Repointing across the Redlynch parish
Joints raked out by hand, a mix matched to the wall it is going into, and blown brick faces cut out, across Redlynch, Woodfalls and Morgan's Vale.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Your joints are due when they have weathered back behind the brick or flint, crumble under a key, or damp shows inside after rain. Most properties in Redlynch need two mortars, not one: the old brick and flint part wants a lime mix it can dry out through, the post-war part a gauged cement, and the job is raking out and pointing each in its own. A wall that has cracked or bulged needs rebuilding first.
Brickwork in Redlynch, Woodfalls and Morgan's Vale needs looking at once the weather side, the faces or the chimney start to go. Joints on the weather side raked back by wind and rain until a key goes in past the knuckle. Brick faces flaking under a sill or along a plinth, usually where somebody smeared hard grey mortar over soft old brick a generation ago. And a chimney dropping sand into the gutter when the wind gets up.
None of that is a wall failing. All of it is mortar, and mortar is the part of a wall meant to be renewed. We work out first what your wall is built of, because in Redlynch the answer changes from one gate to the next. We survey every elevation rather than the one you spotted, scrape a few joints to find how deep the soft material goes, photograph it, and send back a written itemised quote with each elevation on its own line. The site visit and the quote are free.
The work
What the mortar is doing on walls around here
Solid brick and flint, pointed in lime. A good share of the housing in this parish predates 1919: solid walls one brick thick with no cavity, often with flint coursed in below the first floor.
A wall like that sheds water by letting it evaporate back out through the joint, which only works while the mortar stays softer and more open than the brick. We rake those out by hand with a hacking iron and a plugging chisel, back to about twice the joint width and no further, damp the joint down, and point back in a natural hydraulic lime with a sand matched to the original for colour and grain. Lime is graded under BS EN 459, and on soft handmade brick the softer grades are usually right. The finish goes back flush or very slightly recessed.
Taking a hard repoint back out. Plenty of walls in Redlynch were pointed in sand and cement in the seventies and eighties. It still looks sound, and that is the problem: the joint has become the one part of the wall water cannot leave through, so it leaves through the brick face instead and one frost after another lifts the surface off. If your joints look better than your bricks, this is what you have. The repair is slow, because the cement has to come out without taking the arris with it.
Post-war outer skins in a gauged cement mix. Much of Redlynch went up between 1945 and the early eighties: cavity work, a single skin of fired brick struck weather or bucket handle. The joint does not wash out so much as pit and open at the arris, water stands in it, and a hard frost takes the surface off in flakes. Matching that means matching the gauge as well as the sand.
The seam where the two meet. Many houses in Redlynch are a period core with something added: a rebuilt gable, a sixties extension, a garage tied on the end. That junction is where the pointing fails first, and we point either side of it in what belongs there.
Blown faces, cut out rather than filled. Where a face has gone we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall, with a trial panel you look at in daylight. Filling the hollow with mortar leaves a patch that never matches and drops out in a couple of winters.
Stacks and the top courses. A stack takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it from inside, so its joints go friable long before anything at ground level. Repointing above the flashing, cutting out perished brick and renewing the flaunching round the pots is usually the whole job.
How it runs
How a repoint runs on a cottage or a post-war house
First Thomas visits, taps the joints and scrapes one or two back to see how deep the decay goes and whether the old mortar is lime or cement. Then you get it in writing, itemised: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, any brick to cut out and replace, and disposal. The whole wall is raked out and pointed as one job, so the finish matches from one end to the other.
Raking out is dusty, so we sheet windows, doors and plants before a joint is touched. A single storey wall is done from a tower or low staging, a two storey gable from scaffold, and on a sloping plot that scaffold is levelled up on the low side. Fresh lime needs shading from sun and wind and protecting from frost for some days, so we hang hessian where it is needed. Rubble and dust go away with us each day. If a cracked brick or a hollow patch shows once the joints are open, we show you, with a photo and a written figure, and only replace it once you say so.
Repointing like for like is repair, so you need neither a planning application nor building control sign-off. No conservation area covers Redlynch. On the parish's listed entries the mortar is protected fabric, and listed building consent from Wiltshire Council has to be in place first. Where a repair would change how a wall looks, Planning Portal guidance on external walls shows the line.
Cost
Joint depth, the mix and the scaffold
A square metre rate tells you nothing until someone has looked at the joints. How you get to the wall. A brick and flint cottage fronting the lane, a post-war detached house behind its drive and a bungalow gable on the boundary all need different access. Scaffold on a two storey elevation is costed separately, because the work at height rules govern how it is put up and used.
How deep the joints go. Mortar that has only weathered at the face rakes back quickly. Joints washed out deep, or brick faces that have spalled, take far longer, and spalled bricks have to be cut out and replaced.
Lime or cement. Most houses in Redlynch built before the First World War went up in lime, and they want lime back. A mix that is too strong is the classic mistake: the mortar outlasts the brick, water leaves through the brick instead, and a hard frost takes the face off. Lime also needs more aftercare, which adds time.
Flint. Flint panels are pointed slowly, joint by joint round each stone, and any loose flint is reset first.
When you compare quotes, ask how far back the joints will be raked and with what tool, what the mortar is and how it was matched to the old, and whether the scaffold is included.
If water is getting in
Wet patches inside from washed-out joints
If driven rain is getting through open joints and showing on an inside wall, ring rather than filling in the form. It is usually the gable or chimney that takes the weather, and on a stack the same open joints let water reach the flashings.
The first visit checks where the water is getting in, sheets or temporarily points the worst of it, and leaves the wall to dry before the elevation is priced, because fresh mortar on a soaking wall fails. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we miss your call, we return it as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
One house, two mortars, and the seam between them
What catches people out here is that a single property often needs two specifications. The housing runs from the pre-1919 cottages through Redlynch, Woodfalls and Morgan's Vale to the post-war detached houses and bungalows, and many buildings sit on both sides of that line. One mortar cannot serve both. Lime in a modern cavity skin is too weak for that exposure, and a cement mix in a solid wall stops it drying and starts taking the brick faces off.
What that changes is what you ask for. Do not accept a quote naming one mix for the whole house. Ask for the mortar elevation by elevation, with the old fabric and the newer work priced separately, and ask what goes into the joint where the two meet, because that seam moves with the seasons and is where the pointing lets go first. We break it out that way as a matter of course, and where a wall is borderline we make up a sample panel on the quiet side and let you look at it first.
Who you are dealing with
Who repoints your walls, and how to check us
We work from a base on Wolverton Road in Boscombe, 18.2 miles from Redlynch, and cover the village, Woodfalls, Morgan's Vale and Lover, over towards Hale and Downton. All of it falls under Wiltshire Council.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and anyone can look it up. It is Thomas Hannen's firm, and Thomas comes out to see the wall and price the repointing in person. A customer verified by Checkatrade gave us 10 out of 10. You pay nothing for the visit or for the itemised written quote. Before you book a visit in Redlynch, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Redlynch?
Most repairs in Redlynch 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 Redlynch |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Wiltshire Council is the planning authority for Redlynch. |
| Conservation area | None covers Redlynch, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Redlynch. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Redlynch. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Redlynch
Why would one house need more than one mortar mix?
Because a lot of properties in Redlynch are an old solid wall with newer work attached. The old part has to breathe through its joints, so it takes a lime mortar; the newer cavity skin does not, and takes a gauged cement mix. One mix throughout gives you either a joint too weak for the modern wall or one too hard for the old one.
How can we work out which part of our house is which?
The simplest sign is the brickwork pattern. A solid wall usually shows headers, the short ends of bricks, at regular intervals, because it is bonded through its thickness. A cavity skin is nearly all stretchers. Wall thickness at a window reveal tells you as well, and we check properly on the visit.
Can flintwork be repointed at the same time as the brick?
Yes, and it usually is, but it is a different rate of work. Flint is bedded rather than laid to a course, so the joints are irregular and you cannot rake them to a set depth without loosening the stones. We work those by hand and use a coarser sand so the wider joints do not shrink back as they cure.
Can both halves of the building be pointed in the same week?
Lime does not want frost on it before it has taken up, so on the older walls we work from spring through to early autumn and protect the finished joints with sheeting and hessian. Cement pointing on the post-war houses has a longer season. Ring in November and we will say which half can be done now.
Will you tell us if a wall does not need doing yet?
Yes, and we put it in writing. Plenty of elevations in Redlynch look tired from the pavement and are still sound when you get a key into them. The quote marks the faces genuinely due and the ones we would leave for another few winters.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Redlynch
Nearby places we also cover for repointing, with straight-line distances from Redlynch, and the other trades we offer in Redlynch itself.
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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 Ringwood Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Find out which mortar your wall actually wants
Thomas comes out, scrapes a few joints, photographs each elevation and puts the mix and the price in writing. Free.