Property News

Property Pointing – Protecting Your Property’s Most Important Structural Aspect

Posted on by Higher End Construction
27
Sep

Probably the most important aspect of your property is it’s structural integrity. When your property’s structure is compromised, it can lead to a range of internal and external issues which can be expensive to resolve and, ultimately, catastrophic to your home as a whole. That’s why maintaining your buildings pointing and rendering is so important.

At Higher End Construction, we’ve been helping homeowners with essential pointing and rendering services across the North West for many years, and we have built a range of experience to help with pretty much any brickwork issue that you may be faced with.

But the question we’re looking at today is… how important is pointing when it comes to how sound your property is?

Mortar Damage – Causing Serious Issues with Your Property’s Structure

The mortar between the bricks on your property normally accounts for between 10% and 15% of the structure of the wall. It’s what binds the brickwork together, creating the “glue” that holds the bricks together. However, over time mortar can perish – especially here in the UK with the changes in weather between the seasons.

Heavy rain and wind can take a serious toll on the mortar in your brickwork – and when it does and that pointing gets damaged and eventually perishes it can cause serious issue with the bricks, as well as create gaps and spaces where not only rain, but also sand, dirt and even animals and insects can get through the gaps and into cavities of your walls – causing further damage such as damp.

But it’s not just the weather that can cause mortar damage. If you property is near where a lot of heavy traffic passes by, this too can cause issues… heavy traffic can cause your property to “shake” and this in turn has a knock on effect on any weak mortar (or even mortar that was made incorrectly to begin with).

When the weather takes a serious turn for the worse and freezes, water in the joints can freeze and expand – causing further damage to mortar and brickworks.

Unfortunately, serious damage to mortar causes brickwork to shift – which longer term can create issues with lintels, window and door frames, window sills and even roofs which, if left unresolved, can lead to large, expensive repairs to your property which could have been avoided by cheaper pointing repair options.

What Is Property Pointing?

Put simply, pointing is repairing the damaged and perished mortar between the brickwork of your property. Pointing may involve replacing damaged bricks caused by the effects of the mortar being perished.

To repair the damage, the perished or defective mortar is removed, normally by hand or with a power tool and then replaced with fresh mortar.

In some cases, only small areas of mortar needs to be repaired – but in most cases it could be that a larger section or even an entire wall needs to be repointed – simply because it is often difficult to ascertain the full extent of the damage – sometimes, mortar perishes from the back and isn’t visible until it’s too late.

In more serious cases, an entire property may have to be re-pointed due to the seriousness of the damage caused or the age of the mortar.

What Are The Advantages To Having My House Pointed?

There are many advantages to have your house pointed incuding:

  • Improving and maintaining the structural integrity of your property. The exterior skeleton of your home is the walls and these pretty much are the majority of the structure of your house. Having a properly pointed property means that there is less likely to be damage caused such as walls collapsing, frameworks dropping and even the roof collapsing – which could all be caused by a serious shift in the properties brickwork.
  • Repointing is quicker and less invasive than a serious repair. Simple repointing can be done in a matter of hours / days (dependent on the scope of the work) – all of which can be done externally.
  • Improves the properties aesthetics. Unfortunately, damaged pointing and brickwork can often be noticeable, and make your property look tired, old and unloved. Sound brickwork improves the look of your home!
  • Reducing and removing the need for expensive repairs further down the line. By maintaining your brickworks mortar, you’re reducing the risk of having a much larger issue sometime in the future – and ultimately, a large repair bill.
  • Repointing can increase the value of your property. By having strong, secure walls free from damage can actually increase the value of your property if you ever come to sell. New purchasers are unlikely to want to spend additional money on repairing brickwork.

How Much Does Pointing Cost?

It’s difficult to give an accurate cost without assessing the property in question. Every house is different, and every pointing job to every house is therefore different. Some properties only need a small pointing repair, others could require the entire property to be repaired.

However, compared to a more serious repair where pointing also be required, for example, we wouldn’t replace a damage window frame causes by brickwork damage until the brickwork itself was sound, then the price is considerably cheaper.

For example, a complete re-roof of a property caused by structural damage could run the risk of costing many thousands, if not tens of thousands of pounds. A damaged window frame, whilst in itself not an expensive job, would be more expensive due to the other repair work to the brickwork required. And the cost of taking down an exterior wall and rebuilding it is considerably higher than just external pointing!

Higher End Construction – The Property Pointing Specialists

We’ve helped customers across the North West with their property pointing requirements, and have a wide range of experience in this area, along with our other range of property and building services.

We cover the whole of North West and provide:

Higher End Construction