Repointing rubble stone and brick in West Lulworth
Deep irregular joints raked back to sound lime by hand, filled in lifts, and struck behind the face so the stone reads and the mortar does not.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On a rubble stone wall the mortar is not a line between units, it is most of what you can see and all of what holds the wall together. Repointing one means taking the joint back to sound material by hand and filling it so the mortar finishes just behind the face of the stone, never proud of it.
The calls out of the village are usually one of three. Joints on the seaward side gone hollow, far enough through in places that you can see daylight in a boundary wall. Faces flaking off brick or stone near the ground, or up where water sits on the top of a wall. Or pointing put on at some stage in a hard grey mortar that now stands out from the stonework like piping on a cushion, with the stone behind it going soft.
None of that needs a wall taken down. The free site visit is a survey rather than a look: we walk every elevation, scrape joints at the top and the bottom because they are rarely in the same condition, tap for anything hollow behind, and find out what the original mortar was before anybody talks about what replaces it. You get it back in writing, elevation by elevation, with the seaward and the sheltered faces priced separately, because on a house here they are almost never due at the same time. The visit and the itemised written quote are free.
The work
Pointing stone, and the brick that goes with it
Rubble stone in lime. Much of the older village is rubble stone with brick used at the quoins, over the window heads and in the chimneys, and every bit of it was bedded in lime because lime is the part that is meant to give. Behind the face it is solid wall throughout, with no cavity anywhere in it. The beds in a rubble wall are deep, wide and irregular, so we rake by hand back to sound mortar rather than to a set depth, and neither a disc cutter nor an angle grinder goes near it. The joint is damped down and then filled in lifts, each one pressed in and left to take up before the next, because a deep void filled in one go shrinks, cracks and drops out inside a year.
The brick that runs through it. Quoins, window heads, arches and stacks are brick rather than stone, and they are usually laid in a finer mortar with a narrower joint. Pointing them at the width and the strength that suits the rubble around them loses the detail and reads badly from the road. We specify those separately and say so on the quote, usually an NHL lime or a lime putty gauged finer than the rubble mix, and struck to whatever profile the brickwork already carries: flush, recessed, weather struck or bucket handle.
Taking hard cement back off. Where somebody has pointed in sand and cement the damage shows in the masonry rather than the joint. The wall cannot dry through a sealed joint, so it dries through the stone and the fired brick instead, and the face shells off. The tell is spalling faces under a joint that has gone crumbling and friable at its edges, and penetrating damp showing on the inside of the same wall. Cutting a cement joint out of soft rubble without taking stone with it is patient work with hand tools and it is priced on hours rather than area.
Boundary walls, which take more than the house does. There are a great many of them here, and they are wet from both faces with no roof over them. The coping is what saves one, so a loose or missing coping stone gets rebedded before anything else, off a tower where the wall is low enough, and then both faces are pointed rather than the side you can see from the road. Half a wall pointed is a wall still taking water from behind.
Faces that have already blown. A brick that has lost its face comes out whole and a matched replacement goes in, sourced against a sample held on the wall. Filling the hollow with mortar leaves a patch that never matches and is out again in two winters. On stone it is the same principle: replace or turn the unit rather than model a new face in mortar.
Stacks. A stack takes weather from every side with nothing warming it, so its joints run years ahead of the walls below. Raking and repointing above the roof line, renewing the flaunching that beds the pots and making good the top courses is scaffold work and it is a priced line of its own rather than something added at the end.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, no sub-contracting. The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines, so you can compare it against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open overnight and the site is swept at the end of each day. If something turns up that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price first.
Putting the same mortar back with the same joint is upkeep, so there is no application and nothing for building control to sign off. What changes it here is appearance. The village is the West Lulworth Conservation Area, so a mortar colour or a joint profile that alters how a wall reads from the lane is not a like for like repair however it is described, and forty three entries here are listed, with a good many of them along the main road. On a listed building the mortar is part of the protected fabric and listed building consent comes before a joint is opened rather than after. Dorset Council is the planning authority and we check an address against the list before a mixer is filled.
Cost
What decides the price of a repointing job
No rate per square metre. The area tells you almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.
Getting to it. A cottage on the back edge of the lane, a roadside wall holding a garden up off the road and a stack standing clear of a roof are three different set ups before a joint is opened. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold; a boundary wall wants nothing. The work at height rules are why access is a priced line rather than something absorbed into a rate.
The joints decide it, not the wall. How deep they come back, and whether the faces have spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does.
Matching is the part that shows. Lime is slower to work and slower to cure, and right on most pre-1919 walls here.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked and by hand or by disc, what the mix is and whether it was matched, how many spalled bricks are being replaced, and whether the scaffold is in the price.
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 through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings. We come and 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. Here it is usually the south west face, because that is the elevation the weather actually reaches, or a boundary wall with the joints washed right through. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Why the joint has to finish behind the face of the stone
The commonest thing done wrong to a wall in this village is not the mix, it is the profile. Somebody butters mortar out across the face of the stones and trowels it flat, so the finished joint stands slightly proud with a hard edge to it. It is quicker than filling a deep irregular joint properly and it looks tidy for about two years. Then it starts holding water on the top edge of every stone instead of shedding it, the bond behind it is thin because the joint was never filled to the back, and it comes away in sheets with the surface of the stone attached.
A rubble joint wants pressing in until the void is genuinely full, then taking back so it finishes a shade behind the face, with the stone reading as the surface of the wall and the mortar sitting quietly between. It sheds water, it lets the wall dry, and it is how the wall looked when it was built. There is a second reason to care about it here. In a conservation area a wall repointed as a proud grey band has visibly changed from the road, and that is the sort of change the designation exists to control. So if you are collecting quotes, ask what the finished profile will be and whether the mortar will sit proud, flush or back from the face. Anyone who has pointed rubble stone before will have an answer ready.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover West Lulworth, East Lulworth, Winfrith Newburgh, Wool and across to Wareham, broadly BH20, with Dorset Council as the planning authority. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen's business, and he prices every job himself rather than sending a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are free.
Questions
West Lulworth questions we get asked
The pointing on our cottage stands proud of the stone. Does that matter?
It does, and it is the most common fault we see here. A proud joint holds water on the top edge of each stone rather than letting it run off, and it is usually a sign the joint was buttered across the face instead of filled to the back. It tends to come away in sheets and bring the surface of the stone with it. Taking it off and pointing back behind the face is the repair.
Should the seaward and the sheltered walls be done together?
Rarely. On a house here the south west face is normally a decade ahead of the sheltered side, so doing all four elevations at once usually means paying to point walls that did not need it. We price them separately and tell you which are genuinely due. Where the access covers more than one face anyway, it can be worth doing them together, and we will say so.
What lime goes into a stone wall this close to the water?
A natural hydraulic lime graded to sit under the strength of the stone, with the sand matched to what came out. The point is that the mortar has to be the escape route: salt and moisture come back out through a breathable joint and do nothing worse than leave a bloom you can brush off. A dense mix, or anything painted on to seal the wall, forces that out through the stone.
Will taking the old hard pointing out damage the stone?
Not if it is done with hand tools and time. That is exactly why no disc goes near a soft wall: a cutter follows a straight line and rubble does not, so it bites into the stone either side. We cut cement out with a chisel and a hacksaw blade, work in short lengths, and leave anything that would take stone with it until we can get behind it properly.
Does the conservation area stop us repointing?
No. It controls how the work looks, not whether you can do it. Putting the same mortar back with the same joint profile is upkeep and needs nothing from anybody. A different colour, a proud profile or a change of material on an elevation that reads from the road is a change of appearance. If your building is listed the mortar itself is covered and consent comes first.
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Get the seaward wall looked at on its own
Thomas comes out, scrapes the joints on each face, photographs what he finds and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.