Does your pointing need doing?
A short guide to looking at your own wall. What to check, what’s urgent and what can wait, so you can work out whether to get anyone in at all.
Look at it in this order
- The joints first. Rub one with your finger. Good pointing is firm. If it crumbles, it has gone.
- The bricks next. Flaking, blown or ‘spalled’ faces mean water has been getting in and freezing in the wall.
- Then the top. Parapets, copings and chimney heads take the weather first, and they are usually the source of a damp patch two metres below them.
- The damp last. A damp patch inside is usually water getting in above it, not water getting in at the level of the patch.
What’s urgent and what isn’t
Pointing that has gone sandy and is coming away in your hand wants doing before the frost gets at it. Water sitting in open joints, freezing and pushing the face off the brick, is how a small repair turns into a big one.
Pointing that’s sound but faded can wait. At that point it’s a cosmetic job, and we’ll tell you when it is.