The bricks at the bottom of my wall are crumbling. Why?
That is spalling: the bricks sit wet at ground level, frost freezes the water in their faces and blows them apart, and once the face is off they soak even faster. The lasting fix is to cut out the affected courses and rebuild them in engineering brick, which is dense enough that water cannot get in. We have done exactly this, bottom three courses out and engineering brick in, and it stops the problem for good.
What is engineering brick and why use it?
A much denser, harder-fired brick with very low water absorption, the blue-black or deep red bricks you see on bridges and below damp courses. At ground level, below DPC and anywhere that stays wet, it outlasts ordinary facing brick by decades. It is the right material for the bottom of a wall taking splash and frost.
Can you match the mortar colour on my house?
Yes, and it matters more than people expect. Sand choice and mix ratio set the colour, and a repair pointed in the wrong mortar shows forever. We match against a cleaned joint, and on older stone and brick around the Dales we use appropriately soft mixes so the mortar weathers instead of the masonry.
My garden wall is leaning. Can it be saved?
Depends how far gone it is. A slight lean with sound joints can stand for years; a wall cracked through, hollow-jointed or moving at the top is a take-down-and-rebuild, usually reusing the brick. We look, tell you which it is and price the honest option.
Do you do small brickwork jobs?
Yes. A blown course, a rebuilt pier, a repointed gable, small jobs are welcome and quoted the same way as big ones. Plenty of larger work starts with us proving ourselves on a small one.
