Repointing at Post Green and Lytchett Minster
Inside the conservation area the joint profile and the colour of the mortar are part of what is protected, so both are worth settling before anyone starts.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Repointing is due when joints have weathered back behind the brick, powder under a key, or let damp through after a wet south westerly. Like for like it is maintenance and needs no application: the job is raking out and matching the mortar, a cement gauge on most of the post-war houses. Changing how the joint looks is different, because older frontage around Post Green sits inside the Lytchett Minster Conservation Area. Cracked bricks need rebuilding as a separate item.
On Post Green walls the first wear tends to show on the frontage and around the sills. A frontage where the joints have weathered back far enough to see from the road. Brick faces flaking below a sill while the pointing next to them looks untouched. Or a hard band of mortar applied over the face of the brick years ago, which has begun to lift and take the brick with it.
All three are mortar work, not bricklaying, and all three are repairs to what is already standing. We look at every elevation of a Post Green house rather than the one you have spotted, scrape and tap a few joints to find how deep the decay goes, and photograph the existing pointing before anything is disturbed. On an older frontage that photograph is worth having for reasons beyond the quote.
You get it back in writing, itemised, split elevation by elevation, with anything we would leave marked as such. The visit and the quote are free, and Post Green is nine and a half miles from us.
The work
Pointing that has to look right as well as work
The older frontage is pointed in lime. The brick along the Dorchester Road frontage and around the older part of Lytchett Minster is solid wall with no cavity behind it, and it sheds water by letting it evaporate back out through the joint.
That only works while the mortar stays softer and more permeable than the brick, so it comes out by hand to about twice the joint width and goes back as an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to the original sand. A disc cutter would widen the joint and take the arris off a soft brick either side.
Getting the profile right, because here it counts. Flush, slightly recessed, weather struck and bucket handle all shed water perfectly well, but they do not look the same from the road, and a Post Green period frontage usually wants flush or a shade recessed. The one most worth undoing is strap pointing: a raised band of hard mortar applied over the face of the brick, which traps water behind itself and reads as a mistake from thirty yards. Taking it off without damaging the brick is slow work and priced as such.
Matching the colour, which is the sand. Mortar colour comes overwhelmingly from the sand rather than from anything added to it, so matching means finding the right sand rather than tinting a grey mix. We take a sample of sound original from somewhere sheltered and put a trial panel up on a discreet part of the wall for you to see in daylight. Fresh mortar reads lighter than aged, so the panel is judged on how it will weather.
The post-war majority. Most homes around Post Green were built between 1945 and 1982, and that is cavity work: a single skin of hard fired brick in a cement and sand mortar. It fails differently from lime. The joint pits and opens at the arris instead of washing out, water sits in the recess, and a hard frost lifts the fired face off the brick. Those want a gauged mix of similar strength going back in, and the blown faces cut out and replaced against a sample.
Stacks, boundary walls and copings. A Post Green chimney has weather on four sides and nothing warming it from inside, so its joints go friable and open years ahead of the walls below, and the penetrating damp that follows appears on a ceiling. Free standing boundary walls along the road have weather on both faces and a coping that has often lost its bedding, which lets water straight into the top of the wall to freeze.
How it runs
Repointing a Post Green wall, rake to finish
Before pricing, Thomas rakes out a hand-sized patch to see how far the joints have eroded and what they were pointed in. He writes the price himself, and you deal with one company throughout. On the written quote you will find access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal as separate lines.
Bungalows from the seventies in Post Green were pointed in cement, usually with a weatherstruck or recessed joint, and most elevations can be worked from trestles or a low tower. The handful of older buildings towards Lytchett Minster were built in lime, and lime goes back into them. A small trial panel is left to dry so you can approve the colour. Glass and doors are covered, and the raking dust is cleared daily. Should more bricks prove spalled than allowed for, we photograph them and agree a figure before any are cut out.
Like for like repointing is repair and needs neither planning nor building control. The Lytchett Minster conservation area reaches into the older part of Post Green; if your house may be in it, ask Dorset Council, because there a new mortar colour or a different joint finish needs their agreement, and the Planning Portal guidance on external walls gives the general rule. For a listed building, the mortar counts as protected fabric under listed building consent.
Cost
What decides the price of repointing
Depth and method come first. Joints have to be raked back until the mortar is sound. Raking by hand is slow; a disc is quicker but, used carelessly, widens the joints and chips the arris. How deep they have gone matters more than the area.
The mix. A seventies Post Green bungalow usually wants a cement-lime mortar that matches what is there. An older building wants lime, because a hard cement mortar holds water against a soft brick and the face breaks off in a frost. Getting the colour right takes trial panels and time for them to dry.
Access. A bungalow elevation off trestles or a tower, a two storey gable with a chimney, and a free standing garden wall differ more in access than in the work itself. The work at height rules make the platform a priced line.
Chimneys. A bungalow stack is small but needs a platform round it, and its pointing takes the worst of the weather.
Movement. On this clay, a stepped crack through the joints may be the ground moving. Repointing it without finding out why means it opens again.
Ask any other firm how deep they rake and whether by hand or disc, what mix they use and how it was matched, and how many spalled bricks they are replacing.
If water is getting in
Rain getting in through open joints
Ring instead of using the form. When joints have washed out, driven rain goes straight through to the inside face, and on a chimney it gets to the flashing too. If water is showing indoors after a wet south westerly, it is usually the exposed wall rather than the whole house, so tell us which room.
The first visit finds the worst joints and seals them or sheets the wall if the weather is bad, and we price the elevation once it has dried. Repointing runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For damp coming through now, phone us; if the phone is not answered we get back to you as soon as we are able.
Worth knowing
What the conservation area actually controls
A good deal of the older property around Post Green sits inside the Lytchett Minster Conservation Area, designated in 1998, and it is worth understanding what that does. It does not stop you repointing and it does not make the job harder.
What it does is turn appearance into a planning matter, so a genuine like for like repair is maintenance, while changing the mortar colour, the joint profile or the material is not your decision alone. There are also eighteen listed entries in and around the village, Post Green House among them, and on anything listed the mortar counts as protected fabric in its own right.
In practice that means three small things done before a joint is opened. Photograph the existing pointing, close up. Keep a sample of the sound original mortar; do not skip it out with the rest. And if anything at all is changing, speak to Dorset Council's conservation officer before committing. The designated boundary is tighter than most people assume, so the first thing to establish is whether your address is inside it.
Who you are dealing with
The firm that repoints your walls
Our base is in Boscombe, and Post Green is about nine and a half miles west of it. Post Green, Lytchett Minster, Upton and Lytchett Matravers are BH16 and Dorset Council, as is Wareham. Hamworthy and Poole, in BH15, are BCP Council.
The company behind the work is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which is Thomas Hannen's business; he rakes the test area and writes the price himself. A verified Checkatrade customer scored us 10 out of 10. The visit and the itemised written quote are free of charge. Before you book a visit in Post Green, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Post Green?
Most repairs in Post Green 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 Post Green |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Post Green. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Lytchett Minster Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Post Green. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Post Green. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Post Green
Does repointing need permission inside the Lytchett Minster Conservation Area?
Not for a genuine like for like repair. Repointing in the same material, colour and joint profile is maintenance and no application is needed. What the designation controls is appearance, so changing any of those three is a conversation to have with Dorset Council's conservation officer before the work rather than after it. If the building is also listed, consent is required.
Our pointing sits proud of the brick face. Is that a problem?
It usually is. That is strap or ribbon pointing, a raised band of hard mortar laid over the face of the brick instead of into the joint. It holds water behind itself, it stops a solid wall breathing, and on a period frontage it reads as wrong from the road. Taking it off is slow work because the aim is to remove the mortar without pulling the arris off the brick underneath.
How do you match a mortar colour without guessing?
By matching the sand: almost all of the colour in a mortar comes from the aggregate, not from anything added, so we take a sample of sound original from a sheltered spot and make up a trial panel on a discreet part of the wall. You look at that in daylight before we commit. Because fresh mortar reads lighter than aged, the panel is judged on how it will weather.
What happens if the property turns out to be listed?
Nothing stops, but the order changes. We photograph and sample the existing joint before anything is opened, agree the mix and the profile with you in writing, and that material is what supports the consent application. It is not difficult for a straightforward mortar repair, but it takes time, so it is better found out at the survey than halfway through.
Will new pointing look obviously new for long?
For a season or two, yes, and that is normal. A fresh joint carries the pale dust of the sand on its surface and only settles into the colour of the wall once weather has worked on it. It is why we would rather do a whole elevation to a natural break than leave new joints sitting in the middle of old ones.
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Repointing near Post Green
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Get the joint agreed before the first one comes out
Thomas comes out, photographs the existing pointing, samples the mortar and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.