Repointing in New Milton

Eighties and after. A third of New Milton was built from 1983 onwards, the eighties busiest of all. That brickwork is hard: dense fired bricks in a strong cement and sand mortar struck to a bucket handle as the gang went up the scaffold.

It debonds rather than eroding, so a hairline opens where mortar meets brick, the perpends go first, and rain gets into the cavity through joints that still look full. On the weather side those joints pit and a frost takes the arris off.

Post-war housing. Nearly half of New Milton dates from the thirty odd years after the war, when the mortar was often gauged with lime as well as cement. It fails more gently: the joint wears back at the arris and the face goes in flakes. Matching means matching the sand and the gauge, not only the colour.

Getting the profile right. Bucket handle is the rounded one, weather struck is angled back at the top so water runs off, flush sits level with the brick face and recessed behind it. We identify the profile first, strike the repair to match, and put up a trial panel for you to judge in daylight on how it will look weathered.

Terraces, flats and communal walls. A quarter of the homes in New Milton are terraced and another quarter flats, so much of the brickwork is shared: gables belonging to two households, parapets running over more than one property. We price that for a management company as readily as for a single owner. Leaseholders should note that major works are usually consulted on under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

Faces that have already blown. We cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall, rather than filling the hollow with mortar that never matches. Spalling gathers under sills, beside downpipes and just above a path laid up against the house.

The older end of the town, and the stacks. A small share of New Milton predates the war and some of that is solid wall, which loses water only through the joint and so has to stay breathable. Those walls get an NHL lime or lime putty mix matched to the original sand, finished flush or slightly recessed. Whatever the age, the method is the same: joints out to twice their width, by hand, the angle grinder left in the van on anything soft, damped down before filling and brushed back once the mix has taken up. Stacks go loose and friable first because nothing warms them, and repointing one with the flaunching round the pots is priced as its own line.

Depth and method come first. Joints have to be raked back to sound mortar. Hand raking is slow; a disc is quicker, but on soft brick it widens the joint and takes the arris off if it is not controlled. How deep and how carefully sets most of the hours.

The mix. On New Milton's post-war and eighties brick a cement-lime mortar usually matches. On older walls lime is the right answer, because hard cement holds water against a soft brick and the face blows off in a frost. Matching the colour takes trial panels and a few days to dry.

The weather side. The south west elevation takes the driven rain and salt off the sea, so it is usually the most eroded, and often the only one that needs doing now.

Access. A shared gable on a New Milton terrace, an eighties detached with a chimney on the ridge, and a long communal wall on a block of flats are all set up differently. A chimney or gable wants a scaffold, a low wall may need nothing, and the work at height rules make the platform a priced line.

When comparing quotes, ask how deep the joints are raked and by hand or disc, what the mix is and whether it was matched, and how many spalled bricks are being replaced.

Estate brickwork from the eighties has a uniformity older walls never had. The original bricklayers laid an elevation over a few days, struck every joint with the same tool at the same angle, and used mortar out of the same mixer. The joints are effectively identical, and the eye is very good at spotting the one that is not.

That changes what a good repair looks like. On a Victorian wall you can get away with a colour slightly out, because the original was never consistent. Here you cannot, and colour is not what betrays it. Profile is. A flush patch in a bucket handle wall reads as a pale stripe in low sun because it throws no shadow, and it will still be doing that in ten years. Failures on this brickwork are local, not general, so you are almost always patching, which makes matching the shape the whole game.

So get the profile named in the quote, so it says bucket handle or weather struck to match rather than just repointed. And look at the trial panel from where people actually see the wall, in raking light, not at midday.

New Milton is eight miles from Boscombe, where our base is. We repoint across the town and BH25, Barton on Sea, Bashley, Ashley, Hordle and over to Milford on Sea, and the authority is New Forest District Council.

The company you are dealing with is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and Thomas Hannen, who owns it, rakes the test patch and writes the price himself. A verified Checkatrade customer scored us 10 out of 10. There is no charge for the visit or for the written quote, which lists every item. Before you book a visit in New Milton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in New Milton 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.