Repointing in Wareham, from the plinth up
A town that sits low between two rivers, so the mortar nearest the ground goes first and wants a different mix from the wall above it.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Start at the bottom of the wall in Wareham. Your joints are due when they have gone soft, sandy or white with salt, or damp shows low on an inside wall, and here the courses nearest the ground fail first because the town sits low between two rivers. The job is raking those out and repointing in a softer, more permeable mix than the wall above. A plinth that has cracked or bulged needs rebuilding.
The signs follow that. Mortar in the lowest four or five courses you can rub out with a thumb. A white bloom through the brick after a wet spell, brushing off as powder. A skirting or chimney breast that stays damp when the wall above is dry. On the older Wareham terraces, a frontage where the joints have gone back far enough to notice.
Those are mortar problems, and the usual mistake is to point the bottom of the wall in something hard to keep water out. It keeps water in. The site visit covers the whole Wareham property rather than the strip you have spotted: we scrape joints at low and eye level to see how the two differ, tap along courses for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick, and photograph each elevation. It comes back as a written itemised quote, elevation by elevation, free.
The work
Mortar repairs on a Wareham wall, top and bottom
The low courses, where the water sits. Ground water and rain splash carry salts into the joint, and each time the wall dries those salts crystallise in the mortar and the pores of the brick and push the material apart. Sulphates attack an ordinary cement mortar as well, leaving it crumbling and soft. So the bottom of the wall is raked deeper, the worst faces cut out, and it goes back in something permeable and lime rich.
Pre-1919 solid wall, in lime. Around one home in seven in Wareham predates 1919, much of it terraced solid brick with no cavity. Those walls shed water only by evaporation through the joint, so the mortar stays breathable and softer than the brick. We rake by hand to twice the joint width, perpends included, damp down, and point back in an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to the original sand. The angle grinder stays in the van: a disc cutter widens the joint and takes the arris off a soft brick.
Post-war outer skins. Over half the housing in Wareham went up between 1945 and 1982, most of it in the late sixties and early seventies: cavity work, a single skin of fired brick in cement and sand, weather struck or bucket handle. It erodes at the arris rather than washing out, and once water stands in an open joint a frost lifts the surface off in flakes. Matching means matching the sand and the gauge, since plenty of mixes from that period had lime in them.
Spalled faces, cut out and replaced. Where a face has blown we cut the brick out whole and turn or replace it against a sample held on the wall, rather than filling the hollow with mortar, which never matches and drops out. Spalling gathers in a band above the ground and under the sills, so we work to a natural break.
Stacks, parapets and copings. A stack has weather on four sides and nothing warming it, so its joints go loose and friable early, and open joints under a coping put water straight into the top of a wall.
What we will not do is point a wall still holding water from a wet winter, or brush a water repellent over it afterwards. Both trap moisture behind the surface.
How it runs
Repointing an old town elevation, joint by joint
Thomas comes out, looks closely at the joints and the brick faces, and prices it himself. The quote lists access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, cutting out and replacing spalled bricks, and disposal.
Most repointing in Wareham's old streets is worked from a tower or scaffold standing on the pavement in front of a terrace, so we keep the footway open and sheet the pavement against dust. On the estates it is more often a gable or a chimney off a drive. Joints are raked out by hand where the brick is soft, the new mortar goes in, and each day ends swept and sheeted. If raking reveals bricks that are cracked right through, we photograph them for you and price them separately, and nothing is cut out until you say so.
Repointing like for like is repair, so no planning application and nothing for building control. Appearance is what matters here. Wareham has one hundred and ninety six listed entries and the historic centre is in the Wareham Conservation Area, so an address in town is far more likely to be sensitive than in most places. On a listed building the mortar is protected fabric, and a change of mix, colour or joint profile alters its character, so works affecting the character of a listed building need consent. Dorset Council holds the records and deals with listed building consent. We check before anyone starts.
Cost
What makes a repointing job quick or slow
The square metres tell you very little. What sets the hours is how the wall was built and how far the joints have gone.
Soft brick and lime, or hard brick and cement. The older houses in Wareham were built with soft bricks in lime mortar. Raking them out has to be done by hand, and the new pointing has to be lime too, weaker than the brick, so the wall can still dry out. Put cement on a soft brick and it traps the water, and the face spalls off in the first hard frost. The estate houses from the late sixties and early seventies have harder brick and cement mortar, and are quicker.
Which face takes the weather. The elevations facing south west take the driven rain here, and they are usually the ones with open joints and damp showing inside. Exposure is judged against the code for wind-driven rain, and it sets how deep those joints need to come back.
Getting up there. A chimney or tall gable wants a scaffold, a garden wall needs nothing much, and the work at height rules make the platform a priced line.
Ask anyone else quoting what mortar they will use, whether the raking is by hand or grinder, and how many spalled bricks they have allowed for.
If water is getting in
Open joints letting rain through the wall
When joints have washed out, driven rain goes straight through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings too. Phone us rather than using the form if damp is spreading.
We look, sheet the worst or put in temporary pointing if the weather is against us, and price the elevation once the wall has dried enough to show what is sound. Here that is most often the south west face. If the wall has been wet for weeks, tell us, as it affects when lime pointing can go in. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. An unanswered call gets returned as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
A wall that gets wet at the bottom, and the mortar that has to live with it
Parts of Wareham sit in flood zones 2 and 3, and the ground water is close to the surface well beyond the areas that actually flood. You can check an address with the government flood risk service. That matters for repointing in ways that are not obvious.
A solid wall wet to a metre takes months, not weeks, to dry out, and mortar packed into a saturated joint will not cure. Floodwater and ground water leave salts behind that keep working long after the wall looks dry. And sealing the bottom of the wall against the next time makes the next time worse: the water still gets in and now cannot get out.
So the plan is different from a normal job. We point the exposed high work first if it needs it, and leave the low courses until the wall has had a dry run at it, usually late spring or summer. The low level mortar goes back softer and more permeable than the wall above, so it takes the salt damage instead of the brick. That is deliberate. If anybody quoting proposes the same hard mix from the ground to the eaves, ask what happens to the water already in the wall.
Who you are dealing with
Repointing across BH20, from Holton Heath to Corfe Castle
We repoint across BH20: Wareham itself, which is 12.5 miles from Boscombe, plus Stoborough, Sandford, Holton Heath and out towards Wool, Bere Regis and Corfe Castle, with Dorset Council as the council for every one of them.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is the company, registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it and inspects the joints and prices the work himself. A verified customer on Checkatrade gave a score of 10 out of 10. Coming out to see the wall is free, as is the written quote with each item set out. Before you book a visit in Wareham, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Wareham?
Most repairs in Wareham 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 Wareham |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Wareham. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Wareham Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Wareham. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Wareham. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Wareham
The bottom of our wall was under water. How long before it can be repointed?
Give it a drying season if you can. A saturated solid wall holds water for months, and fresh mortar pressed into a wet joint will not cure or bond. We would look first at anything letting water in higher up, and book the low level pointing for a settled dry spell.
What is the white powder coming through our brickwork?
Salt, arriving dissolved in water from the ground or splash off a path and left on the surface as the wall dries. The bloom brushes off. The damage is the salt inside the joint, which crystallises as it dries and breaks up the mortar and the brick face from within.
Should we seal the brickwork to keep the damp out?
We would not. A water repellent stops the wall giving back the moisture it holds, so the water leaves another way, normally through the brick face or into the room. A solid wall stays dry by breathing through an open joint. The repair is the mortar, not a coating over it.
Do the bottom courses get a different mix from the rest?
On a wall like that, yes. The low level goes back softer and more permeable than the mortar higher up, so the joint takes the salt and the wetting rather than the brick. It is meant to weather. Replacing a strip of sacrificial mortar is a far smaller job than cutting out a band of blown faces.
We are in a terrace. Can we point our part without the neighbours?
You can, but say so at the survey so we can plan where the work stops. Fresh mortar reads lighter than aged, so a repair ending halfway along an elevation shows. We take it to a natural break, a corner, a downpipe or a party line, and match the trial panel for texture and colour as it will look with weathering on it.
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Repointing near Wareham
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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 Wareham Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
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Get the low courses looked at before the winter
Thomas comes out, tests the joints high and low, photographs every elevation and sends a written itemised quote. Free.