Repointing in Winterborne Kingston
Hand raked joints, a mortar matched to the wall it is going into, and the low courses pointed in something that lets the wall dry out.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Your joints are due when the bottom courses have gone soft and sandy, or damp shows low on an inside wall after a wet winter. Mortar in a village like Winterborne Kingston fails from the ground up as often as from the top down, so the job is often raking out the bottom four or five courses and repointing them in the softest, most open mix on the building. A wall that has cracked or shifted needs rebuilding.
Walls in Winterborne Kingston show failed pointing low down, inside and on the weather face. Mortar dropping out of the low courses until you can push a finger into the joint. A chalky white bloom on the inside face of an outside wall. And brick faces flaking off after a hard frost, on whichever elevation takes the weather off the open fields.
None of that is a wall coming down. It is mortar. We walk every elevation of a Winterborne Kingston house, not only the one you have noticed, then scrape a joint low down and another at head height on the same wall. Decay that is even all the way up is weathering; decay far worse at the bottom is water. You get it back in writing, elevation by elevation, with the faces we would leave alone marked as such. The visit and the itemised quote are free.
The work
What the walls here are made of, and what each one wants
Solid brick is laid in lime. The older houses and cottages in the Winterbornes have no cavity behind the brick. A solid wall keeps water out by letting it soak in and evaporate back out through the joint, so the mortar has to stay softer and more open than the brick.
On a Winterborne Kingston cottage we rake those joints by hand to twice the joint width, never with an angle grinder, and point back in an NHL lime or lime putty mix gauged to the original sand. The finish goes back to the profile the wall carries, usually flush or slightly recessed rather than the weather struck joint on later work.
Hard pointing somebody put on later. A great deal of Winterborne Kingston brickwork was repointed in sand and cement in the last sixty years, and putting that right is the repointing that village brickwork needs most. A cement joint on a soft brick stops a breathable wall breathing, so the moisture leaves through the brick instead and takes the face with it. The tell is joints standing proud and hard with hollowed bricks between them.
Faces that have already blown. Where the face of a Winterborne Kingston brick has come off we cut it out whole and turn or replace it rather than filling the hollow, which never matches and drops out inside a couple of winters. Matching means a sample off the wall and a trial panel judged in daylight on how it will read once weathered.
Garden walls, yard walls and outbuildings. A lot of the mortar work in Winterborne Kingston is not on the house. A freestanding wall is weathered on two faces and along the top at once, and the coping is nearly always the part that has gone. Stacks are the other one: a chimney takes weather on four sides with nothing warming it, so its joints go friable years ahead of the house walls. That is work at height and wants a scaffold rather than a tower.
One thing we will not do is point over movement. Cracking that repeats every fifth or sixth course is not tired mortar, and filling those joints hides it for a season.
How it runs
Repointing a weather-facing gable, step by step
Thomas comes out first. He looks at every elevation, rakes a joint or two to see how deep the old mortar has failed, and checks whether the brick faces have started to spall.
The south west face is the most exposed in Winterborne Kingston, taking rain off open ground, so it is often where the joints have gone deepest. The quote itemises access, raking out, the mortar mix, the area of each elevation, any brick replacement and disposal. Raking, mixing and pointing all come under that one quote.
Low walls are done from the ground. Anything higher goes off a tower or a scaffold, and a chimney always needs a scaffold. We rake out by hand on soft brick, brush the joints, dampen them, and point in lime where the wall needs it. Fresh pointing is covered against rain and frost. Mortar droppings and dust are swept up each day and taken away. If a cracked brick or a failed lintel comes to light, you are shown it in a photograph and given a price before anything more is done.
Repointing like for like is a repair, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control to sign off. Seven listed entries sit in Winterborne Kingston, the Church of St Nicholas among them. On those, the mortar is protected fabric, and listed building consent from Dorset Council is needed before a joint is opened, for a change of mix, colour or profile as much as anything structural.
Cost
Joint depth, brick faces and lime: pricing a repoint
Repointing in Winterborne Kingston has no honest rate per square metre, because the area says almost nothing until somebody has looked at the joints.
How far back the joints have gone. A wall with shallow, dusty joints is quick to rake. One where the mortar has washed out deep, as it does on the elevation facing the south west weather, takes much longer, and the hours follow the depth.
The state of the faces. If an earlier repoint used a hard cement mortar, the brick faces may have spalled around it. Those bricks have to be cut out and replaced, and each one is priced.
Lime or cement. On an older solid wall, lime mortar is the right choice. It lets the wall breathe and it gives before the brick does. It is slower to work and slower to cure, and in cold or wet weather it needs covering, which adds time.
The platform. A cottage on the lane, a barn gable in the open and a chimney on a ridge are all different set-ups, and how long the scaffold stands matters as much as its size. The work at height rules are why that is its own line.
When comparing, ask how deep the joints will be raked, whether by hand or with a grinder, and exactly what mix is going in.
If water is getting in
Driven rain coming through open joints
Ring instead of sending a form. When the joints have washed out, driven rain goes straight through to the inside face of the wall and shows up as damp patches, often on the south west side. On a chimney it can get past the flashing too.
On the first visit we find where it is coming in, sheet the worst area or point it temporarily, and let the wall dry enough to see what is sound. After that Thomas prices the elevation. If the damp is low down after weeks of wet ground, say so, because that points somewhere else. We do scheduled work Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Urgent problems are a phone call, and missed calls get a reply as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
The winterbourne, and why the bottom of a wall goes first
The stream that gives the village its name is a winterbourne, which is to say it is not there all year. It fills as the chalk beneath it fills, usually around midwinter, runs hard through the spring and is gone by summer.
The water table moves with it, and so does the moisture against the bottom of every wall in the village. Parts of Winterborne Kingston also sit inside flood zones 2 and 3, and you can check an address on the government flood risk service.
What that changes is the mix and the order of work. The instinct on a wet, crumbling bottom course is to point it hard. It is the worst thing you can do: a dense cement joint stops the wall drying through the mortar, so the moisture and the salts come out through the brick faces instead. We point the low courses in the softest, most open mix on the building, following the standard guidance on preparing and using lime mortars, and damp the joints down and brush them back so the mix cures rather than flashing off. Timing counts too: low level work goes far better in late spring or summer, once the ground has dropped, than in February with the water still up. Ring us in midwinter about a wet plinth and we will often quote it and book it for the spring.
Who you are dealing with
Your repointing, priced by the owner
Thomas Hannen prices every repoint himself, raking a test joint and looking at your brick before he writes anything. His company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales as company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Winterborne Kingston, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Boscombe, where our base is, lies about 16.2 miles away, and we repoint in Winterborne Kingston and on towards Bere Regis, Milborne St Andrew, Winterborne Whitechurch and the lanes between them, broadly DT11, where Dorset Council is the authority. There is a verified 10 out of 10 from a customer on Checkatrade. You pay nothing for the visit or for the quote, which comes written and itemised.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Winterborne Kingston?
Most repairs in Winterborne Kingston 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 Winterborne Kingston |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Winterborne Kingston. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Winterborne Kingston, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Winterborne Kingston. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Winterborne Kingston. |
Questions
Questions about repointing in Winterborne Kingston
Why is the mortar worse at the bottom of our wall than higher up?
Because that is where the water is. A wall with no damp proof course draws moisture out of the ground, and here the ground is wet for much of the winter. The salts carried up with it crystallise in the joint and break it apart. The answer is the softest, most permeable mix on the building along that low band, treated as something you renew instead of sealing.
Does a village cottage really need lime, or is that just tradition?
It is how the wall was designed to work. A solid wall sheds water by letting it evaporate back out through the joint, which needs a mortar more open than the brick. Put cement on and the water leaves through the brick faces instead.
Somebody has already pointed our wall in cement. Can that come back off?
Usually, and it is worth doing properly. It comes out by hand, joint by joint, because the cement is often harder than the brick it is bonded to and a disc would take the arris off both sides. That is slower than a wall nobody has touched, so it shows as its own line on the quote.
Do we need consent to repoint a cottage near the church?
Only if the building is listed, or attached to one. Seven listed entries sit in Winterborne Kingston, and on any of them the mortar counts as protected fabric, so a change of mix, colour or joint profile needs listed building consent from Dorset Council first.
Will repointing make the inside of the wall drier?
If the damp is coming through open joints on the weather side, yes, and on a solid wall that is the commonest cause. If the wall is dry at head height and wet along the bottom, the water is coming up rather than through, and pointing alone will not stop it. We look at both faces and at the ground outside first.
Nearby, and next door
Repointing near Winterborne Kingston
Nearby places we also cover for repointing, with straight-line distances from Winterborne Kingston, and the other trades we offer in Winterborne Kingston itself.
Repointing nearby
Our other trades in Winterborne Kingston
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 Blandford Forum Repointing, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get the joints looked at before the ground comes up
Thomas comes out, scrapes a few joints high and low, photographs each elevation and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.