Specialist Building & Property Maintenance Services You Can Depend On.
Bricklayers — Wirral
Bricklayers & Brick Repair
in Wirral
Garden walls worn by the weather off the Irish Sea, blown bricks on a Wallasey terrace, a sandstone boundary wall that has started to shed — Quirks Property Maintenance Ltd carries out brickwork and brick repairs across the Wirral, from Birkenhead and Bebington to Heswall, West Kirby and Hoylake. Our bricklayers take on the small jobs as well as the awkward ones: a few bricks replaced, a pier rebuilt, a vent or doorway bricked up to match. Part of our brick repair and brickwork service across North Wales, Cheshire and Wirral.
5.0★★★★★Based on 100+ Google reviews
20+years trading
£5 millionpublic liability insurance in place
Workmanship guarantee on completed worksOne contractorAll trades under one roof
In short: bricklayers covering the Wirral for brick repairs, garden and boundary walls, sandstone repairs and small brickwork — matched to the wall and quoted in writing.
Local brickwork
Why brickwork fails on the Wirral
The Wirral has water on three sides, and its brickwork shows it. Elevations that face the wind in Hoylake, West Kirby, New Brighton and Wallasey take driven rain and salt-laden air for much of the year, and garden walls — wet on both faces and often without a sound coping — take the worst of it. Frost then does to a saturated brick what it does anywhere: it takes the face off.
The Victorian and Edwardian terraces of Birkenhead, Wallasey and New Brighton are mostly solid-walled in brick that was laid in lime, and many have been repointed since in cement that is harder than the brick. The inter-war semis of Bebington, Moreton, Upton and Greasby are cavity-walled in harder brick and usually need a more local repair — below a sill, at a gatepost, around a bay. And across Oxton, Heswall, Caldy and West Kirby a good share of the boundary walls are local sandstone, not brick, which is why this page covers stone repairs as well as brick.
That is background, not a verdict on your wall. We go by what the photographs show us, and by the wall where they cannot show enough.
Areas of Wirral we cover
- Birkenhead — CH41, CH42
- Oxton and Prenton — CH43
- Wallasey and New Brighton — CH44, CH45
- Moreton — CH46
- Hoylake and West Kirby — CH47, CH48
- Upton and Greasby — CH49
- Heswall — CH60
- Bromborough — CH62
- Bebington — CH63
We cover the CH41 to CH49, CH60, CH62 and CH63 postcode districts and the villages around them.
We also cover Chester and Ellesmere Port, Flintshire and Deeside and Wrexham — and everything in between from our base in Ewloe.
HESWALL, WIRRAL — BOUNDARY WALL
Recent stone wall repair project
The end pier of a red sandstone boundary wall beside a business car park in Heswall had been struck by a vehicle and brought down onto the tarmac. We took down the loose and damaged stone and rebuilt the pier using its own sandstone blocks and coping.
The end pier knocked down onto the car park
The impact had pushed the end of the wall over. The pier and the stones beside it had broken away, and large sandstone blocks, the coping among them, were lying on the car park with old mortar crumbling off their faces.
What was still standing finished in a ragged end of loose stone and broken mortar, open to the gravel bed behind the wall.
Making the end of the wall safe
The damaged end of the wall was coned off and taped so that nobody walked into the loose stone or parked against it.
Loose and damaged masonry was taken down from the broken end, and the fallen blocks were kept to go back into the wall rather than being thrown away.
The pier rebuilt in its own stone
The pier was rebuilt to the same profile as the rest of the wall, with the original sandstone blocks and coping relaid in new mortar. Putting the old stone back keeps the colour and weathering that the rest of the wall already has.
For now, the new joints are brighter than the older pointing either side, which is normal for fresh mortar in an old stone wall.
We took down the loose and damaged masonry, rebuilt the end pier in its original stone and took the waste away. This case study covers the end pier and the damaged section next to it; the rest of the boundary wall was not part of the work.
- Loose and damaged masonry taken down from the end of the wall
- End pier rebuilt to the existing wall profile, relaying the original sandstone blocks and coping in new mortar
- Waste removed and the working area left tidy
Project Information
| Issue | End pier of a sandstone boundary wall knocked down by a vehicle |
| Service | Stone wall repair |
| Works | Loose masonry taken down; pier rebuilt in its original stone and coping |
| Property | Boundary wall to a business car park |
| Quotation | Priced from the customer's photographs, sent by email |
| Location | Heswall, Wirral |
What customers say about our brickwork
Four of the reviews our customers have left on Google.
★★★★★5.0 · 100+ Google reviews★★★★★“Really pleased with the work Quirks Property Maintenance did for me. They replaced two lintels above my windows following a recommendation from my surveyor, stitched the brickwork and repointed everything beautifully. They did a great job and left everything really tidy afterwards. They were also very helpful and kind throughout, and were always happy to explain what they were doing and answer my questions, which I really appreciated. The finished work looks great and I’d definitely recommend them.”
★★★★★“Effective, efficient and friendly service. Quirks carried out installation of a new steel lintel and step crack repair above my front door. They were methodical, explained the process to me at different stages and liaised with building control. They did a really great job!”
★★★★★“Fantastic service and a company we would highly recommend. We used Quirks to resolve a long standing damp problem in our old Victorian house. We have had a new roof, replaced guttering and soil pipes but the wall remained wet. They resolved the problem by repointing the outside wall. The team arrived just after 7 each morning and worked until dark. They cleaned up each day and were always friendly and helpful. We’ll definitely use their services again”
★★★★★“… blocking up an old dryer vent — you genuinely can’t tell where the old vent was, it looks great.”
Brick damage we repair
Most brick damage starts small, and small is when it is easiest to put right. These are the problems we are asked to look at most:
- Spalled or “blown” bricks — the face of the brick flaking, crumbling or coming away
- Bricks cracked, chipped or knocked out by impact — a vehicle, a gate, a fallen branch
- Loose, missing or frost-shattered bricks near the ground, under sills and at the tops of walls
- A corner, a pier or a length of wall that has bulged, dropped or been pushed out of line
- Garden and boundary walls that lean, have lost their coping or have come apart at one end
- Openings that are no longer wanted — an old vent, a doorway, a window, a garage door
If you can see any of these, send a photo on WhatsApp or by email and we will tell you what we think it needs.
The cause
Why bricks fail
Brick is hard-wearing, but it is not waterproof. Nearly every damaged brick we replace has the same history: water got into it, could not get out again, and froze. Ice takes up more room than water, so each hard frost prises a little more of the face away — bricklayers call it spalling. With the fired face gone, the softer inside of the brick takes in water faster still.
What puts the water there is usually one of a short list:
- A leaking gutter, downpipe or overflow soaking the same patch of wall
- Hard cement mortar on an older, softer brick — the joint stays sound, so the water leaves through the brick instead
- Ground levels, paving or soil banked up against the wall
- Missing or failed copings on garden walls, parapets and chimney stacks
- Pressure washing or sandblasting that has taken the fired face off the brick
- Impact — vehicles, gates, scaffolding and storm debris
Replacing the bricks without dealing with the cause only buys time. So the first thing we look for is where the water is coming from. Where we can put that right as well — a gutter, a coping, the pointing — we tell you, and price it in the same quotation.
- Under a leaking gutter or downpipe
- Below window sills
- The first courses above the ground
- Chimney stacks and parapets
- Garden wall tops where the coping has gone
- Corners and gateposts in the path of vehicles
Brick repairs and small brickwork
Single replacement brick with fresh mortar round it in the base course of a wall
Damaged bricks replaced
Spalled, cracked and broken bricks cut out one at a time and replaced in the closest match we can find.
Brick pier at the corner of a front porch, rebuilt in matching brick with a concrete cap, standing on block paving
Failed sections rebuilt
Corners, piers and the brickwork under a sill or over an opening taken down to sound brick and rebuilt.
Red brick garden wall with a blue brick plinth and coping, and brick piers with stone caps along the pavement
Garden and boundary walls
Leaning, cracked and storm-damaged walls repaired or rebuilt, with new copings and piers where they are needed.
Opening in a red brick wall bricked up to sill height and finished with a soldier course, with a sheet covering the space above
Openings bricked up
Old vents, doorways, windows and garage door openings closed in brickwork to match the wall.
The method
How we repair brickwork
- The cause first. We look at why the brick failed — water, frost, the wrong mortar, movement or impact — before we decide what comes out.
- Cut out, not covered up. Damaged bricks are cut out one at a time, so the sound bricks around them stay where they are.
- The closest match. Replacement bricks are chosen for size, colour and texture — reclaimed where a new brick would stand out — and bedded in a mortar that suits the wall.
- Rebuilt where it has to be. Where a corner, a pier or a section has moved or been knocked out, we take it down to sound brickwork and rebuild it, toothed back into the wall on both sides.
- Pointed and left clean. New joints are finished to the profile of the old ones, the wall is brushed down and the waste goes with us.
- Where an exposed wall keeps taking in rain, we can finish the repair with a breathable rain-repellent treatment — one that lets the wall dry out, not a sealer.
Matching
Getting the match right
A brick repair is judged from the pavement. Three things decide whether it disappears into the wall or stands out for years.
- Size. Houses built before metric bricks came in, around 1970, were laid in imperial sizes, and in this part of the country those are usually taller than today’s 65 mm brick. A modern brick in an old wall throws the courses out, so older walls generally need reclaimed or imperial-sized replacements.
- Colour and texture. We take the match from the wall itself, not from a catalogue, and tell you before we start how close we expect to get. New bricks in an old wall rarely look identical on the first day; they tone in as they weather.
- Mortar. Older, softer bricks need a mortar that is weaker than they are, which usually means lime. Strong cement on soft brick is one of the commonest causes of the damage we are called to repair, so we do not repeat it.
Small brickwork
Garden walls, boundary walls and small brickwork
Not every brickwork job is a repair to the house. We also take on the small brickwork that is often hard to find a bricklayer for:
- Garden and boundary walls repaired, part-rebuilt or taken down and rebuilt
- New copings, pier caps and gateposts
- Brick steps
- Openings bricked up to match the wall around them
- Brickwork made good where a vent, a flue or a pipe has been taken out
What we do not do is build extensions or new houses. If the job is a wall, a pier, a set of steps or a repair, send us a photo. If it is an extension, we are not the right firm.
Stonework
Stone walls and stonework
We repair stone as well as brick. Loose, slipped or fallen stone in a house wall or a boundary wall is taken out, re-bedded and pointed in a mortar that suits the stone — lime on older walls. Send a photo of the wall and we will tell you whether it is a repair we take on, and what it involves.
Diagnosis
Is it the brick, the mortar or the wall?
Three different faults get called “the brickwork”, and each needs a different repair.
- The bricks themselves are damaged — faces flaking off, bricks cracked through or missing. That is brick repair, and it is what this page is about.
- The bricks are sound but the joints are open, sandy or crumbling. That is repointing.
- The wall has cracked — in steps along the joints, in a line down the wall, or above a door or window. The cause has to be found first: see wall and brick crack repair, and lintel repair and replacement where the crack starts over an opening.
Chimney stacks have their own page, chimney repairs, and so does damp showing indoors behind damaged brickwork: penetrating damp. If you are not sure which of these you are looking at, send the photo anyway and we will point you to the right repair.
Who it is for
Who we work for
Homeowners
From three blown bricks under a window to a garden wall brought down in a storm, quoted in writing before anything starts.
Landlords and letting agents
Repairs to rented houses and shared boundary walls, arranged with the tenant, with photographs and an invoice for your records.
Commercial and public buildings
Impact damage to units, yards and car parks, and defective brickwork on shops, schools and care homes, with risk assessments and method statements supplied where the site requires them.
Safety
If a wall is dangerous right now
A wall that has been hit by a vehicle, has started to lean or bulge, or is shedding bricks from height is not a job to wait for a quotation. Keep people and cars away from both sides of it, and call the emergency services if anyone is at risk. Our emergency builder service runs a 24-hour call-out for exactly this: propping the wall, taking down what is loose and securing the area, as far as conditions allow. The brickwork repair itself is then quoted in writing.
Your questions
Brick repair FAQs: Wirral
Do you take on small bricklaying jobs on the Wirral?
Yes. A gatepost rebuilt, a few bricks replaced under a bay, an old vent or doorway closed up, a short run of garden wall put right — these are the jobs this page is for. A photograph and your postcode are enough to start.
My garden wall is leaning — can it be repaired, or does it have to come down?
It depends on why it is leaning. A wall that has lost its coping and a few courses can usually be repaired. One that has gone over because its footing has moved, or a tree has pushed it, generally has to come down to sound brickwork and be rebuilt. Photographs from both ends and both sides are normally enough for us to tell you which. If the wall is shared with a neighbour, agree the work with them before it starts.
Is the salt air damaging my brickwork?
It can add to it. Salt carried in off the sea is drawn into a wet wall and crystallises as the wall dries, which can loosen the face of a soft brick much as frost does. The repair is the same — cut out, replace, and deal with whatever is keeping the wall wet — but on an exposed wall the choice of brick and mortar matters more.
Do you cover the whole peninsula?
Yes. Wallasey, New Brighton and Birkenhead; Bebington and Bromborough along the Mersey side; Moreton, Upton and Greasby in the middle; and Heswall, West Kirby and Hoylake on the Dee side.
How much does brickwork cost on the Wirral?
That turns on the size of the job — a few bricks or a length of wall — on whether we can work off the ground, on how hard the brick or stone is to match, and on how exposed the wall is. Most jobs we can price from photographs — send yours on WhatsApp or by email and we’ll come back with a written quotation.
Written and reviewed by Michael Quirk, Director.
Cost
What affects the cost of a brick repair
No two brick repairs cost the same, and a figure published here would be wrong for most of the people reading it. What moves the price is how many bricks have to come out and where they are — at ground level or off a scaffold; how hard the brick is to match, and whether reclaimed bricks have to be found; whether a section has to be taken down and rebuilt; whether the cause has to be put right at the same time; and how much making-good the job leaves behind. No prices are published here because no two walls are the same; the written quotation is the price.
Request a quotation
Tell us what needs repairing and attach a few photographs — one of the whole wall and one close up.
How it works
Send us a photo, we’ll take it from there
You don’t need to describe the problem down the phone. A photo tells us most of what we need.
- 1WhatsApp or email us photos.A couple of pictures of the problem and your postcode.
- 2We reply with what it looks like and what happens next.Where the photos show enough, that’s a price. If not, we’ll tell you what else we need.
- 3You get a written quotation.A clear scope of works, so you know what is included.
- 4We do the work and leave it clean.
Brick repair & brickwork — send us photographs
Worried about your brickwork? Send us a photo.
Send a photo of the damage on WhatsApp or by email, with your postcode, and we will tell you what we think it needs and what happens next. Office 01244 638219.
WhatsApp or email gets the quickest reply. We come back to you as soon as we can.