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.
Last updated
Your joints are due when they have weathered back behind the brick, powder under a key, or sound hollow along a course. On a West Moors bungalow the pointing is inspected from three feet away, not from the pavement opposite, so the job is raking out by hand and getting the colour, texture and joint profile right along the whole run. A garden wall cracked right through is a job for rebuilding.
Failing pointing in West Moors tends to announce itself 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 your whole West Moors house and not only 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, not 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, not just close. We strike back to what the wall already carries, on West Moors stock usually bucket handle or weather struck.
Late sixties and early seventies cavity brickwork. Around two thirds of West Moors 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 West Moors 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
Repointing a bungalow gable or chimney in West Moors
Thomas comes out, looks closely at the joints and the brick faces, and prices it himself. The written quote shows access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, replacing spalled bricks, and disposal.
On a bungalow most walls come off a tower moved round the house, and a chimney stack needs a small scaffold up to the ridge. Joints are raked back to a proper depth, the dust is kept off the garden with sheets, and the new mortar is pointed in and finished to the profile the rest of the wall has. Each day ends swept. If raking shows bricks cracked right through, they are photographed for you and priced as a separate item before anything is cut out.
Repointing like for like is repair, not development, so no planning application is needed and there is nothing for building control to sign off. The village has no conservation area, and only one listed entry, so for almost every property the only question is whether the look of the wall is changing. Where a building is listed, a change of mix, colour or joint profile needs listed building consent from Dorset Council, and even like-for-like work is worth confirming with the conservation officer first.
Cost
Joint depth, mix and chimneys: pricing a repoint
The area of wall tells you very little until someone has looked at the joints. These are what decide the hours.
Which part of the house. On most bungalows in West Moors the walls are in fair order and it is the chimney stack that has gone, because it stands above the roof in the full weather. A chalet with a dormer gable, a bungalow whose walls a tower will reach end to end, and the stack above it are three separate decisions on the same house.
How deep the joints come out. Pointing that has cracked away from the brick has to be raked back well behind the face, or new mortar will not hold. A grinder is fast but widens the joint and chips the arris, so on anything visible we rake by hand where it matters.
The mix. The post-war houses in West Moors were built in machine-made brick with cement mortar, and a matching cement-lime mix suits them. On the few older walls, a lime mortar is right, because a mix harder than the brick holds water against it and frost blows the face off.
Access. A stack needs scaffold, a gable a tower, and the work at height rules make that a priced line.
Ask any other quote how deep the joints will be raked and how, what mix they will use, and whether the chimney flashings are checked while the scaffold is up.
If water is getting in
Open joints and damp showing inside
Once the joints have washed out, rain blown against the wall soaks straight through to the plaster inside, and round a chimney it gets past the flashings as well. Call us instead of using the form.
On the first visit we check where it is getting in, sheet the worst if more rain is due, and wait for the wall to dry before pricing, because only then can you see which joints are sound. Damp on a ceiling or round a chimney breast usually means the stack, so mention it and we look there first. Booked repointing is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. A call we miss gets returned as soon as we can.
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
Repointing in West Moors, Ferndown and Three Legged Cross
We repoint across West Moors, Ferndown, St Leonards, Verwood, Three Legged Cross and over to Ringwood, broadly BH22 and BH24, with Dorset Council as the council. West Moors is 7.1 miles from Boscombe, where our base is.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd (England and Wales, company number 15471719), and Thomas Hannen is its owner. He looks at the joints and prices the work himself. A verified customer gave us a 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. You are not charged for the visit, and the quote, written and itemised, is free. Before you book a visit in West Moors, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in West Moors?
Most repairs in West Moors 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 West Moors |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for West Moors. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers West Moors, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, West Moors has listed buildings. If yours is one, or stands in the grounds of one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers West Moors. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in West Moors
Will a repointed patch show on a bungalow frontage?
A repointed patch can show on a West Moors bungalow frontage, 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.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near West Moors
Nearby places we also cover for repointing, with straight-line distances from West Moors, and the other trades we offer in West Moors itself.
Repointing nearby
Our other trades in West Moors
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 West Moors Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
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.