalow with a stack on the ridge and a single storey rear extension are three different set ups before a joint is touched. 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 something absorbed into a rate.
The joints decide it, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow, and on soft brick it is the only safe way. How deep the joints have to 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.
Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs, so ask each one how deep the joints are raked and whether the scaffold is in the price.
If water is getting in
Open joints, and water coming through the wall
Ring rather than use the form. A wall with the joints washed out lets 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 of it, and price the full elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. Round here that is nearly always the south west face or the chimney, and after a winter gale water is through an open joint in hours. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Salt decides the profile you strike, not only the mix
The water is under a kilometre from these streets, and on a rough day it arrives as spray carried inland rather than as clean rain. The salt sits in the outer few millimetres of every joint on the exposed side of the house, holding damp in the wall between showers so an elevation that ought to dry over a fine afternoon stays wet, then crystallising in the joint and in the pores of the brick as it dries and pushing the material apart. That is why the seaward face here is the tired one while the back looks nearly new.
Two things follow, and neither is about the mix. A raked joint on this side of the house has to be washed and brushed out first, because salt left in the back of it contaminates the new mortar from day one. And the profile matters: a recessed joint holds water and salt against the arris, so we strike the seaward face weathered or bucket handle so it sheds, and match what the wall carries on the sheltered sides. Fresh lime wants protecting while it cures, so exposed elevations are sheeted and worked in settled weather. Ask anyone quoting you what profile they intend on the sea side, and be wary if it matches the one round the back.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Milford on Sea, Keyhaven, Everton, Hordle and across to Lymington and New Milton, broadly SO41, all of it 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.
Questions
Milford on Sea questions we get asked
We had the front pointed a few years ago and it is going again. What went wrong?
Nine times out of ten the mix was too strong and the joint raked too shallow to hold. A dense cement joint will not let the wall dry through the mortar, so damp and salt leave through the brick face instead. Taking it back out to a real depth with a softer matched mix is the repair.
The wall never seems to properly dry out. When can it actually be pointed?
A joint wants to be damp rather than soaking when the mix goes in, so a wet wall is less of an obstacle than people expect. What stops the job is frost or a salt laden gale landing on mortar that has not set. We work off a settled forecast, not a calendar.
Is there any point repointing while the inside wall is still damp?
Not until you know where the water is coming from. Wet at head height on the weather side and open joints are almost certainly the cause. Dry up top and wet along the bottom and it is coming up rather than through, which a new joint will not touch. We look at both faces first.
Our extension is a different colour mortar to the house. Can the two be brought together?
Much closer, yes. We take a sample of the sound original from somewhere sheltered, look at the sand in it, and make up trial panels on both walls to compare in daylight. We will not promise an invisible join: fresh mortar reads lighter and wants a couple of years to settle.
Do we need a full scaffold to have one gable done?
On a two storey house, usually yes. Pointing is two handed work done standing still for hours, which a ladder is not for. A tower reaches a single storey elevation. Either way access is its own line on the quote.
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Repointing near Milford on Sea
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Get the seaward elevation looked at first
Thomas comes out, scrapes a few joints on every face, photographs what he finds and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.