Repointing in Stone, near Wimborne and Pamphill
Old brick along the road frontage, newer walls behind it, and a boundary wall in front of both that usually needs it first.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
The pointing that goes first in Stone is usually the lowest metre of the wall and the boundary wall onto the road, not the elevation you look at most. Splash and spray keep both wet, and a wet joint in a soft brick wall is the one frost gets into.
The calls here are fairly consistent. Mortar crumbling out of a front wall at knee height. A coping that rocks when you push it. Brick faces flaking in the courses just above a path. Or joints on a gable weathered back far enough to get a finger into.
All of that is mortar work on walls that are already standing. We look at every elevation and the boundary wall as well, scrape a few joints with a key to see how far the decay goes and tap a course for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick. Where the trouble is at the bottom of a wall we also look at what the ground is doing, because that changes the advice.
You get it back in writing, itemised and split elevation by elevation, with anything we would leave alone marked as such. The survey and the quote are free, and Stone is eight miles from us.
The work
Where the mortar goes first on these walls
The bottom of the wall, which is where most of it is. The lowest metre gets more water than anything above it: rain bouncing off a path, spray off the road, and often a drive or border built up so the ground sits close to the damp proof course. A joint down there stays wet for weeks at a time, so it goes friable and crumbling long before head height, salts bloom white across the brick, and the fired face lifts off in the first two or three courses. We rake out, cut out the spalled faces and point back in a mix no stronger than the brick, and we say plainly when the real problem is the ground rather than the mortar. Approved Document C sets the expectations there.
Front boundary walls and copings. Almost every older property along the Blandford Road frontage has a low wall between it and the traffic, and those take weather on both faces with nothing warming either side. The coping is the weak point: once its bedding has gone, water runs straight into the top of the wall, freezes and pushes the courses apart. Repointing the coping bed and the top few courses is what stops the rest.
Older solid wall, in lime. Around a fifth of the stock here predates 1919 and has no cavity behind the brick, so it keeps water out by letting it evaporate back through the joint. That only works while the mortar stays breathable and softer than the brick. Those are raked out with hand tools to roughly twice the joint width and pointed back in an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to the original sand, then damped, filled and brushed off. The angle grinder does not go near one.
The newer walls behind. Much of what was built here from the 1980s onwards is cavity work in a cement and sand mortar with a harder fired brick, and it fails the other way round: the joint pits and opens at the arris rather than washing out, then frost lifts the face. Those want a gauged mix of similar strength going back in and the profile struck as it was, weather struck or bucket handle. Blown faces get cut out and replaced against a sample.
Shared walls and shared decisions. A third of the homes here are flats and close to a quarter are terraced, so a lot of elevations belong to more than one household. We survey and price those face by face and photograph each one, so the cost of a single elevation can be put in front of everybody who has to agree to it.
Stacks. A chimney has weather on four sides, a cold flue up the middle and nothing heating it, so its joints go open years before anything below, and what follows is penetrating damp on a bedroom ceiling. Raking it out, repointing in a matched mix and renewing the flaunching around the pots is work at height.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out. The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines.
Nothing is left open overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Repointing like for like is repair rather than development, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control to sign off. Stone has no conservation area of its own, though several sit close by including Pamphill and Wimborne Minster, and there are dozens of listed entries within a mile, concentrated along the Blandford Road frontage rather than spread through the newer housing. Some of those entries are boundary walls in their own right, which catches people out. On anything listed the mortar is protected fabric and needs listed building consent from Dorset Council before a joint is opened.
Cost
What decides the price of a repointing job
No rate per square metre: the area tells you almost nothing until somebody has looked at what the joints are actually like.
Getting to it. A house set back off the road with a stack on the ridge, a terrace fronting the pavement, and a low boundary wall in front of both need three different arrangements. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold, and how long the platform stands matters as much as how big it is. Access under the work at height rules is a priced line, not absorbed into a rate.
The joints decide it, not the wall. How deep the joints have to come back, and whether the faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does. Hand raking is slow, but a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off.
Matching is the part that shows. Too strong a mix holds water against a soft brick and the face blows off in the first hard frost. Lime is the right answer on most pre-1919 walls here.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked and by hand or 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.
If water is getting in
Open joints, and water coming through the wall
Ring rather than use the form. Joints washed out let driven rain straight through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings as well. We come and look, sheet the worst if the weather is against us, and price the elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. Say when you ring whether the damp is high up or along the bottom of the wall, because those are two different problems and only one of them is pointing. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The lowest metre of the wall
The pointing that fails first around Stone is rarely the elevation you can see best. It is the lowest metre of the wall and the boundary wall in front of it, because both are kept wet by something other than rain: splash off a hard surface, spray thrown up by traffic on the Blandford Road, and the grit and salt that go down in a cold snap and end up in the joint. Wet mortar in winter is mortar that frost can work on.
So before you spend anything on pointing, get the bottom of the wall read properly. A wall that is sound at first floor and crumbling at knee height is telling you the water is arriving from below or bouncing in, not blowing through. Look at where the ground sits against the brick, and at anything laid up against the house since it was built. If the base does need doing, the mix matters more there than anywhere: point the lowest courses in something dense and the moisture that has to leave will go out through the brick faces instead.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Stone, Pamphill, Wimborne Minster, Colehill, Furzehill and across to Corfe Mullen and Broadstone, broadly BH21, under Dorset Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
Stone questions we get asked
Why is the bottom of our wall so much worse than the top?
Because it is wetter for longer. Rain bounces off a path or a drive and soaks the lowest courses again and again, road spray does the same near the carriageway, and water in the ground can wick up into brick that has no damp proof course or has had the ground raised above it. Mortar that never dries out fully is mortar that frost can break.
Our boundary wall onto the road is shedding mortar. Is that a pointing job?
Usually yes. A free standing wall has weather on both faces and no shelter, so its joints and its coping bed go long before the house behind it, and raking out and repointing is straightforward work. What we will not do is point over movement: if a wall is leaning, bulging or cracked in a line rather than at the joints, filling the joints hides it for a season.
Is Stone inside a conservation area?
Stone itself is not, although several conservation areas sit close by, including Pamphill and Wimborne Minster, and the boundaries are tighter than most people expect. There are a lot of listed entries within a mile, and some are boundary walls listed in their own right rather than houses. We check an address against Dorset Council's records before anything starts.
Can you repoint during a cold spell?
Not if there is a frost coming before the mortar has set, because a mix that freezes green is ruined and has to come out again. Cold on its own is workable; frost and a hard drying wind are not. We cover and protect fresh joints, plan the exposed elevations for the right part of the year, and will say when a wall should wait a fortnight.
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Get the bottom of the wall looked at, not just the front
Thomas comes out, tests the joints on each elevation and the boundary wall, photographs what he finds and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.