Repointing walls in Woodlands and Netley Marsh

The low courses, and what belongs in them. This is where walls out in Woodlands usually go first. A wall standing in ground that stays damp is drawing water up through its bottom courses all year, and whatever salts come with it crystallise as the wall dries and break the mortar and the brick faces apart from the inside.

The joints at the bottom of the wall are the route that water leaves by, so they get pointed in an open, absorbent mix that is deliberately weaker than anything higher up. Sealing that band with a dense mortar or a waterproofer does not stop the damp, it moves it, and it usually reappears a metre higher as penetrating damp on the inside face, where the wall is harder to repair.

Weathered elevations on post-war walls. Getting on for half the housing in Woodlands went up between 1945 and the early eighties, the busiest stretch of it in the late fifties and early sixties. That is cavity work with a fired brick outer skin, and the joints on it pit and open at the arris rather than washing out, with the perpends going before the bed joints. Those get a matched cement and sand mortar gauged to sit under the strength of the brick, raked back by hand to sound material at a depth of about twice the joint width, never with an angle grinder, and struck to the profile the wall already carries, usually weather struck or bucket handle rather than flush or recessed. The joints are damped down before filling and brushed back once the mix has taken up.

Older solid walls, in lime. Close to a fifth of the property in Woodlands predates 1919, and there is a similar amount of inter-war building alongside it. A pre-1919 wall has no cavity, sheds water by evaporating it back out through the joint and has to stay breathable, so it gets an NHL, a natural hydraulic lime, with a sand matched to the period original, hand raked to about twice the joint width, damped down, filled in lifts and protected while it cures. Nothing ruins one of those walls faster than a hard cement repoint, and undoing it is slow hand work.

Spalled faces and blown plinths. Where a face has blown we cut the brick out whole and replace or turn it against a sample held on the wall, with a trial panel for you to look at in daylight where the match matters, judged on how it will read with a few years of weathering on it rather than on the day it goes up. Spalling like that is the end of a long process, not a sudden fault. Out in Woodlands the damage gathers in the same places every time: the courses just above ground level, under a sill, beside a downpipe, and along the bottom of anything with a path or a gravel bed laid up tight against it.

Boundary walls and copings under the trees. Plots in Woodlands are large and the dividing walls are long, old and sitting on very little. They take weather on both sides, they stand in leaf litter that holds damp against the brick, and a wall whose coping has gone loose fills with water through the top. Repointing the top courses and getting the coping rebedded so it throws rain clear is the repair that stops the rest of it.

Stacks. A stack stands in clear air with weather on four sides and nothing warming it from inside, so it carries the tiredest mortar on the house. Repointing above the flashing, cutting out perished brick and renewing the flaunching round the pots is usually all it needs. It is work at height, so the platform, tower or scaffold, is its own line on the quote.

The area of the wall tells you little until somebody has looked at the joints. Reaching it. A detached house set back on its plot needs a scaffold for the upper courses and the chimney. A bungalow comes off a tower or the ground. A long garden wall under trees needs no platform, but everything is carried to it. The work at height rules set the platform, and it is priced as its own line.

Depth and condition. How far the joints have to be raked out, and whether the brick faces have already spalled, decide the hours. On the damp, shaded side of a house under trees, joints wash out and the faces flake sooner.

The right mortar. The fifties and sixties houses in Woodlands are in hard brick and take a cement-based mix. The pre-1919 cottages need lime. A mix that is too strong on soft brick traps water and a hard frost takes the face off. Matching the colour and texture takes time too.

Where it starts. A stack with open joints can also need new lead flashings, which is a roofing line on the quote.

Ask any other quote: how deep are the joints raked, by hand or by disc? What mix is being used, and is it matched to the old? Is the scaffold included?

Part of this village sits in flood zone 2 and the nearest watercourse runs about forty metres from the housing, which most people already know. What it means for mortar is less obvious. A wall does not have to flood to be affected by ground that stays wet.

It only has to stand in it. Water rises through the bottom courses by capillary action, brings dissolved salts with it, and then evaporates off the face, leaving those salts crystallising in the pores of the brick and in the mortar joint. That crystal growth is what breaks the material apart, and it is why the damage on walls out in Woodlands starts low and works up rather than starting at the stack. the national flood map will show you the position for a given address.

The decision it changes is what goes into the bottom metre of the wall. The instinct is to point the worst looking part hardest, and on a wall standing in wet ground that is precisely wrong. A dense joint at low level stops the water leaving where it is doing least harm and pushes it higher, where the brickwork is drier, more brittle and more visible. So the low courses get a softer, more open mortar than the rest of the elevation, and they are treated as a sacrificial band that will be renewed again one day rather than as something to be sealed permanently. Ask anyone quoting whether they intend to use the same mix top to bottom, and if they do, ask why. We also look at what is standing against the wall outside, because a raised bed, a gravel path or a downpipe emptying beside a plinth will undo the pointing whatever mix goes into it.

We repoint across Woodlands, Netley Marsh, Ashurst and the SO40 edge of the Forest through Bartley and Cadnam. The drive over from our Boscombe base is 17.8 miles. Any consent you need comes from the Park Authority, and building regulations from New Forest District Council.

The business is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales as company number 15471719. The business belongs to Thomas Hannen, who looks at your joints himself before writing a price. A verified Checkatrade customer rated us 10 out of 10. Coming out costs you nothing, and the written quote, with each line broken out, is free as well. Before you book a visit in Woodlands, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Woodlands 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.