Repointing and lime mortar in Ringwood

Pre-1900 solid wall is laid in lime. The older streets around the centre of Ringwood are handmade brick laid in lime, often a soft red stock you can mark with a thumbnail. That works only while the mortar stays softer and more permeable than the brick either side of it.

We rake those joints out by hand to roughly twice the joint width, perpends included, and point back in an NHL lime or a lime putty mix gauged to the original for sand, colour and texture. The finish goes back to the profile the wall carries, usually flush or slightly recessed on a period frontage.

The cement pointing somebody put on in the seventies. The joint to cut out first in Ringwood. A soft Victorian wall gets repointed in hard sand and cement because hard sounds like it lasts; the dense joint then stops the wall breathing, moisture leaves through the brick face, and the first hard frost lifts that face off in flakes. The tell is a wall where the joints look sound and the bricks do not. Taking that mortar out without damaging the arris either side is slow, careful work.

Post-war and later outer skins. Around six in ten homes in Ringwood went up between 1945 and 2008: cavity work, one skin of fired brick in cement and sand, struck weather or bucket handle. Those joints pit and open at the arris rather than washing out, water stands in them, and frost takes the surface off. Match the sand and the gauge as well as the colour, because plenty of the earlier mixes had lime in them.

Spalled faces, cut out rather than filled. Where a face has blown on a Ringwood wall we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall. Mortar in the hollow leaves a patch that never matches and drops out in a couple of winters. Sourcing a replacement means a trial panel you look at in daylight first.

Stacks, parapets and the joints above your head. Flats and converted houses are a big share of the housing in Ringwood, and a converted house still carries the tall shared stack it was built with. Weather on four sides, a cold flue up the middle, nothing warming it: the joints go friable long before anything at ground level does, and the damp that follows lands on a top floor ceiling. Repointing a stack, renewing the flaunching and making good the parapet joints all want a proper platform. One thing we will not do is point over movement: regular horizontal cracking every fifth or sixth course is corroding wall ties, not tired mortar.

The area of the wall says little until someone has looked at the joints, so there is no rate per square metre.

Reaching it. A three storey building on the Market Place with a shared stack, a terrace gable taking the weather, and a low front wall on the pavement are all different. A chimney or upper gable needs a scaffold; a garden wall needs none. The work at height rules put access on its own line.

The joints. How deep they have to come out, and how hard the old mortar is, set the hours. Soft lime rakes out easily. Old cement pointing on a soft brick has to be cut out slowly, joint by joint, so the edges survive.

The mix. Lime is slower to work and to cure, and it is right on most walls built before the war. Matching the colour of existing pointing on a listed or conservation area front may need a sample panel first.

Brick faces. Every spalled brick cut out and replaced adds time, and matching a handmade brick can mean reclaimed stock.

Ask anyone else quoting how deep they rake the joints and whether by hand or disc, what mortar they will use, and how many spalled bricks are included.

Ringwood is 8 miles from us in Boscombe. We repoint across the town, Poulner and Hightown, and out to Ashley Heath, Hangersley, St Leonards and Fordingbridge. The planning authority is New Forest District Council.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and the owner is Thomas Hannen. He comes to look at the joints and prices the work himself. A customer verified by Checkatrade rated us 10 out of 10. Coming out costs nothing, and the itemised quote in writing is free too. Before you book a visit in Ringwood, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Ringwood 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.