Repointing in Moordown
Chimneys, gable ends and whole elevations on the inter-war brickwork of Moordown, raked out and repointed in a mortar that suits the brick.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Repointing in Moordown is mostly on houses built in the 1920s and 30s: raking out mortar joints that have washed out or been badly patched in hard cement, and repointing in a mix that suits the brick, matched in colour and finish to the joints that are still good.
In Moordown the trouble shows at the chimney, the weather side, or an old cement patch. The chimney, where the joints near the top have gone and you can see gaps from the garden. The gable end or side wall that takes the weather, where a key will scrape the mortar out like sand. Or a patch of pointing somebody did years ago in grey cement that now stands out, with the brick faces around it crumbling.
We come out to Moordown, scratch a few joints, look at the brick faces and the chimney, and tell you honestly whether the whole wall needs doing or just the worst of it. You get a written itemised quote, and the visit is free.
The work
Raking out and repointing inter-war brickwork
What the walls are laid in. Houses of this age were usually laid in a soft lime or lime and cement mortar, weaker than the brick so that the joints, not the brick, take the movement and the wet. Where it has simply weathered back, the job is to rake it out and repoint in a similar mix, often a natural hydraulic lime such as NHL 3.5, with a sand chosen to match the colour of what is there.
Undoing hard cement. The bigger problem on many older Moordown walls is a previous repoint in strong cement mortar. It looks fine for a while, then the brick around it starts to spall, because water and frost come out through the softer face instead of the joint. We rake the cement out carefully, by hand where the arris of the brick is soft, and repoint in a more breathable mix. Spalled bricks are cut out and replaced with matched ones.
How it is done. Joints are raked to a proper depth, about twice their height, with dust brushed out. The wall is damped down so it does not suck the water out of the new mortar, and the joints are filled in layers and finished to the profile the house already has: flush, bucket handle, or weather struck on some houses. A disc cutter or angle grinder is only used on hard cement joints, and never on the soft arrises.
Chimneys and gables. On a Moordown house a chimney is where pointing fails first, and usually the reason water gets past the flashing. It is a scaffold job, and worth doing with any roof work. A gable end that faces the prevailing weather is often the one elevation that needs doing while the rest can wait.
Matching. We make up a small trial panel of mortar on a hidden part of the wall, let it dry and check the colour and texture against the weathered joints before we start the main elevation. New joints look brighter for the first few months and weather down.
When we would talk you out of it. If most of the pointing is sound and only a patch has washed out, we do that patch. For cracked brickwork, a leaning wall or a new pier, see bricklaying in Moordown.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
One person to ring from the first visit to the last. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, any brick replacement and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable 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. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Moordown sits outside every one of BCP's conservation areas, so repointing a house needs no permission. The exception is a listed building: Old St John's Buildings on Wimborne Road, G.E. Street's Victorian school chapel in grey-buff brick, is listed Grade II, and repointing a listed wall in a different mortar or joint can need listed building consent.
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 what the joints are actually like.
Getting to it. A single garden wall reached from the path, a hipped two storey house with a shared stack, and a shop and flat on the Wimborne Road pavement are three very different jobs to reach. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold, a boundary wall wants nothing at all. How long the platform stands matters as much as how big it is, and the work at height rules are why it 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, because a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off either side. 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 slower to cure, and it is the right answer on most pre-1919 walls in Moordown.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are being raked and whether by hand or by disc, what the mortar mix is and whether it has been matched to what is there, how many spalled bricks are being cut out and replaced, and whether the scaffold is in the price. Raking depth and the mix often explain a gap between prices.
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 will find the flashings as well.
We come and look, sheet or temporarily point the worst of it if the weather is against us, and price the full elevation once it has dried out enough to see what is sound. If the damp is showing inside a bedroom under the stack, say so, because on these houses the chimney is usually the first suspect. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Pointing above the Wimborne Road shops needs the pavement
Wimborne Road is Moordown's shopping street, and many of its buildings put a shop at street level and a flat or two above, fronting straight onto the pavement. When the pointing on the upper floors or the chimney has gone, you cannot reach it from a ladder.
It needs a scaffold on the pavement, and scaffolding on or over a highway needs a licence in writing from BCP Council, usually with a fee and some notice before it can go up.
That changes how you plan it. Allow for the licence in the timetable rather than expecting a start next week, and do everything that needs that scaffold at the same time: the front pointing, the chimney, the flashings, the gutter and any painting above the shop sign. If the building is split into a leasehold flat above a shop, the front wall is usually the freeholder's, so the instruction comes from them or their agent. We apply for the licence and put it on the quote as its own line.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Moordown and all of BH9, from Wimborne Road down into Winton and out to Kinson, with BCP Council as the planning and building control authority. Our base in Boscombe is just over two miles away.
You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. 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. Before you book a visit in Moordown, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Moordown?
Most repairs in Moordown 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 Moordown |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Moordown. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Moordown, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Moordown. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Moordown. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Moordown
Does the whole house need repointing?
Not always. Often it is the chimney and the wall that faces the weather, while the sheltered sides are fine. We scratch the joints on every elevation and quote only for what needs it.
Lime or cement: which mortar will you use?
On brickwork of this age, usually a lime mortar or a lime-rich mix, softer than the brick. Hard cement traps water in the brick and makes the faces crumble.
How long does it take to repoint a house?
A single elevation is often a few days. A whole detached house with a chimney can be a couple of weeks, depending on how deep the joints come out. The quote gives the timetable.
Can you repoint in winter?
Lime mortar must not freeze while it sets, so we avoid frosty spells and protect fresh work with hessian when it is cold. Spring to autumn is best.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Moordown
Nearby places we also cover for repointing, with straight-line distances from Moordown, and the other trades we offer in Moordown itself.
Repointing nearby
Our other trades in Moordown
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 Moordown Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Get your pointing looked at properly
Thomas comes out, checks the joints and the brick on every side, and sends a written itemised quote. The visit and the quote are both free.