Repointing in Verwood: matching a modern mortar
Most walls here are hard modern brick that wants a properly gauged cement mix, not lime, and getting that choice right is most of the job.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Verwood is young for a Dorset town, and that flips the usual answer about mortar. Roughly one home in fifty predates 1919, so lime is the wrong mix on most of these walls and the job is matching a cement and sand mortar to a hard modern brick.
What brings people to the phone here is quieter than a Victorian wall falling apart. Fine cracking down the perpends on a gable. Mortar that rings hollow when you tap a course, though it looks solid from a yard away. A chimney dropping grit into the gutter. Brick faces flaking just above a patio laid up against the house.
That is all mortar work, and on brickwork this age most of it is caught early. The site visit covers all four elevations rather than the one you spotted: we scrape joints in a few places, tap along courses for where the pointing has let go of the brick, and photograph every face. You get it back as a written itemised quote, elevation by elevation, with the walls that can wait another few winters marked as such. Free.
The work
Mortar repairs on eighties and nineties brickwork
What actually fails on a modern wall. More than half the housing in Verwood went up after 1983, the busiest decade being the eighties. That is a single skin of hard, dense, machine made fired brick over a cavity, laid in cement and sand and weather struck or bucket handle. It does not wash out the way an old lime joint does. It shrinks back at the arris, the perpends open before the bed joints, and the pointing rings hollow while still looking sound.
Matching a modern mortar. The mix that goes back is gauged just under the strength of the brick beside it, matched on sand, colour and texture, and struck to the profile the wall carries. We take a sample of the sound original from a sheltered spot and make up a trial panel somewhere discreet, judged in daylight on how it will look weathered.
The nineteen fifties to eighties third of the town. Around a third of the housing dates from between 1945 and 1982, and mortar from the earlier part of that was often gauged with lime as well as cement. It fails gently: the joint erodes at the edge, water stands in it, and frost takes the surface off in flakes. Matching means matching the gauge, not just the colour. A hard modern mix in a softer old joint gives sound pointing and spalling brick.
The older handful, in lime. A small number of pre-1919 properties here, and nine listed entries in the area. Those are period solid wall construction, breathable by design with no cavity behind the brick, and they get an NHL lime or lime putty mix matched to the original sand, damped down and raked by hand rather than with a disc cutter.
Chimney stacks and flaunching. A stack is weathered on four sides with nothing warming it, so its joints go loose, friable and crumbling long before the walls do, and the water an open joint lets in arrives as penetrating damp on a bedroom ceiling. We repoint the stack, cut out the frost damaged bricks and renew the flaunching. The platform is its own line on the quote.
Spalled faces, and the courses near the ground. Where a face has blown we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample rather than filling the hollow. Spalling gathers under sills, beside downpipes and just above the damp proof course where a drive, patio or raised bed has been built up against the wall, and repointing there without dealing with the ground level only buys a few years. What we will not do is fill regular horizontal cracking every fifth or sixth course, which is corroding wall ties rather than tired mortar.
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 rather than a figure on the back of a card: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal all on separate lines.
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. If something turns up that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price first.
Repointing like for like is repair rather than development, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control to sign off. Verwood has no conservation area of its own and nine listed entries in the area. On a listed building the mortar is protected fabric and works affecting the character of a listed building need consent, so a change of mix or joint profile is not decided on site. Dorset Council holds the records and the listed building consent application.
Cost
What decides the price of a repointing job
No rate per square metre: the square metres tell you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.
Getting to it. A two storey gable on an eighties estate house needs a scaffold, the front of a bungalow comes off a tower or trestles, and a low wall along a front garden needs nothing at all. How long the platform stands matters as much as how big it is, and the work at height rules make it a priced line.
The joints decide it, not the wall. Raking out by hand is slow, and on soft brick the only safe way, because a disc cutter widens the joint and takes the arris off. How deep the joints come back, and whether faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does. The mix matters as much: cement holds water against a soft brick and the face blows off in the first frost, while lime is the right answer on most pre-1919 walls here.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked, by hand or by disc, what the mix is and whether it was matched, how many spalled bricks are cut out, and whether the scaffold is in. 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. Joints washed out let driven rain straight through to the inside face, and penetrating damp on a chimney finds the flashings too. We look, sheet or temporarily point the worst if the weather is against us, and price the elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. The one that goes here is usually the face onto open ground to the south west, on an estate house nearly always the gable, so say which side the damp is showing on when you ring. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Lime is not automatically the right answer in Verwood
Everyone has now heard that lime is kinder to brickwork than cement, and on a Victorian wall that is true. Verwood is not that kind of town. Only about one home in fifty here predates 1919 and more than half went up after 1983, so most of these walls are a modern cavity skin of hard, dense facing brick built to be pointed in cement and sand. Put a soft lime putty mix into one of those and it weathers back within a few winters, holds dirt and streaks the brickwork below every joint.
The rule underneath both cases is the same: the mortar should be a shade weaker than the brick beside it, whatever the brick happens to be. On a soft handmade Victorian brick that means lime. On a hard machine made eighties brick it means a properly gauged cement and sand mix. So ask any quote what mix is going in and why, and listen for an answer about the brick rather than about lime being better. Anyone who gives the same mix for every wall in the town has not looked at yours.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Verwood, Three Legged Cross, West Moors, Alderholt, St Leonards and across to Ringwood and Ferndown, broadly BH31, 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 prices every job himself. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The site visit and the written quote are free.
Questions
Verwood questions we get asked
Our house is from the eighties. Can it need repointing already?
Parts of it, often yes, but rarely the whole house. The chimney goes first, then the gable facing the weather, then the courses near the ground. The rest can sit for years. Tap a course and listen: a hollow note means the pointing has parted from the brick even where it looks solid.
Should we use lime mortar on a modern brick wall?
Generally no. A modern facing brick is hard and dense and was built to take cement and sand. A soft lime mix in a wall like that erodes back fast, picks up dirt and streaks the brick below. Lime belongs on soft, older, solid wall brickwork that has to breathe.
The pointing sounds hollow when we tap it. What does that mean?
That the mortar has let go of the brick even though the face of the joint is intact. It happens when the mix was too strong, when it was struck too dry, or with age and frost. Water gets into the gap behind and works at the joint from inside. Those sections are raked out and repointed.
Why are bricks flaking just above our patio?
Because the ground level outside is bridging or sitting above the damp proof course, so those courses stay wet and every frost lifts the face off the brick. Repointing that band without dropping the level or forming a channel alongside only buys a few years, so we price the two together.
Can the boundary wall and the garage side be done at the same time?
Yes, and usually worth it. Low free standing brickwork gets weather on both faces and on top, so it tends to be further gone than the house and needs no access. Once we are on site the extra is labour and materials rather than another visit, and it goes on the quote as its own line so you can drop it.
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Thomas comes out, taps and tests every elevation, photographs what he finds and sends a written itemised quote with the sound walls marked as sound. Free.