CRF Services Ltd

Repointing and small brick wall repairs

Mortar is meant to be the weak point in a wall. It wears away so the bricks do not have to, and when the joints have crumbled back far enough, rain gets in, frost pushes the face off the bricks and the wall starts to look tired. Repointing puts fresh mortar back into those joints. CRF Services Ltd takes on repointing and brick repairs on a small scale around Rochester and Medway: garden walls, low level brickwork, piers either side of a gate and a handful of damaged bricks. Anything structural or high up on a house is passed to a specialist.

Get a free quote Call Danny

What size of job this covers

Repointing here means areas you can work on safely from the ground or a low platform. A front garden wall along the pavement, the brick plinth below a fence, a raised bed, a pier that holds a gate or the bottom few courses of a house wall where splashback has eaten the mortar are all typical. Whole elevations, chimney stacks, gable ends and anything that needs a full scaffold are not taken on.

If a wall is leaning, bulging, cracked right through or has moved away from the house, it needs a structural assessment first. Fresh pointing on a moving wall only hides the problem for a season. In those cases you will be told plainly that the job is for someone else.

Garden and boundary walls in need of fresh joints
Low brickwork under fences, gates and bay windows
Brick piers and the caps on top of them
Raised beds and planters built in brick
Replacing a few spalled or cracked bricks
Resetting loose coping bricks on a low wall

How a wall is repointed

The old mortar is raked out to a consistent depth, usually until sound mortar is reached, without chipping the edges of the bricks. The joints are brushed out and dampened so the new mortar does not dry too fast. Fresh mortar is pressed in firmly in layers, then finished to the joint profile that suits the wall, whether flush, bucket handle or weathered. The face is brushed off once the mortar has stiffened, and the work is protected from hard sun, heavy rain and frost while it cures.

Matching the colour of old mortar takes a little trial. A small test patch is mixed and left to dry, because wet mortar always looks darker than it will end up.

Lime or cement mortar

Older Rochester and Medway walls, especially those in soft red stock bricks, were often built in lime mortar. Lime stays slightly flexible and lets moisture out through the joints. Repointing those walls in hard cement mortar traps the damp in the bricks, and the faces then flake off instead of the joints. Where a wall was built in lime, it is repointed in lime. Newer walls in harder bricks can take a cement based mix. The choice is explained at the quotation stage, along with the extra curing care lime needs.

Replacing spalled bricks

A spalled brick is one where the face has blown off, usually from frost getting into a damp brick. A few of these can be cut out and replaced with a matching brick, set in fresh mortar and pointed to match the rest. Reclaimed bricks are often the closest match on older walls. Where a lot of bricks are spalling, the cause, such as a missing coping, a blocked drain or soil piled against the wall, is worth sorting first.

Repointing costs

No fixed prices are shown for repointing. The square metres involved, the mortar type, how deep the old joints need raking, access and the number of bricks to replace all affect the quote. The repointing cost guide explains each factor. Repointing sits within general building. For a quote, send photos of the wall and a rough length and height through the contact page.

This work is part of our General Building service.

Common questions