Repointing in Upton
Hand raking and repointing on Upton estate brickwork and on the older solid walls along the main road, each in the mortar it was built with.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Repointing in Upton
Two kinds of wall, a few hundred metres apart
Upton has two sorts of wall within a few hundred metres of each other and they want opposite mortars. The older properties along the main road are solid wall and need a soft, breathable lime. The estates behind them are cavity built in a cement gauge and would spit lime out inside a couple of winters.
Most of what we point here is estate brickwork from the late 1960s and 1970s. People notice joints worn back on the exposed elevation, a stack shedding mortar into the gutter, or a boundary wall gone crumbling after a hard winter. Terraces and bungalows are about half the homes in the village, so much of it is long low runs of wall and shared gables.
The rest is the older fabric. A handful of period cottages and farm buildings, mostly pre-1919 and some of them listed, where the wrong mortar does real damage rather than just looking wrong.
We work out which of the two you own before quoting. The visit and the written itemised quote are free, and we are under seven miles away.
The work
Estate brickwork, older cottages, and the joints on both
The estate walls. Cavity construction in stretcher bond with a cement gauge mortar, and what happens to those is erosion rather than cracking. They are raked by hand to about twice the joint width. A disc cutter widens the joint and takes the arris off either side, and on a long uniform elevation that damage shows from the pavement. Joints are brushed out and damped down, then filled with a cement, lime and sand gauge matched for strength, colour and texture, with a trial panel on a quiet wall first.
The solid wall properties. Pre-1919 brick, laid in lime, no cavity, and designed to dry out through the joint. Those get an NHL lime or a lime putty mortar gauged with a matched sand, raked by hand only, worked in decent weather and protected while it cures. Where somebody has already pointed one of these in cement, the giveaway is a hard joint standing proud of a spalling brick face, and the repair is to take the cement back out.
Brick faces. Frost lifts the fired face off a brick once the mortar around it has stopped doing its job. Those are cut out and replaced with a match, or turned where the back is sound. Filling a spalled face with mortar shows within a season, and it is one reason cheap pointing looks worse than what it replaced.
Joint profile. Most of the estate stock is bucket handle. Weather struck sheds better on the exposed side. Recessed holds water and belongs on a hard modern brick under shelter, if anywhere. The older frontages are usually flush, or close to it, with the brick edge showing. We keep what is there on anything you look at from the road.
Stacks, terraces and boundary walls. A chimney is the most weathered masonry on the house and sits above the flashings, so an open joint there goes into the roof rather than the wall. On a terrace the stack is often shared, so we settle who owns what before anything is booked. Boundary and retaining walls take water on the top and both faces and are usually the friable ones. A stack wants a scaffold, a bungalow elevation comes off a tower, a garden wall neither. Around one home in nine here is a flat, whose outside walls belong to the block, so we price whole elevations for the freeholder.
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.
Nothing is left open overnight, the site is swept daily, 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 needs no planning permission and no building control. Upton has no conservation area of its own, the Lytchett Minster conservation area sits close by, and there are a small number of listed entries in the village where changing the mortar or the joint finish would want listed building consent first. We check an address before we quote rather than after.
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 the joints.
Getting to it. A terrace with a shared stack, a bungalow you can point off a tower and a detached house set back behind a long boundary wall are three different set ups before a joint is touched. 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. 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 cures slower, and suits most pre-1919 walls here.
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.
If water is getting in
Open joints, and water coming through the wall
Ring rather than use the form. Washed out joints let driven rain straight through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings too. We come and look, sheet or temporarily point the worst, then price the elevation once it has dried enough to show what is sound. In Upton that is usually the south west elevation or a shared stack, and on a solid wall it arrives as penetrating damp on the inside face rather than as a drip you can see. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Two mortars in one village, and how to tell them apart
Upton is mostly post-war. Around half of it went up between the war and the early 1980s, with the biggest single run at the turn of the 1970s, and only about one home in twenty-five predates 1919. That small older share is not spread evenly. It sits along the old road and in the pockets that were here before the estates arrived, with a few listed entries among it.
Which means the standard advice about repointing is right for a minority of Upton addresses and wrong for most. Lime on a 1970s cavity wall is softer than the brick, washes out, and has to be done again. Cement on a pre-1919 solid wall closes the route the wall dries through, so the damp leaves by the brick face and takes the face with it. Same village, opposite answers.
So the first question on the visit is not which mortar you would like, but what the wall actually is. How old, whether there is a cavity behind it, what came out of the joint, and whether anyone has pointed it before. Ten minutes, and it decides everything that follows.
The two want different weather as well as different mortar. Cement gauge work on an estate elevation can be done through most of the year, while lime on an old frontage wants a mild spell and protection while it cures. Some of each on your list usually means two visits in two seasons rather than one job in a fortnight.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Upton, Lytchett Minster, Hamworthy, Creekmoor, Corfe Mullen and across into Poole, broadly BH16 and the postcodes around it, 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 prices every job himself. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written itemised quote are free.
Questions
Upton questions we get asked
Ours is an older cottage with a modern extension. Is that one job or two?
Age gives you most of it. Anything built here after the mid 1920s is almost certainly cavity, and the pre-1919 cottages almost certainly solid. The brick pattern helps: a solid wall shows header bricks every few courses, a cavity wall stretchers all the way along. We confirm it at a window reveal.
Somebody pointed ours in cement years ago. Does it have to come out?
Only if it is doing harm. On a cavity wall a cement gauge is what belongs there, so leave it. On a pre-1919 solid wall, if the faces are spalling and the joints stand proud, the cement is the cause and taking it out by hand is the repair. If the brick is still sound, there is a case for watching it, and we will say so.
Is Upton in a conservation area?
Not itself. The nearest boundary is the Lytchett Minster conservation area along the road, and there are a handful of listed entries in Upton. For most addresses the mortar is a technical choice with nothing to apply for, but on the older properties by the main road it is worth checking first.
Can you point a shared chimney stack without the neighbour?
We would rather not. A stack on a party wall is usually shared, the scaffold serves both halves, and pointing one side is a poor use of an expensive platform. We will survey and price it so the two of you can split it, which works out better than doing it twice.
How long does lime take to go off?
Weeks rather than days, and that shapes the programme. It is kept damp, covered and protected while it cures, and it will not be rushed with a heater or a stronger mix. Cement gauge work on the estates is far quicker, which is one reason the two kinds of wall here get priced so differently.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Upton
Repointing nearby
Our other trades in Upton
Everything we do in Broadstone Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Find out which wall you have before you buy a mix
A free site visit, ten minutes to settle whether it is lime or cement, and an itemised written quote with the mortar named.