Most people have never had a house repointed and don't know what they're letting the street in for. This is the honest version: it's noisy for the first day or two, it's dusty, and then it's quiet, and a typical semi is done inside a week.
How long it takes
- A chimney stack: one to two days including access.
- A gable end: two to three days.
- A full semi-detached house, all elevations: five to eight working days in cement, longer in lime because it's slower to lay and needs protecting.
- A garden wall or patio: usually a day.
Lime work and exposed sites depend on the weather — see best time of year to repoint. We'll give you a start date and a realistic finish, and we don't leave a job half-done to start another.
Access: tower or scaffold
Most two-storey houses are done from an alloy tower, which we bring and move along the elevation as we go. It costs you nothing extra and goes up and down the same day. Three-storey houses, steep roofs, chimneys in awkward positions and anything over a conservatory or a neighbour's extension may need a fixed scaffold, which is quoted separately and usually stays up for the job. We use a tower with edge protection on chimneys rather than roof ladders — nobody is working off a ladder.
Dust, noise and mess
Raking out is the messy part. We use grinders with dust extraction, but there is still dust, and it's noisy — the first day or two on each elevation is the loud part. We sheet the ground, windows and anything below the wall, clean up every day and take the waste away. Once the raking's done, the pointing itself is quiet.
Things worth doing before we arrive:
- Move cars off the drive or away from the wall we're working on.
- Take anything precious off windowsills on the inside of the walls being done — the vibration from raking out can shift ornaments.
- Cover or move pots and plants at the base of the wall. We sheet them, but they're happier out of the way.
- Tell the neighbours if the wall is on a boundary; we'll speak to them too and get access agreed if we need to stand on their side.
- Close the windows on that elevation. Dust gets in through trickle vents, so tape those if you're bothered.
While it's curing
New pointing needs leaving alone. We'll keep it sheeted or damp as the weather demands; please don't pressure-wash it, paint it, hang baskets off it or let anyone pick at it for the first couple of weeks. Lime stays soft for longer and is sheeted for a week or more on exposed walls. The pointing will look lighter than the rest of the house at first and darken over the coming months.
Afterwards
We take the tower and sheeting away, clear the ground and walk round with you. If anything isn't right we sort it before we're paid. Every job carries our 10-year written guarantee, and you'll have Scott's number if anything comes up later.
