Repointing Yarmouth's older walls
Hard cement pointing taken back out, joints raked by hand and refilled in a matched lime, and the mix written down properly where a building is listed.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
In a town this size there are a great many listed entries, and on a listed wall the mortar mix and the joint finish are part of what is protected. So the first question on a Yarmouth repointing job is not what the wall needs. It is whether the address is listed, because that changes the programme as much as the mix.
Three things bring people to us here. Joints in the old streets gone friable, crumbling under a key. Brick or stone faces spalling off in plates, most often a few years after somebody pointed the wall in hard grey mortar. And penetrating damp on an inside wall, showing a day after the weather rather than during it.
None of that means a wall coming down. It is 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 deep the failure runs, courses are tapped for the hollow note that means the pointing has parted from the brick, and a sample of the sound original comes off a sheltered spot. It comes back as a written itemised quote with the faces we would leave alone marked as such, at no cost to you.
The work
Mortar repairs in the old streets and out towards the bungalows
Solid walls, and how far the joints come back. Nearly a third of the housing here predates 1919 and has nothing behind the face but more of the same wall. Those walls get rid of rain by evaporation through the joint, so the mortar has to stay softer and more open than the masonry. The joints come out by hand to about twice their width, or to sound material if that is shallower, and go back in lifts in an NHL lime or lime putty gauged against a sample. They are damped down first and brushed back once the mix has taken up, which leaves the wall breathable. BS EN 459 is the standard the binder is bought to and it is named on the quote. Victorian and Edwardian work behind the older frontages gets the same treatment.
Hard cement, taken out again. The commonest thing wrong with an old wall in this town is a repoint done in dense cement. the case against hard cement on soft masonry reads plainly on the wall: the joints stand proud and look almost new while the masonry between them crumbles. Cutting it back out is slow hand work with quirks and small chisels, and the angle grinder stays in the van because a disc cutter takes the arris off. Where the arris went with it, the replacement gets priced alongside.
Matching on a wall with several generations of repair. A frontage in the old part of town can carry three or four different mortars, laid down decades apart. We take the sample from the oldest sound material rather than the most recent patch, work out the sand, the gauge and the texture from it, and make up a trial panel on a discreet part of the wall for you to judge in daylight. Fresh mortar reads lighter than aged mortar, so the panel is judged on how it will look weathered.
Blown faces, cut out rather than filled. Filling a spalled hollow leaves a dark patch that never matches and drops out inside a couple of winters. The unit comes out whole and is turned where the back is sound, or replaced against a sample held on the wall. Anything needing sourcing is ordered before the platform goes up.
Parapets, copings and stacks. Every freestanding and parapet wall in the town fails from the top down. Rain gets into the bed joint under a coping, freezes and lifts it, and the wall then fills from above. Chimneys go the same way, with weather on four sides and nothing warming them from within, and open joints up there put water into the roof space.
The bungalow stock, where the mortar is cement. Better than a third of the dwellings here are single storey and postwar, hard fired brick in cement and sand, struck weather struck or bucket handle rather than the fine flush and slightly recessed joints of the old town. Most of a single storey elevation comes off a tower, which takes the biggest line out of a quote. Point one in soft lime because lime is what the old streets need and the joint wears back within a decade.
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 like for like is repair rather than development, so at an unlisted address here there is nothing to apply for and building control does not get involved. Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out where repair stops and alteration begins. The Isle of Wight Council is the planning authority. There is no conservation area covering the town, but there are 48 listed entries inside somewhere this small, which is why we check every address before quoting. On a listed building the mortar mix and the joint profile are part of what consent covers, so it has to be in place before a joint is opened and doing it without consent is a criminal offence. Where a wall is shared with next door the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 also puts a notice period on the work.
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 three storey frontage in the old streets, a bungalow out towards Bouldnor 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 this town that is usually a frontage facing the water or the top of a parapet, the parts with no shelter at all. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
On a listed wall the mortar is part of what consent covers
People are often surprised that repointing needs consent at all. It does, on a listed building, because the mix and the finish are part of the protected fabric rather than decoration applied to it. Changing a soft lime joint for a hard cement one, or a fine flush joint for a wide struck one, is an alteration to a listed building whatever it costs. Going ahead without consent is not a paperwork problem, it is an offence.
What that should change is your timetable and what you ask a contractor to write down. Consent takes weeks rather than days, so a wall noticed in the autumn is a spring job worth starting the paperwork on now. An application is far easier to deal with when it says something specific: which binder, what sand, what gauge, what depth the joints will be raked to, what profile the finish will be, and a photograph of a trial panel. That is what we put in writing anyway. If a wall is letting water in while consent is pending, it can be sheeted and protected without touching the fabric.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Yarmouth, Norton, Bouldnor, Freshwater, Totland and the western end of the Island, broadly PO40 and PO41, under the Isle of Wight 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
Yarmouth questions we get asked
How much does listed building consent add to the timetable?
Weeks rather than days, and that is the part worth planning around. It is why we would rather look at a wall in the autumn and put it in the diary for spring than have you find out in April that nothing can start. If the wall is letting water in meanwhile it can be sheeted without touching the fabric.
What does a conservation officer actually want to know about a mortar?
Specifics rather than reassurance. Which binder and at what gauge, what sand it is matched to, how deep the joints are raked and by what method, and what profile the finished joint will be. A photograph of a trial panel does more than any amount of description, and all of it is in our written quote.
Can the sheltered elevations be done while consent is pending?
Not on a listed building. Consent covers the fabric of the whole building, not the elevation you can see from the road, so get the application in early rather than starting round the back. On an unlisted address there is no such constraint and we work in whatever order suits the weather.
Our joints are wide and grey. Were they always like that?
On an older wall here, almost certainly not. The original joints on this masonry were fine and filled with a lime mortar coloured by a local sand, and a wide grey line usually means somebody raked the joint out further than it was and refilled it in cement. Putting that right improves the look as well as how the wall behaves.
Is a scaffold needed to point a two storey wall in the old streets?
Usually, yes. Pointing needs both hands and hours in one position, which is what a ladder is not for, and on a frontage over a narrow pavement the platform has to be signed and licensed. It goes on the quote as its own line so you can see what the access costs and what the mortar costs.
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Get the wall specified and the paperwork started
Thomas comes over, tests the joints, takes a mortar sample and puts the price in writing, itemised, at no cost to you.