Repointing flint and brick walls in Rockbourne

Flint walls, pointed to the flint. A good deal of the walling here is flint through the body with brick at the quoins and in lacing courses, and on that fabric close to half of what you see is mortar. When the joints wash back the flints loosen from the head of the wall down, so the top courses and coping come first. We rake out by hand with a chisel and a hacksaw blade, back to sound material rather than to a set depth, and point back in a fat lime brought up around each flint, galleted where the wall was built that way.

Getting cement back off soft brick. The brick in the village is handmade and soft and was laid in lime, so the wall gives water back through the joint. Point it in sand and cement and the water leaves through the brick face instead, and after a few frosts you have hard joints standing proud of a wall losing its skin. Taking that out without knocking the arris off what is left is slow hand work. Back in goes an NHL lime or lime putty gauged against the sample, finished flush or a shade behind the face rather than weather struck.

The plinth under a cob or chalk wall. Several buildings in the parish have an earth or chalk wall standing on a brick or flint plinth, which keeps the soft material above clear of splash off the ground. Once its joints go, water gets in behind and works upwards, and the damage shows in the wall above rather than the plinth. The mix has to stay open enough for the foot of the wall to dry.

Faces that have already blown. Where a brick has lost its face we cut the unit out whole and turn it, or replace it against a sample held on the wall, rather than filling the hollow: a mortar patch never matches and drops out in a couple of winters. Faces go first in the bottom few courses, in door reveals and where a downpipe has been running down the brickwork.

Stacks, and what sits under them. A stack is the most exposed masonry on any building here, weathered on four sides with nothing warming it from inside, so its joints run years ahead of the walls. Repointing above the roof line, cutting out perished brick and renewing the flaunching round the pots is regular work in the village. Where the roof beneath is thatch: no disc cutter, no angle grinder, nothing with a flame, and the coat sheeted before a boot goes near it.

One thing we will not do is point over movement. Cracking that runs through the bricks as well as the joints is a wall shifting, not mortar wearing out, and filling it hides that for a season.

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

Getting to it. A thatched cottage tight to the street, a flint lane wall and a stack standing clear of a roof are three different set ups before a joint is opened. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold; a boundary wall wants nothing. The work at height rules are why access is a priced line rather than something absorbed into a rate.

The joints decide it, not the wall. How deep they come back, and whether the faces have spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does.

Matching is the part that shows. Lime is slower to work and slower to cure, and right on most pre-1919 walls here.

Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked and by hand or by disc, what the mix is and whether it was matched, how many spalled bricks are being replaced, and whether the scaffold is in the price.

We cover Rockbourne, Whitsbury, Damerham, Martin and down the valley through Breamore to Fordingbridge, broadly SP6, with New Forest District Council as the planning authority. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen's business, and he prices every job himself rather than sending a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are free.