Pointing is the mortar you can see between your bricks, and it is designed to wear out before the bricks do. Most London homes need repointing somewhere between every 40 and 60 years, but exposure, mortar type and past repairs can shorten that dramatically. Here is how to tell where your walls sit on that timeline.
Well executed pointing in a sheltered spot can last 50 to 60 years or more. On an exposed elevation, a chimney stack or a parapet wall, 20 to 30 years is more realistic because those areas take the full force of wind driven rain and repeated freeze thaw cycles.
Rather than working to a fixed schedule, get into the habit of walking around the house once a year, ideally after winter. Run a key gently along a few joints at different heights. If the mortar crumbles to powder or the key sinks in more than a few millimetres, that section is due attention even if the rest of the wall is sound.
You rarely need to repoint a whole house in one go. Failure is usually localised, so knowing what to look for lets you deal with small areas before water gets behind the brick face.
Water ingress is the real risk. Once rain tracks in through open joints, it can cause damp patches on internal walls and, in a hard frost, blow the faces off the bricks themselves. Replacing spalled bricks costs far more than repointing the joints that let the water in.
A huge proportion of North London homes, from Victorian terraces in Islington and Haringey to Edwardian semis in Enfield and Barnet, were built with soft lime mortar. Lime is slightly flexible and breathable, so moisture escapes through the joints rather than through the bricks.
Repointing these walls with a hard modern cement mortar traps moisture in the brick, and it is one of the most common causes of spalling we see. If your home predates roughly 1930, insist on a lime based mix matched to the original. It costs a little more in materials and time but it is the difference between pointing that protects the wall and pointing that slowly destroys it.
As a rough guide, expect somewhere between 40 and 70 pounds per square metre for standard repointing in London, with lime work and heritage finishes such as tuck pointing sitting at the higher end or above. A single elevation on a typical terrace might run from around 1,500 pounds, while a full house is usually a four figure job well into the thousands.
The final price depends on access, since scaffolding for gables and chimneys adds real cost, plus the depth of raking out required, the mortar specification and how much brick replacement is needed. Be wary of very cheap quotes; skimping on raking out the old mortar to a proper depth of around 15 to 20mm means the new pointing simply falls off within a few years.
Yes, and it is often the sensible approach since pointing fails unevenly. A good brickworker will match the new mortar colour and joint profile to the existing work so patches blend in as they weather.
Spring to early autumn is ideal, as fresh mortar should not be applied in frost or extreme heat. Lime mortar in particular needs mild, damp conditions to cure properly, so late autumn and winter work usually needs protection or is best postponed.
A small patch repair may take a day, a single elevation on a terraced house typically takes two to four days, and a whole property with scaffolding can take one to two weeks. Raking out the old mortar properly is the slow part, and rushing it is the main cause of premature failure.
Tell us about the job and we will quote within 48 hours.
North London brickwork. Two trowels, one company, on every job from start to finish.