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.
Start at the bottom of the wall in Wareham. The joints that fail first are nearest the ground, because the town sits low between two rivers and the bottom courses spend far more of the year wet than the rest of the elevation.
The calls 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 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 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 here 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 the town 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
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. Appearance is what can change. There are one hundred and ninety six listed entries in and around Wareham, an unusually dense list, so an address here is far more likely to be listed than in most places we work. On a listed building the mortar is protected fabric and a change of mix, colour or joint profile is a change of character, so works affecting the character of a listed building need consent. Dorset Council holds the records and the listed building consent application. We check before anybody starts.
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 three storey town house on the back of the pavement, a terrace with a shared parapet and a low garden wall beside a lane are three different set ups. A chimney or gable wants a scaffold, a low wall a tower or 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. 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.
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. In Wareham that is usually a south west face or the wall nearest the water. If the base has been wet for weeks rather than days, say so when you ring, because it changes when the pointing can sensibly go in. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
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 in three ways, none of them 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
A local firm you can check
We cover Wareham, Stoborough, Sandford, Holton Heath and out towards Wool, Bere Regis and Corfe Castle, broadly BH20, 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
Wareham questions we get asked
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 straight away, deal with 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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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.