Repointing and lime mortar in Ringwood

Pre-1900 solid wall, in lime. The older streets around the centre 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 commonest thing we cut out 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 the town 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 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 here, 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.

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

Getting to it. A three storey building on the market square with a shared stack, a terrace behind the high street with one gable taking all the weather, and a low front wall onto the pavement are three different set ups before a single joint is raked. The work at height rules are why access is its own priced line.

The joints decide it, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow, and on soft brick the only safe way: a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off. Depth, and whether faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than area does.

Matching is the part that shows. Lime is slower to work and slower to cure, and on most walls in this town it is the right answer.

Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked and by what, what the mix is, how many spalled bricks come out, and whether the scaffold is in the price. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.

We cover Ringwood, Poulner, Ashley Heath, Hangersley and out towards Fordingbridge, Verwood and St Leonards, broadly BH24, with planning under New Forest District Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written itemised quote are free.