Re-pointing the house next week

[NovaScot]

I'm having my house re-pointed next week. Does this make a really horrible mess? Will my windows be filthy? Will there be any damage on the inside (no cavity, solid wall)?

The builder doing it is on holiday this week so I can't ring him for information.

Fuck, I fucking hate having work done in my house.

I think it will be messy - they have to scrape out the old pointing before being able to renew it. I would keep you windows and doors closed. I dont see why it would impact the walls inside though. If you have close neighbours i would warn them too - but they might be putting up scaffolding and screening the house to stop the dust spreading.

Thanks @bilbodog

Looks like I'll be up a ladder the following week cleaning all my bastard windows then.

The neighbours are aware but I might buy them wine if it's particularly messy.

Fortunately there's no scaffolding going up for this.

Provided builder knows what he is doing, no mess, depends where your windows are but I'd say minimal that your windows are filthy unless he's working above a window, and no damage on the inside
Plenty of You Tube videos eg to explain process

Sounds like you are only having a small amount done - i had visions of the whole house! Probably wont be too messy then.

I'm having the whole of the back done and half the front so it's quite a bit.

Really appreciate the reassurances on here. I was mostly worried about my coving being damaged inside

I don't think it will damage inside but it can be messy outside. The loose, old mortar will need to be scraped back / removed... there are two ways of doing this - chipping it out with a chisel by hand (lots of small pieces on the floor) or grinding it out with a power tool (lots of dust). Good luck!

My neighbours a few up recently had this done. The builder used an angle grinder to remove the old mortar. It made a hefty dust cloud that covered 3 or 4 houses and cars down wind.

We had this done last year, the whole front of a terrace house. Our guy jet washed our house and the neighbors properties to wash off any dust once it was all finished. All looked like nothing had happened by the end.

Definitely shouldn't cause any damage inside.

Do you mind me asking roughly what it costs? I need the back addition repointed and have no idea how expensive it is.

Cost £1,000

No scaf? That's impressive. Or you have sand for mortar and it just scoops out...

We had the north side of ours done a couple of years ago. Some mild dust and crap from the work, windows did indeed need cleaning but our chap did all the sweeping up and stuff so it was not that bad.

If it's very dusty and you don't want to piss off your neighbours, you could offer to get their windows / conservatory roof cleaned afterwards.

When my neighbour had it done it was very noisy and messy ( through a summer) He also had scaffolding up. To thank me for my patience he paid for my front to be repointed ( only a small area but still saved me a huge amount of money) and also cleaned all the windows and mess