Repointing

How to tell whether yours needs doing

• Mortar coming away in your hand, or joints gone soft and sandy.
• Cracks running along the joints, or joints that have fallen out altogether.
• Water getting in. Damp patches inside, or blown plaster on an inside wall.
• The face of the brick flaking or dropping away, which usually means the mortar has been letting water sit in the wall.
• A wall that was pointed in hard grey cement at some point and is now trapping water instead of letting the wall dry out.
• The same repairs coming back every year, an area at a time, rather than doing the run of wall once.

How we do it

We rake the old mortar out by hand, deep enough to give the new mortar something to key into.

The mortar gets mixed to suit the wall, not the other way round. Colour, mix and joint profile are matched to what’s already there, so the repair sits in the wall instead of announcing itself.

We point a sample panel on your own wall first, so you can see the colour and the finish against your own bricks before we go any further. The wall gets brushed down as we go, not washed down.

We don’t pressure-wash a wall to make it look new. It drives water into the brick and lifts the face off old masonry.

What to watch for in a quote

• A hard cement mortar on an older, softer brick wall. It’s stronger than the brick, so the brick takes the movement and the weather, and once the faces have gone they can’t be put back.
• Pointing over the top of failed mortar without raking it out. It looks well for a season and then falls off.
• A joint struck too flat or too proud, which either traps water or holds it against the brick.
• Pressure-washing afterwards to clean up. It does more damage than the washing is worth.

What it costs

Repointing is priced by the square metre for a run of wall, or by the day for small areas and repairs. What moves the price is the area, the height and how you get to it, how far the joints have gone, and how many bricks need replacing while we’re there.

You get a written price with the work broken down. The price guide explains the bands and what moves them.