Lime repointing in Walhampton and Portmore
Joints raked by hand and refilled in a matched lime, hard cement pointing taken back off, and blown faces cut out, across the lanes above the Lymington River.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Last updated
Your joints are due when the lime has weathered back behind the brick, powders under a key, or damp shows inside a day after a blow. Better than a quarter of the housing between Walhampton and Portmore predates 1919, so on older walls this side of the river the job is hand raking and a lime mix, and lime is seasonal, so the time of year you ring changes the answer. Cracked or spalled bricks are cut out and rebuilt separately.
Walls in Walhampton and Portmore, on the lanes above the Lymington River, tend to fail at the joint, at the brick face and on the inside wall. Joints on an old wall gone friable, crumbling under a key. Brick faces spalling off in plates, nearly always a few years after somebody pointed the wall in hard grey mortar. And penetrating damp on an inside wall, showing a day after a blow rather than during it.
None of that is a Walhampton and Portmore wall coming down. It is mortar, priced face by face. The site visit is a survey rather than a look: every elevation gets gone over, joints are scraped to find how deep the failure runs, and courses are tapped for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick. You get a written itemised quote back, with the faces we would leave for another few winters marked, and none of it costs you anything.
The work
Mortar work on the walls above the river
Solid walls, raked and pointed in lime. A pre-1919 wall in Walhampton and Portmore is one thickness of brick, or brick with rubble stone, and there is no cavity behind it. It handles rain by letting it evaporate back out through the joint, which works while the mortar stays softer and more open than the masonry.
Those joints come out by hand, raked back to about twice their width, and the angle grinder stays in the van, because a disc cutter takes the arris off. They are damped down and brushed out before filling, then go back in an NHL lime or lime putty gauged against a sample of the original, so the wall stays breathable. BS EN 459 is the standard the binder is bought to, so the quote names the lime. Victorian and Edwardian additions get the same treatment.
Hard cement, taken back off. The commonest thing wrong with an old wall around Walhampton and Portmore is a repoint done in dense cement. the case against hard cement on soft masonry reads plainly: the joints stand slightly proud and look almost new while the masonry between them crumbles. Cutting hard mortar from a soft joint is patient hand work. Where the arris went with it, we price the replacement alongside.
Spalled faces, cut out and never filled. Filling a blown hollow leaves a dark patch that never matches and drops out in a couple of winters. The brick comes out whole and is turned where the back is sound, or replaced against a sample held on the wall. Frost damage gathers low down, under sills and beside downpipes, and just above the damp proof course where a path has been built up.
Stacks, parapets and the joints out of sight. A chimney in Walhampton and Portmore takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it from within, so its mortar washes out long before anything at eye level does. Anything above the eaves wants a scaffold, not a tower, and on a shared stack the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 sets a notice period before cutting starts.
The finish, and matching it. The profile goes back as the building carries it: a fine flush or slightly recessed joint on the older elevations, weather struck or bucket handle on the hard fired brick of anything postwar. We make up a trial panel on a discreet part of the wall for you to look at in daylight.
Flats in a converted house. Around a third of the dwellings in Walhampton and Portmore are flats, many in large older buildings split up, so the elevation belongs to the freeholder rather than to any one flat. Find out who instructs the work before anybody books access.
The one job we turn down is pointing over movement, or pointing a wall that is wet because water is arriving from somewhere else. A gutter running over strips mortar faster than any weather.
How it runs
Lime repointing on pre-war walls and chimneys
Thomas comes out to Walhampton and Portmore, gets close to the joints and scratches a few to find out what the old mortar is made of. The written quote itemises access, raking out, the mortar mix, each elevation or stack as a separate line, any bricks to be cut out and replaced, and disposal. Raking out, pointing and brushing down all sit on that one quote.
Many of the older houses in Walhampton and Portmore are soft brick bedded in lime. We rake the joints by hand to a proper depth, then point them in a lime mortar matched to the original for colour and hardness, never a hard cement. Chimneys and gables need scaffold, which on a lane or shared drive we plan with you. Sheets go down over paths and plants, the ground is swept daily, and the raked-out mortar leaves with us. When a brick face breaks up as we rake, you are shown it, photographed, with the cost of replacing it, before the brick comes out.
Repointing in matching materials is repair, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control. It is appearance that matters, and the authority for that is the National Park Authority; Walhampton lies in the Forest South East Conservation Area, and in Portmore it is worth asking them about your address. On a listed wall the mortar mix and joint finish are protected, consent must be in place before starting, and working without it is a criminal offence. We look the address up on its property map before any mortar is mixed.
Cost
Joints, lime and height: pricing a repointing job
The size of the wall tells you little until someone has looked at the joints, so we have no rate per square metre.
Height. A garden wall needs no platform. A cottage gable or a tall shared chimney on a converted house needs scaffold, and it is priced as its own line because the work at height rules require it.
How far the joints have gone. Old lime weathers back unevenly. Where it has retreated deep, or the brick faces have spalled, raking and filling takes much longer for the same patch of wall.
Matching lime. Lime mortar is slower to mix, lay and cure than cement, and it needs protecting from frost and strong sun while it sets. On older walls in Walhampton and Portmore it is the right material, and getting the sand and colour close to the original takes small trial patches first.
The weather side. Walls facing south west catch the wind and rain coming off the Solent, so they are usually the worst and may need more bricks cut out.
Ask other firms whether the joints are raked by hand or by grinder, which mix they propose and how it was matched, how many spalled bricks they have allowed for and whether the scaffold is included.
If water is getting in
Damp coming through open joints in the wall
Please call instead of filling in the form. Open joints let driven rain through to the inside face, and on a chimney the water can also get behind the flashings. On houses in Walhampton and Portmore the culprit is usually a south west gable or a stack taking the weather off the water.
Move furniture away from the wet patch and keep the room aired. We come and look, sheet or temporarily fill the worst of it, and price the repointing once the wall has dried enough to show what is sound. Normal hours are Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If it rings out, we see the missed call and ring you as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Lime has a season, and cement is how the wrong mortar gets sold
Lime does not set the way cement does. It cures by taking carbon dioxide out of the air over weeks, and while it does it has to be kept off frost, out of drying wind and hard sun.
Freeze a green lime joint once and it never gains its strength; let it dry too fast and it dusts. That gives lime pointing a working window from about the middle of spring to early autumn. It is why hessian and protection are real lines on a lime quote, and why the programme is set by the weather as much as by the size of the wall.
What that should change is when you ring rather than what you buy. Notice open joints on an old wall in November and the answer is to get it surveyed and quoted through the winter and take a slot in the spring. Somebody always will, and the reason they can is that they are proposing to use cement, which goes off in the cold and looks fine for a few years before the brick faces start coming away. Ask anyone quoting when they intend to work, and what they would do if frost were forecast in the fortnight after.
Who you are dealing with
Repointing in Walhampton, Pilley and down to the river
We repoint in Walhampton, Portmore, Boldre, Pilley, Lymington and the lanes that run down to the river. From Boscombe it is 13.7 miles. The whole parish is under the New Forest National Park Authority for planning.
The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales as company 15471719, and it belongs to Thomas Hannen, who scratches the joints and works out the price in person. Our Checkatrade page carries a verified customer’s 10 out of 10. Neither the visit nor the itemised written quote costs you anything. Before you book a visit in Walhampton and Portmore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Walhampton and Portmore?
Most repairs in Walhampton and Portmore 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 Walhampton and Portmore |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Walhampton and Portmore. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Forest South East Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Walhampton and Portmore. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the New Forest National Park, where design is looked at more closely and permitted development rights are narrower. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Walhampton and Portmore
Why does the time of year change what goes into the joints?
Because lime cures slowly by taking carbon dioxide back out of the air, and a frost on a green joint stops it gaining strength for good. Cement goes off in the cold, which is why work offered in the wrong month so often turns out to be cement on a wall that wanted lime.
Somebody has offered to point our old cottage in January. Should we let them?
We would not, and the reason is what we would have to use. On a solid wall that has to breathe, cement is the mortar you do not want, and the damage takes years to show. If the wall cannot wait, we sheet it and do the proper job in spring.
Which lime would you put on a wall as exposed as ours?
That comes off the sample and off how much weather the face takes. Hydraulic lime, sold as NHL, carries natural impurities that let it set partly through contact with water, so it is quicker and harder, and it often suits an exposed elevation here. Lime putty is slaked lime matured under water and sets purely by carbonation, so it is softer and slower, and belongs on softer masonry and sheltered faces.
How is fresh lime mortar protected while it cures?
Damped hessian over the face, sheeting outside that to keep wind and rain off without sealing it, and the joints misted rather than soaked. It stays on for a fortnight or more, which is one reason the scaffold sometimes stands after the pointing is done.
Our wall was pointed in cement twenty years ago. Is it too late to put right?
Usually not, though it depends on what the cement has done. If the joints are hard but the masonry either side is sound, it can be cut out by hand and replaced with a matched lime. If the arris has gone and faces are spalling, some of those bricks need cutting out too.
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Repointing near Walhampton and Portmore
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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 Lymington Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Get the wall surveyed now and booked for the spring
Thomas comes out, tests the joints, takes a mortar sample and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.