Lime repointing, 1910 London house

[WimWam]

House is circa 1910, London yellow stock bricks. Original pointing is quite a light colour. I seen and been quoted for repointing in lime ranging up to around £50/sqm with a 'weather struck' finish.

I'm also contemplating doing this myself, with some ready mix products like Limetec or similar with an NHL3.5 mix for the wall, and a stronger NHL5 for the chimney and flaunching. Having looked at many demonstrations on youtube etc of weather struck finish where the mortar is pushed in and quickly ironed off and cut, I've noticed that it appears to be at odds with how many of the Lime specialist videos do lime pointing - that is, by knocking it into the space with a churn brush after the mortar has stiffened up to 'fingernail imprint' level, leaving an open textured finish nothing like the struck finish.

So it seems you can't have both? - knocking in with churn brush, and brushing clean suggests you cannot then put a struck finish on it. I'm starting to think that this house shouldn't have an struck finish at all, and have the more traditional open brushed finish. Is that how it originally would have looked? It's hard to find a local example that has the original pointing to check.

Any tips? What is a reasonable cost per sqm for pointing not including raking out ?

 

[opps]

I recently painted the exterior of a house that had just been re-pointed using lime. The client had specified lime cement. The pointer (Colin) weatherstruck the pointing and then used chemicals and a pressure washer to remove any residue from the red rubber bricks.

I really must say, his work is stunning. I can walk around Ealing and guess which houses he has pointed. His attention to detail is highly commendable. I have no idea how much he charges. I recently recommended him to one of my customers. The house has red rubbers at the front and yellow stocks on the side. Initially he was only supposed to do the front but the client was so pleased with the finish that he decided to pay an additional £20K for the side elevation. The process involved pressure washing the bricks with chemicals to clean them, followed by raking out, replacing bricks as required and then re-pointing. The client then coerced his neighbour (semi-detached house) to pay Colin to point his house as well. If you live in west London I can give you Colin's number, be warned, he seldom strays far from Ealing. if you are on the other side of London, there is no point contacting him.

I have no idea what your skill set is but if you want a high quality weatherstruck finish then you might want to pay someone to do it unless you are happy to spend days just doing perps.

 

[stuart45]

A lot of houses in London do have the weather struck and cut type of pointing on the London stocks. It probably looks better than the other types of pointing with this type of brick.
Having a flush joint can also look OK, although I have seen some real eyesores done in lime mortar, where the old red bricks suddenly had massive bright white joints.

 

[WimWam]

Right. But what I really don’t understand is the discrepancy between the traditional approach where you add the mortar, leave it harden a bit, then come back to wack it in with a churn brush and brush off. If you do this, it would seem impossible to then strike and trim the mortar which is done (as I understand it) almost immediately.

The weather struck technique I see performed has no waiting and wacking phase to push and compact the mortar into the joint.

Are these techniques mutually exclusive or is there some variation where both are performed?

 

[bobasd]

glaring pointing makes a house look like something from the fair.
the problem if its brushed, flush pointing is the rough grained surface will collect pollution from rainwater, and it will disfigure a good joint - i'd go for firmly struck bucket handle pointing, not perfect but its quick, low skilled, and works in most cases.