Not everything is a plot or an extension. Garages, garden and boundary walls, retaining walls, piers and gate posts, forming and closing openings, repointing, rebuilding a wall that has moved, and the run of smaller masonry jobs that most outfits will not turn out for. Same setting out, same standard of joint, on a garden wall as on an elevation.
Built off a proper foundation with movement joints and piers where the height and length need them, capped or coped to shed water, and where the wall retains ground, drained behind rather than left to hold water. Most failed garden walls failed because of what was under or behind them.
Single and double garages, workshops and outbuildings in brick and block, from the footings to the wall plate, with the openings and lintels set out for the door you have actually chosen rather than a standard size.
New windows and doors cut into existing walls with proper propping, lintels and padstones, and old openings closed up and toothed in so they do not read as a patch from the garden. Cavities closed and DPC maintained around every new reveal.
Failed pointing raked out to a real depth and repointed in a mortar that suits the brick, cracked or bulged sections rebuilt, and bad previous repairs put right. Hard cement pointing on a soft old brick does more damage than no pointing at all, so the mix gets matched to the wall.
Not really, though small jobs get grouped into the diary rather than dropped in the middle of a plot programme, so there may be a wait. Ring and we will tell you honestly when we could get to it instead of taking the job and then not turning up.
Yes, and it is the single most common corner cut on walls built by other people. A wall of any height needs a concrete foundation below ground, and above a certain height it needs piers and movement joints too. A wall built straight onto a path will move.
Yes. The important part is the mix: modern hard cement mortar on a soft old brick traps moisture and blows the face off the brick over a few winters. Older solid walls usually want a softer, more forgiving mortar, and we will match it to the wall rather than to the bag that was already in the van.
Yes, once we know why it moved. A crack is a symptom, and rebuilding it without dealing with the cause just means it cracks again. Sometimes that is a missing movement joint, sometimes it is a foundation or a drain, and occasionally it needs an engineer to look before anyone lays a brick.
Regularly. A lot of what we do is bricklaying for main contractors and builders who need a reliable gang on the walls while they run the rest of the job. Ring with the drawings and the dates.
Based in Watford and out across Hertfordshire and north west London most days, so a look at your job is rarely more than a couple of days away. Development and plot packages are taken on nationwide.
Send the drawings or a few photos over and we will price it up.