Norton repointing, matched to the wall it goes into

Matching before raking. The first thing off the wall is a sample of sound original mortar from a sheltered spot where the weather has not changed it. That sample decides the sand, the binder, the gauge, the colour and the texture, and it is settled before the platform goes up, because on this side of the water nothing gets fetched back mid week. We make up a trial panel on a discreet part of the wall for you to look at in daylight. The profile is settled with it: a fine flush or slightly recessed joint on the older walls, weather struck or bucket handle on anything postwar.

Solid walls in lime. Around a quarter of the housing here predates 1919 and has no cavity behind the brick. Those walls dry out through the joint, so the mortar has to stay softer and more open than the masonry. Joints are raked by hand to roughly twice their width, with the angle grinder left in the van because a disc cutter takes the arris off. They are damped down and brushed out before filling, then go back in an NHL lime or lime putty gauged to the sample, which keeps the wall breathable, with BS EN 459 the standard the binder is bought to.

Postwar cavity brickwork. Getting on for half the stock here went up between 1945 and 1982, a single outer skin of hard fired brick in cement and sand, and the Victorian and Edwardian walls at the older end of the village behave nothing like it. That joint does not wash out; it pits and erodes back at the arris, and once water stands in the hollow a frost lifts the surface off in flakes. A good deal of mortar from that period had lime in it as well as cement, so matching the gauge matters as much as matching the colour.

Bungalow walls. A third of the dwellings here are single storey, which puts a long run of wall at eye level and most of it inside the reach of a tower. That takes the biggest line out of a quote, and it means every metre of the finished joint gets looked at closely, so the colour match and the profile have to be right rather than nearly right.

Spalled faces and exposed boundary walls. Where a face has blown we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it rather than filling the hollow, which never matches and never lasts. Freestanding walls near the water take weather on both faces and have nothing over them, so they fail from the top down: a lifted coping or an open bed joint lets the wall fill from above.

What we will not do is point a wall whose real problem is somewhere else, whether that is movement, a gutter running over or ground built up above the damp proof course. Pointing in front of any of those buys a season and no more.

No rate per square metre. The area tells you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.

Getting to it. A bungalow elevation off a tower, a two storey gable facing the water and a boundary wall are three different set ups before a joint is opened. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold; a boundary wall wants nothing. The work at height rules are why access is a priced line rather than a rate.

The joints decide it, not the wall. How deep they come back, and whether the faces have spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does.

Matching is the part that shows. Lime is slower to work and slower to cure, and right on most pre-1919 walls here.

Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked and by hand or by disc, what the mix is and whether it was matched, how many spalled bricks are being replaced, and whether the scaffold is in the price.

We cover Norton, Yarmouth, Freshwater, Totland and the western end of the Island, broadly PO40 and PO41, under the Isle of Wight Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen's business, and he prices every job himself rather than sending a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are free.