Repointing in Tarrant Monkton
Hand raking, a mortar matched to the sand in your own joints, and the profile agreed in writing before anybody opens a wall.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Two things decide a repointing job in a village like this: the mix that goes into the joint, and the profile it is struck to. The first keeps the wall dry. The second is what the street sees, and inside a conservation area it is not simply a matter of taste.
Where it starts
Reading the wall before pricing it
People here usually ring about one elevation. Joints washed out along a course, sand and grit collecting at the foot of the wall, or brick faces lifting away in flakes after a hard winter. Sometimes it is a damp patch inside that shows up only when the weather comes from one direction.
The first job is to work out which joints have failed, because on an old building the answer is rarely the whole house. We run a key along the beds and perpends, tap the courses for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick, and photograph every elevation. That goes into a written itemised quote, priced face by face, so you can do the gable this year and the rest later. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Taking old joints out, and putting the right ones back
Raking out. Joints come back to twice their width, deeper where the mortar behind them is friable, and by hand. An angle grinder is quicker, and it is why so much repointing looks worse a year on: a disc widens the joint, wanders across the brick and takes the arris off both sides. Perpends are cut with a plugging chisel, and everything is brushed out and damped down before filling.
Lime on the older solid walls. The older buildings here are solid wall, with no cavity behind the brick, and they stay dry only because water can evaporate back out through the joint. They are breathable walls, and the mortar has to be softer and more open than the brick. An NHL lime or lime putty mix, gauged to match the sand in your own mortar, goes back. Where a wall like that has already been pointed in sand and cement we take the hard mix out, because it is why the brick faces beside it are spalling while the joints look sound.
Matching the sand, not just the colour. The colour of a mortar comes mostly from its sand, so matching one means finding a sand of the right colour and grading rather than adding pigment to whatever is in the yard. We take a sample of the soundest original from somewhere sheltered, work back from it, and put up a trial panel on a discreet part of the wall for you to judge in daylight.
The profile the joints are struck to. A flush joint follows the face of the brick and is what most old brickwork here carries. A slightly recessed joint throws a shadow line and makes the brick read larger. A weather struck joint is cut back at the top so it sheds, which suits an exposed elevation but looks wrong on an old frontage, and bucket handle belongs on later brickwork. Ribbon pointing, a band of mortar left standing proud because the wall was pointed over instead of raked out, is the one finish we will not put on a building.
Spalled faces and chimneys. Where a face has blown, the brick is cut out whole and turned or replaced against a sample from the wall rather than filled with mortar. Stacks go first on any old building, and the penetrating damp that follows an open stack joint lands on a ceiling below. Pointing the stack and renewing the flaunching want the same platform and one visit.
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. The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open overnight, the site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. Anything nobody could have foreseen gets 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. Appearance is another matter. The Tarrant Valley Conservation Area takes in Tarrant Monkton, and twenty seven entries in the village and the valley around it are listed. On a listed building the mortar counts as protected fabric and needs listed building consent before a joint is opened. Dorset Council is the authority, and we check an address before anything is agreed.
Cost
What decides the price of a repointing job
No rate per square metre, because the square metres tell you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.
Getting to it. A cottage on the village street with a lane running past the gable, a farm building with open ground on three sides and a stack on a low pitched roof are three different set ups. How long the platform stands matters as much as how big it is, and the work at height rules are why access is a priced line rather than one absorbed into a rate.
The joints decide it, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow, and on soft brick it is the only safe way. How deep the joints come back, and whether the faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does.
Matching is the part that shows. Too strong a mix is the classic mistake: cement holds water against a soft brick and the face blows off in the first hard frost. Lime is slower to work and to cure, and it is the right answer on most pre-1919 walls.
Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs, so ask each one how deep the joints are raked 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. A wall with the joints washed out lets driven rain through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings too. We come and look, sheet or temporarily point the worst of it, and price the elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. Down here the elevation that opens first faces along the valley, and inside a conservation area anything done at short notice is sheeting and protection rather than a mix nobody has agreed. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The joint profile is part of what the village looks like
Most places have a conservation area boundary running down the middle and a first question of which side you are on. Here the Tarrant Valley Conservation Area covers the whole village, so that question does not arise. What it controls is appearance. Repointing a wall exactly as it was is maintenance and needs nothing from anybody. Repointing it in a different colour, or to a different joint profile, changes how the building reads from the street, and that is what the council takes an interest in.
The profile is the part people forget, and it makes more difference than the colour. The same mortar struck flush and struck weathered produces two different walls, because the shadow line under every course changes and the bricks appear to change size. Decide it before anybody starts and get it named on the quote alongside the mix. We put the profile in writing as standard and will make the enquiry with Dorset Council for you.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Tarrant Monkton, the Tarrant villages, Blandford Forum, Pimperne and the country between, broadly DT11, 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. 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
Tarrant Monkton questions we get asked
Do we have to put back exactly the joint we already have?
Not always, and sometimes you should not. If a previous owner pointed a flush lime wall in hard weather struck cement, going back to flush lime is a restoration rather than a change and is generally welcomed. What you should not do is decide it on the day: agree the profile first, have it written down, and where the building is listed have it agreed with the council.
Can the wall be pressure washed before pointing to clean it up?
We would rather not. High pressure water forces itself into every open joint, washes soft mortar out of beds nobody intended to touch, and on old brick it can take the fired skin off the face. Cleaning, if it is wanted at all, is done gently and after the pointing has cured.
Our neighbour's mortar is grey and ours is buff. Which one is right?
Probably both, for their own walls. Mortar colour comes mainly from the sand it was mixed with, and sand was a local material, so two buildings put up thirty years apart can carry quite different mortars. That is why we match to a sample off your wall rather than a village standard.
How long before a repointed elevation stops looking new?
A couple of years for most of it, and longer on a sheltered face that never gets properly wet. Fresh mortar sits lighter than aged mortar and darkens as it weathers, which is why a trial panel is judged on what it will become. If a match looks perfect while it is still wet, it will be too dark when it dries.
Can the work be spread across a couple of seasons?
Usually, and often it is the sensible order. Weather does not arrive evenly, so one face is usually years ahead of the others, and doing the whole building at once means paying to point joints that are still sound. We price face by face and say which we would leave. The exception is a single visible frontage, where stopping halfway leaves a line.
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Agree the mortar and the profile first
Thomas comes out, tests the joints on every face, photographs them and puts the mix, the profile and the price in writing, at no cost to you.