West Moors repointing, judged at eye level
Half the homes here are bungalows, so most of the wall is within reach and the joint we leave is the one you see from the path.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On a West Moors bungalow the pointing is inspected from three feet away rather than from the pavement opposite. That decides how the job is done: colour, texture and joint profile all have to be right, because on a single storey elevation there is nowhere for a rough joint to hide.
Most calls here start with something small. Sand and grit gathering along a windowsill or on the path under a wall. A run of joints on the weather side gone soft enough to scrape out with a thumbnail. A stack shedding grit into the gutter after a windy night. Or a stain creeping down a chimney breast in a back bedroom.
All of those are mortar. We look at the whole building rather than the wall you have spotted, because on a bungalow the elevation you can see is rarely the one that has failed. Joints get tested with a key, courses tapped for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick, and the stack looked at properly rather than from the lawn.
Back comes a written itemised quote, elevation by elevation, with the access priced on its own line. The survey and the quote are free, and West Moors is seven miles from us.
The work
Wall after wall at waist height, and one chimney
Long single storey elevations. Just over half the homes in West Moors are bungalows, and a bungalow gives you a great deal of wall spread thin, nearly all of it within reach of a tower or trestles. That takes the largest single line out of a wall quote. It also means the finished joint sits at eye level for its whole length, so colour, texture and profile have to be right rather than close. We strike back to what the wall already carries, on this stock usually bucket handle or weather struck.
Late sixties and early seventies cavity brickwork. Around two thirds of the village went up between 1945 and 1982, with the peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The mortar of that period was commonly gauged with lime as well as cement, so it fails gently: the joint erodes at the arris, water sits in the recess, and frost takes the fired face off the brick in flakes. Joints come back to about twice their width, the perpends by hand, and the angle grinder stays in the van on anything soft.
Getting the colour right. Matching means matching the sand and the gauge, not holding a trowel of grey next to a wall. We take a sample of sound original mortar from a sheltered spot, work out what is in it, and put a trial panel up on a discreet part of the elevation for you to see in daylight. Fresh mortar reads lighter than aged mortar, so the panel is judged on how it will weather.
Chimney stacks and flaunching. On a bungalow the stack is the one thing you cannot reach from the ground, and it fails first: weather on four sides, a cold flue up the middle, nothing warming it. The mortar goes friable, then washes out, and the penetrating damp that follows shows on a ceiling rather than a wall. We rake it out, repoint in a matched mix, cut out frost damaged bricks and renew the flaunching round the pots. That is work at height.
Spalled faces, and the older properties. Where a face has blown we cut the brick out and turn or replace it against a sample, rather than packing the hollow with mortar that will never match. A small share of West Moors predates 1919 and is solid wall with no cavity, which has to stay breathable and gets an NHL lime or lime putty mix matched to the original sand.
Porches, garages and front boundary walls. Low brickwork with no shelter and a coping that has lost its bedding lets water into the top of the wall, where it freezes and pushes the courses apart. Those joints are usually years ahead of the house behind them.
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 your work out. The quote is itemised: access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, brick replacement and disposal on separate lines.
Nothing is left open overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Repointing like for like is repair rather than development, so no planning application is needed and there is nothing for building control to sign off. West Moors has no conservation area and a single listed entry, the war memorial, so for almost every property here the only permission question is whether anything is changing in appearance. Where a building is listed the mortar counts as protected fabric and needs listed building consent from Dorset Council before a joint is opened.
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 what the joints are actually like.
Getting to it. A chalet with a dormer gable, a bungalow whose walls a tower will reach end to end, and the stack on the ridge above it are three separate decisions on the same property. A chimney or a gable wants a scaffold, and how long the platform stands matters as much as how big it is. Access under the work at height rules is a priced line, not something absorbed into a rate.
The joints decide it, not the wall. How deep the joints have to come back, and whether the faces have already spalled, sets the hours far more than the area does. Hand raking is slow, but a disc widens the joint and takes the arris off.
Matching is the part that shows. Too strong a mix holds water against a soft brick and the face blows off in the first hard frost. Lime is the right answer on most pre-1919 walls here.
Comparing quotes? Ask how deep the joints are raked and by hand or 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 straight through to the inside face, and on a chimney it finds the flashings as well. We come and look, sheet the worst if the weather is against us, and price the elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. If the damp is showing on a ceiling or around a chimney breast rather than on a wall, say so when you ring, because that moves the stack to the front of the survey. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Everything at arm's length, and no clock running
On a bungalow nobody looks at your pointing from across the road. They look at it from the path, three feet away, and that changes what a good job is. A patch that would vanish on a two storey gable sits in plain view on a single storey frontage, so we work to a natural stopping point rather than to the edge of the damage: a corner, a downpipe, a change of plane. Half an elevation done and half left is the repair people regret.
The other thing a bungalow gives you is time. With no scaffold standing there is no daily hire to justify, so the work can be booked for the weather rather than the diary. Mortar hates a frost before it has set and a drying wind that pulls the water out before it has cured, and both are avoidable if nobody is in a hurry. A large property can be done a side at a time across two seasons without paying for access twice. The exception is the chimney, which needs a platform whatever the weather.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover West Moors, Ferndown, St Leonards, Verwood, Three Legged Cross and across to Ringwood, broadly BH22 and BH24, 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 is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
West Moors questions we get asked
Will a repointed patch show on a bungalow frontage?
It can, which is why we would rather not leave one. On a single storey elevation the joint is at eye level for its whole length and a repair that stops in the middle of a wall reads as a repair for years. We work to a natural break instead, and put a trial panel up first so the colour and texture are agreed before the bulk goes in.
Can the work be split across two years?
Yes, and on a bungalow it often makes sense. Because most walls come off a tower rather than a scaffold, there is no standing hire charge pushing you to do everything at once. We would normally take the weather side first, and the quote prices each elevation separately so you can decide where to stop.
Which joint profile should we ask for?
Whatever the wall already has, unless there is a reason to change it. Bucket handle and weather struck both shed water well and are what most of the housing here carries. A recessed joint looks smart on a new build and holds water on an older wall. Flush is usually right on a soft period brick.
Does the chimney have to be done at the same time as the walls?
No, but it is worth thinking about together. The walls of a bungalow are the cheap part because a tower reaches them; the stack is the expensive part because it needs a proper platform. If the stack is due, get anything else up there looked at while the access is paid for.
The mortar looks weathered. How do we tell if it has actually failed?
Take a door key to it. Sound mortar makes the key skid. Failed mortar powders away under light pressure, and once the joint has weathered back behind the face of the brick water can stand in it. Tapping along a course is the other test: a hollow note means the pointing has parted from the brick behind.
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A free look at every elevation, including the one above the roof
Thomas comes out, tests the joints, gets a proper look at the stack and puts the price in writing, itemised and split by elevation, at no cost to you.