Repointing and brick face repairs in Wool
Eroded joints raked back and refilled in a matched mix, spalled faces cut out, and stacks repointed, across Wool, Bovington and East Burton.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Most of Wool went up in one long stretch after the war, so most of the brickwork in the village is the same age, was laid in the same cement and sand mortar, and is arriving at the same stage together. That decides what goes back into the joints more than anything else about your house.
People here ring us about three things. Joints on a gable eroded back at the arris until the wall looks grooved, crumbling under a key. Brick faces spalling off in thin plates, usually low down or under a sill. And penetrating damp on an inside wall, turning up a day after the weather rather than while it rains.
None of that is a wall coming down. It is all mortar, priced elevation by elevation. The site visit is a survey rather than a look: every face gets gone over, joints are scraped to see how far back the decay runs, and courses are tapped for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick. It comes back as a written itemised quote with the faces we would leave alone marked as such. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
The joints we get called to around the village
Postwar cavity brickwork. Most of the housing here is a single outer skin of fired brick in cement and sand, struck weather struck or bucket handle. It does not wash out the way an old lime joint does: it pits and erodes back at the arris, water stands in the hollow that leaves, and one hard frost lifts the surface off in flakes. The repair is to rake back to sound material, roughly twice the joint width, with the angle grinder left in the van because a disc cutter takes the arris off. The joints are damped down and brushed out before filling, and the mix is matched to the original for sand, gauge, colour and texture rather than colour alone. Plenty of mortar from that period had lime in it as well as cement, and matching that gauge is the difference between a joint that lasts and one that outlives the brick.
The older end of the village. A smaller share of Wool predates 1919 and is solid wall, one thickness with no cavity, sometimes brick and sometimes rubble stone with brick dressings. Those walls stay breathable by drying through the joint, so they get an NHL lime or lime putty matched to the original sand, as a Victorian or Edwardian wall anywhere would, and BS EN 459 is the standard the binder is bought against. Nothing shortens the life of one faster than hard cement pointing, and where that has been done we take it back out by hand.
Spalled faces, cut out rather than filled. Filling a blown face with mortar leaves a dark patch that never matches and drops out in a couple of winters. We cut the brick out whole and turn it where the back is sound, or replace it against a sample held on the wall. On this stock the damage gathers just above the damp proof course where rain splashes back off a path, and under sills and beside downpipes.
Stacks, and the joints nobody can see. A chimney has weather on four sides and nothing warming it from inside, so its mortar goes friable and washes out long before the house walls need anything. That is the failure that costs the most, because open joints on a stack put water into the roof space and it comes out as a stain on a ceiling. It wants a scaffold rather than a tower, so everything up there is worth doing in one visit.
Garden and boundary walls. Freestanding walls take weather on both faces and have no roof over them, so they fail from the top down. A lifted coping or an open bed joint lets the wall fill from above and the faces start letting go. Rebedding the top and repointing the first few courses is quick work next to a rebuild.
The finish, and matching it. The profile goes back as the wall carries it, which on this stock is usually bucket handle or weather struck rather than the fine flush or slightly recessed joints of older property. We make up a trial panel on a discreet part of the wall for you to look at in daylight.
The one job we turn down is pointing over movement. Cracking that steps along the joints every few courses is a footing or a corroded tie talking, not tired mortar, and filling it hides that for a season.
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.
Repointing on a like for like basis is repair rather than development, so there is no planning application and nothing for building control to sign off. Appearance is where it changes. Wool has its own conservation area and nine listed entries, and on a listed wall the mortar mix and the joint finish are part of the protected fabric, so listed building consent has to be in place before a joint is opened. Inside the conservation area a like for like repoint is maintenance while a change of colour or profile is not. Dorset Council holds both maps, and we check an address before anybody starts.
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 semi with a gable taking all the weather, a bungalow off a tower and a garden wall are three different set ups before a joint is raked. 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 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 the worst if the weather is against us, and price the elevation once it has dried enough to see what is sound. In the village that is nearly always a south west facing gable or a stack. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
One cohort of walls, all reaching the same stage together
Something over half of the housing in Wool was built between 1945 and 1982, the busiest years in the seventies and early eighties. Whole roads went up inside a few seasons of each other, to one specification, in one mortar. That has a consequence people do not expect: the walls are not failing at random, they are failing together, and when one house in a run needs its west gable done the neighbours are usually within a year or two of the same thing.
Two things follow. The first is that this is the wrong stock to specify lime on. Lime is right on a solid wall built to breathe and quietly wrong on hard fired postwar brick, where a soft joint erodes back faster than the wall it is in. Anyone quoting lime for a nineteen seventies gable without taking a sample is selling a story rather than matching a wall. The second is worth a conversation over the fence: if two or three houses need the same elevation done, access is the part of the price that does not get cheaper by being split up, and one platform standing once is a different job from the same platform standing three times. We are happy to quote neighbouring properties separately off one visit.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Wool, Bovington, East Burton, Winfrith Newburgh, Coombe Keynes and the villages along the Frome, broadly BH20, under Dorset Council. 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
Wool questions we get asked
Would lime be an upgrade on a postwar gable?
It would be the wrong material rather than a better one. Lime belongs on a solid wall that has to breathe through its joints. A postwar cavity wall is hard fired brick in cement and sand, and a soft lime joint in it wears back faster than the brick either side. That wall wants a mix matched to the original for sand and gauge, sitting just under the strength of the brick. We take a sample before quoting.
The joints look worn but nothing is falling out. Is it due yet?
Get a key in one and see. If the mortar is sound a few millimetres back, you have time. If it crumbles under a light scrape, or a course sounds hollow when you tap along it, the pointing has parted from the brick and water is already getting behind. We test joints at low level on the visit and tell you which elevations can wait.
Why is the mortar sandy on one gable and fine everywhere else?
Because that gable takes the weather and the others do not. On this side of Dorset the driving rain comes from the south west, so one face of a house can be a decade ahead of the sheltered sides. It is why we price by elevation rather than by building, and why doing the exposed face on its own is often the answer.
Our neighbour has the same wall and the same problem. Can you look at both?
Yes, and on a pair or a terrace here it usually makes sense, because so many of these walls are the same age and at the same stage. Access is the part of the price that does not shrink when a job is split up. We look at both properties on one visit and give each of you your own written quote.
What is bucket handle pointing, and does it have to go back?
A joint pressed into a shallow curve with a rounded tool, and what most postwar brickwork here carries. It sheds water well and compacts the surface of the mortar as it is struck, which is half the reason it lasts. It should go back as it was, partly because it works and partly because a wall with two profiles on it is obvious from the pavement.
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Find out which elevations are actually due
Thomas comes out, tests the joints, photographs every face and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.