How much to rebuild this brick wall?

[ProfessorDent]

One builder said it would be a grand, using new bricks (which might be hard to match...)

I posted on this a while back, and someone said you can reuse the old bricks easily enough. (Couldn't find the thread hence this new one).

One passer-by brickie quoted me £350 or thereabouts. Another passer-by, £750. Bottom of wall with tarmac needs doing to, the base is off. Railings need refitting, though they are not damaged.

I have asked for three quotes from reputable guys who seemed interested and just never got back to me, otherwise most likely it would be done by now! Guess this is normal..?

re-using bricks is very hard when cement mortar has to be chipped off.

If the wall is a hundred years old or so, lime mortar will probably have been used, it is soft and easier to scrape off, though labour-intensive.

An old wall may have very poor footings so you may need to dig it out and pour a new concrete foundation.

That wall looks quite small to me so if you can't match the bricks with old ones, I would knock it down and re-do the whole wall in new bricks of uniform or randomised colour.

BTW if you use new bricks that seem to match, when they have aged they will change and no longer match.

I presume somebody drove a car into it.

Look at recent samples of similar work by anyone offering to do it, and verify with the homeowner who did the work.

Thanks Piglet John. The wall isn't that old, probably a few decades, certainly around 50 years old.

BTW is it easy to get the builder to match the bricks? I mean, there is a brick matching website, but one builder (who never got back to me) said it would be impossible to do. Not looking for a perfect match, just same ballpark, sort of orangey.

Yes, someone left the handbrake off their car, parked in the sloped driveway opposite.

if the wall is patched in new bricks, it will always look like a patch.

Far better to take it down and do the who thing again.