Thorney Hill repointing inside the National Park

Solid walls that have to breathe. Better than one home in five around Thorney Hill predates 1919, which out here means solid wall: one thickness of brick, no cavity, and a wall that gets rid of water by letting it evaporate out through the joint.

That only works while the mortar is softer and more open than the brick. Those joints are raked by hand to roughly twice their width, perpends included, and pointed back in an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged against a sample of the sound original. The profile goes back as it was, usually flush or a shade recessed rather than weather struck.

Taking cement back off an old wall. Plenty of the older cottages in Thorney Hill were repointed in sand and cement at some point in the last fifty years. A dense joint seals the route the wall had for shedding water, so moisture and any salt in it leave through the brick instead and the faces spall while the joints sit there looking sound. Cutting hard mortar out of a soft wall is slow, careful work, and it is the only repair that changes the outcome.

Post-war cavity brickwork. Over four in ten homes in Thorney Hill went up between 1945 and 1982 and those are cavity walls, a single outer skin in a cement and sand mortar struck weather or bucket handle. They erode at the arris rather than washing out, and once water stands in the open joint one hard frost takes flakes off the brick either side. Matching that mortar is a question of sand and gauge as much as colour, so a trial panel goes up somewhere discreet for you to judge in daylight.

Detached houses with nothing to hide behind. Close to four in ten properties in Thorney Hill stand detached, so all four elevations take the weather and no neighbour's gable shelters any of them. The south west face is a long way ahead of the others and needs pricing separately, and the mortar on that face wants to be a shade more forgiving rather than harder. Instinct says point an exposed wall in something strong. On an old wall that is the fastest way to lose the brick.

Blown faces and stacks. Where a brick face has gone we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall, because a mortar fill never matches and drops out in two winters. Chimneys go first on any building in Thorney Hill, with weather on four sides and nothing warming them from within, and open joints in a stack turn into penetrating damp on a bedroom ceiling. Stacks are work at height and want a scaffold, priced on its own line.

How big the wall is matters less than how deep the joints have perished, and only a close look tells you that.

Access. A brick cottage on the lane, a detached post-war house on its own plot and a chimney on a steep roof each need a different set up, and only the stack has no alternative to a scaffold. Work at height rules make access a priced line.

Depth and method. Joints are raked back to sound mortar. By hand is slower; a disc is quick but widens the joint and knocks off the arris, and the wall never looks the same afterwards.

The right mortar. Too strong a mix holds water against a soft brick, and the face blows off in the first hard frost. Lime to the building lime standard suits the older cottages; a matched cement and lime mix suits post-war brick.

Movement cracks. On shrinking clay, a stepped crack may need stitching with helical bars as well as pointing, and that is priced separately after we have looked at why it moved.

Replacement. Every spalled brick cut out and replaced adds time, so the count matters.

Ask any other firm quoting for it the same about raking depth and tool, the mortar they specify, and the allowance for replacement bricks.

Thorney Hill is inside the New Forest National Park, and the National Park Authority, not the district council, deals with planning here. For a repointing job that matters less than people fear, and in a different way than they expect.

Renewing mortar in the same material, colour and profile is maintenance, and maintenance is not something you apply for. What draws attention is a change to how a building reads from the road, and mortar changes that more than almost anything else you can do to a brick wall.

A joint struck proud in a bright modern mix lightens a whole elevation and flattens the shadow lines that give an old wall its texture, and it does that from fifty yards away. So record what is there before it comes out: photograph the joints, keep a piece of the original mortar, and get the mix and the profile written into the quote. On a listed property that record is what the consent is judged against. On any other, it is the difference between a repair nobody notices and one everybody does.

We are based at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe, 6.8 miles off, and repoint across Thorney Hill, Bransgore, Burley, Sopley and towards Christchurch and Ringwood, broadly BH23. Consents here come from the New Forest National Park Authority. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Thorney Hill, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

This is Thomas Hannen's business, and Thomas checks the joints and prices the job himself. We hold a verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit is free, and the quote, written and itemised, costs nothing either.

Most repairs in Thorney Hill 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.