Repointing walls in Ridge

The bottom courses. This is the part of the job that is different at Ridge. The water table sits close to the surface and a solid wall draws moisture up out of it, so the joints at the base stay wet, go friable and wash out.

The mortar that goes back has to be the most permeable thing on the wall, so the moisture and the dissolved salts leave through the joint rather than through the brick. Expect to renew that band of pointing from time to time. It is doing its job when it goes.

Older solid walls. The older houses and outbuildings at Ridge are solid wall rather than cavity, so a wall sheds water only through the joint and has to stay breathable. Those get an NHL lime or lime putty mortar gauged to the original sand for colour and texture, finished flush or slightly recessed on a period elevation rather than weather struck. Joints come out to about twice their width by hand, with the angle grinder left in the van, damped down before filling and brushed back once the mix has taken up.

The face that looks at the water. Little stands between the Ridge buildings and the open channel, so the south west elevation takes driven rain with force behind it and runs years ahead of the sheltered sides. That is why we price by elevation. Doing the exposed face and leaving the rest is often the honest answer.

Spalled and fretted faces. Salt carried in off the water sits in the outer few millimetres of brick and mortar, holds damp between showers, then breaks the material apart as it crystallises. Where a face has gone we cut the brick out whole and turn it, or replace it against a sample off the wall. Filling the hollow with mortar leaves a patch that never matches. A trial panel goes up somewhere discreet first, judged in daylight for how it will look weathered.

Stacks and outbuildings. A chimney at Ridge takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it, so its joints go loose and crumbling long before the walls below. We repoint the stack, renew the flaunching around the pots and make good the junctions. A low stack sometimes comes off a tower, but anything higher is a scaffold and a line of its own. The outbuildings here are worth doing while that access is standing.

What we will not do is point a wall that is wet from below and call it fixed. If a path or border has been built up against the brickwork, or a gully has stopped taking water, that gets dealt with or the new joints go the way of the old ones.

Repointing an exposed wall in Ridge has no honest rate per square metre, because the square metres tell you little until the joints are opened.

Which face. The elevations facing south west here take the driven rain, and that is usually where the joints have washed out deepest. A sheltered face may only need patches. Each elevation is priced on its own.

Depth. Raking out by hand to a proper depth is slow and it is the only safe method on soft brick. How deep the joints go, and how many faces have spalled, sets the hours more than the area does.

The mix. Older brick wants a lime mortar that is softer than the brick, so any movement or water goes through the joint and not the face. Cement pointing on soft brick traps water and the faces blow off in the first hard frost. Lime is slower to work and to cure, which shows in the time.

Access. A low boundary wall needs no platform. A gable or a stack does, and the work at height rules make that its own line.

When you compare, ask how deep the joints will be raked and whether by hand, what mix is going in, how many damaged bricks are allowed for and whether the scaffold is in.

Ridge sits low, with the harbour on one side and river ground on the other, and the water table is never far down. Higher up a wall the weather decides how long a joint lasts. At the base it is the ground, and the two want different answers. That is the most useful thing to understand about brickwork here, and the thing most quotes ignore.

Moisture drawn up into a wall has to leave somewhere, and it carries dissolved salts with it. Put a soft, open, lime based mortar in the bottom courses and it leaves through the joint: the mortar takes the wear, the salts crystallise in it, and in time you renew a band of pointing. Put a hard cement mix there instead, which is what usually happens because a plinth is expected to look tough, and you have sealed the only exit. The water and salt leave through the brick face instead, and the face comes off with them. That is why the worst spalling on a wall like this sits immediately above a smart looking cement plinth.

So ask a simple question of any quote: is the mix at the bottom of the wall different from the mix higher up, and if not, why not. Ask what is being done about the ground outside as well.

Our base at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe is 11.9 miles from Ridge. We repoint across Ridge, Stoborough, Wareham, Arne, Sandford and the other BH20 addresses around the harbour, where Dorset Council is the authority. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and it is Thomas Hannen's business. Before you book a visit in Ridge, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas scrapes the joints and prices each elevation himself. A verified customer has left us a 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. You are not charged for the visit, or for the written quote that sets out every item.

Most repairs in Ridge 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.