Walk down almost any street in Rochdale, Oldham or Bury and you will see the same story: soot-stained sandstone, spalling brick, cement pointing cracking away and lintels that have been painted over one too many times. Most of this is fixable, but the right approach depends heavily on what your house is built from and what previous owners did to it. This guide covers what restoration actually involves, what it tends to cost around Greater Manchester, and the mistakes worth avoiding.
Facade restoration is the work of returning the front (and sometimes the side and rear) of a building to sound, weather tight condition using materials that suit the original construction. On most pre 1930s houses across Greater Manchester that means either Accrington or common red brick, or the local coal measures sandstone, both laid in lime mortar. The work rarely means one single job. It is usually a combination of cleaning, repointing, replacing failed units, sorting lintels and sills, and dealing with whatever cement or paint has been added over the decades.
The main thing to understand is that older walls were built to breathe. Lime mortar and soft stone absorb a little moisture and release it again. When hard cement pointing or masonry paint is added, that moisture gets trapped, freezes in winter and blows the face off the stone or brick. A lot of what we do around Rochdale is undoing well meant repairs from the 1970s and 1980s.
The weather on the Pennine side of Greater Manchester is harder on buildings than it is in south Manchester or Trafford. Higher rainfall, more freeze thaw cycles and driving rain on west and south west facing elevations means that facades on the same street can age very differently. Terraces in Milnrow, Littleborough, Whitworth and up towards Bacup are often built from sandstone that has weathered back 10 to 20mm from its original face on the exposed side while the sheltered side looks almost new.
Industrial soot is the other legacy. The black staining on stone cottages and mill era terraces is often only a few millimetres deep, and cleaning can transform a house. But cleaning also removes the protective skin the stone has formed, so it should be followed with repointing and any needed repairs rather than left as a stand alone job. Cleaning a wall and then leaving cement pointing in place is a common way to spend money and make things worse.
Costs vary a great deal because every facade is different, but for planning purposes a typical two storey terrace front around Greater Manchester falls into these sorts of ranges. Full repointing in lime on a brick terrace front usually comes in somewhere between £2,500 and £5,000. Sandstone fronts take longer because the joints are deeper and the stone needs more care, so £4,000 to £8,000 is more realistic. Steam cleaning a whole front is typically £800 to £2,000 depending on access and how bad the staining is. Individual stone indents cost anywhere from £150 to £400 each depending on size and how hard the matching stone is to source.
Scaffolding is a significant chunk of any front elevation job, often £600 to £1,500 for a standard terrace, and it makes sense to do all the work that needs doing while it is up rather than coming back in two years. A full restoration of a terrace front normally takes two to four weeks on site, and lime mortar needs mild, damp weather to cure properly, so most of this work is booked between April and October. Semi detached and detached houses with three or four elevations scale up accordingly.
Listed buildings and houses in conservation areas, of which Rochdale has several including parts of Littleborough and the town centre, may need listed building consent or a conversation with the council's conservation officer before certain work starts. It is worth checking early rather than being told to stop halfway through.
Ask what mortar will be used. If the answer is a bag of sand and cement, or the tradesperson cannot tell you the mix, that is a warning sign on any pre war brick or stone house. A proper answer for sandstone is usually a natural hydraulic lime, NHL 3.5 being common, with a sharp sand chosen to match the colour and texture of the original joints. Ask to see a small sample area of pointing before the whole front is done. Ask how joints will be raked out. Grinding with a disc is fast but chews the edges of brick and stone, particularly on narrow joints, and hand raking or careful use of a plugging chisel is the right answer on most older walls.
A good quote will also separate cleaning, repointing, replacement units and scaffolding so you can see where the money goes. Be cautious of anyone who wants to seal or waterproof the wall afterwards. On breathable masonry that usually causes the exact problem you paid to fix.
If the mortar joints are recessed more than about 10mm, crumbling when scratched with a key, or are hard grey cement with cracks around them, repointing is needed. Cleaning alone will make the wall look better for a while but will not stop water getting in.
Yes, and usually far better than cement does. Lime can be mixed with local sands to match colour and finished with the same style of joint as the original, whether that is flush, weather struck or tuck pointed.
Lime mortar should not be laid when temperatures are likely to drop below 5°C within a few days of the work, so November to February is usually avoided. Cleaning and stone replacement can sometimes go ahead in milder spells, but pointing is best planned for spring to autumn.
A quick chat is usually enough to establish whether your project is a good fit for Honeyman. Drawings, sketches or a postcode all welcome.