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.
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Your joints are due when they have pitted or opened along the brick edge, crumble under a key, or sound hollow along a course. Verwood is young for a Dorset town, so lime is the wrong mix on most walls here: the job is raking out the elevation that has gone and matching a cement and sand mortar to a hard modern brick. Bricks cracked right through need cutting out and rebuilding.
The warning signs in Verwood are 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 Verwood brickwork of this age it can be 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 Verwood. 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 in Verwood, 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 Verwood 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 on a Verwood wall 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
Repointing an eighties house or a garden wall, step by step
Before pricing, Thomas walks each elevation of your Verwood house looking at how far the mortar has eroded, whether any brick faces have spalled, and what the existing mix looks like. You get a written quote with access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, replacement bricks and disposal on their own lines, which makes it easy to set beside another.
The mix is matched to the original in colour and strength, and new joints are shaded from hard sun and frost while they cure. Raked out mortar is swept up and bagged daily. A spalled brick or cracked lintel found during the work is photographed and priced for you before it is touched.
Repointing like for like is a repair, not development: no application, and nothing to notify to building control. The town has no conservation area and few listed entries. On a listed building, though, the mortar counts as protected fabric, and works affecting the character of a listed building need consent, so a change of mix or joint profile is never settled on site. Dorset Council keeps the records and deals with the listed building consent application.
Cost
What decides the price of repointing here
The area of wall tells you little. The joints and the brick decide the hours. The platform. The front of a bungalow comes off trestles or a tower, a two storey gable on an estate house needs a scaffold, and a low front garden wall needs nothing. How long the platform stays matters as much as its size, and the work at height rules make it an item on the quote.
How the joints are raked. Raking out by hand is slow, and on soft brick it is the only safe way, because a disc cutter widens the joint and chips the arris. How deep the old mortar has gone decides how long this takes.
The mix. Most brickwork in Verwood is modern and takes a cement and lime mortar matched to the original. Lime is right on the few pre-1919 walls. Too strong a mix on softer brick holds water against the face, and frost then blows it off.
Spalled bricks. A brick that has lost its face has to be cut out and replaced, and matching a discontinued brick can take time.
Ask other quotes how deep they rake, by hand or by disc, what mix they use and whether it is matched, and whether the scaffold is included.
If water is getting in
Open joints and damp coming through a wall
Ring instead of using the form. Joints that have washed out let driven rain through to the inside, and on a chimney the water finds the flashings too. On an estate house it is usually the gable facing the weather, so say which side the damp shows on when you call.
On the first visit we look, sheet or temporarily point the worst of it, and price the elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. Repointing is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If the line is busy, we will get back to you as soon as we can.
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 Verwood has not looked at yours.
Who you are dealing with
Who repoints your brickwork
Verwood is about ten miles north of our Boscombe base. We also cover Three Legged Cross, West Moors, Alderholt, St Leonards, Ringwood and Ferndown, and Dorset Council is the council for BH31.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is the company, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and you can look it up. Thomas Hannen owns it and looks at the joints himself before pricing. A verified customer rated us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. There is no fee for the visit or for the written, itemised quote. Before you book a visit in Verwood, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Verwood?
Most repairs in Verwood 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.
| Question | In Verwood |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Verwood. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Verwood, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Verwood. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Verwood. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Verwood
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 instead of another visit, and it goes on the quote as its own line so you can drop it.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Verwood
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Repointing guides
Lime or cement mortar: which do you need? Reading a repointing quote: rake out Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in Verwood Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Find out which walls are actually due
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.