I have a small mid terraced Victorian house. The front was clad in some awful crumbling concrete render which was trapping damp, so recently I removed this myself with an sds. Drill and a lot of swearing. Underneath I was pleased to find the actual brickwork was in half decent condition, however the pointing was in need of a repair. I then set about painstakingly raking out myself, and finally called in a so-called professional to infill with mortar.
He quoted me £650 for 4 days work, repointing with mortar, which I thought was a fair-ish price for 4 days work and materials.
However this man has used concrete-based mortar, which I have now been told is not the best for Victorian houses? Also he actually turned up at 3pm over 4 days, and worked until 6pm. All in all, he spent around 15 hours repointing my house - £650 for that amount of work now seems ridiculous. The finish on the house is poor, the mortar. Is sticking out in places and does not look ‘neat.’ When I asked him about this he said ‘ah you just have to let it set for about 3 weeks then brick acid will sort that out’ - when I asked how this works he said it should ‘fizzle the edges off.’ I don’t feel like his Brickie knows what he is talking about, but it is too late as he has done the repointing and it looks a mess. I asked him if he will come back in a month when it is ‘dried’ properly to finish off and he said he would brick acid it for me, however I’m not confident this will sort the mess of a job out. I feel quite conned with the amount of time he actually spent doing the work and with the finish so far being so shoddy I don’t know what to do? See if he can fix it or call someone else out? It took me ages to rake out and it was a lot of effort!!
He quoted me £650 for 4 days work, repointing with mortar, which I thought was a fair-ish price for 4 days work and materials.
However this man has used concrete-based mortar, which I have now been told is not the best for Victorian houses? Also he actually turned up at 3pm over 4 days, and worked until 6pm. All in all, he spent around 15 hours repointing my house - £650 for that amount of work now seems ridiculous. The finish on the house is poor, the mortar. Is sticking out in places and does not look ‘neat.’ When I asked him about this he said ‘ah you just have to let it set for about 3 weeks then brick acid will sort that out’ - when I asked how this works he said it should ‘fizzle the edges off.’ I don’t feel like his Brickie knows what he is talking about, but it is too late as he has done the repointing and it looks a mess. I asked him if he will come back in a month when it is ‘dried’ properly to finish off and he said he would brick acid it for me, however I’m not confident this will sort the mess of a job out. I feel quite conned with the amount of time he actually spent doing the work and with the finish so far being so shoddy I don’t know what to do? See if he can fix it or call someone else out? It took me ages to rake out and it was a lot of effort!!
