Re-pointing indian stone

[tk onion]

Good evening gentlemen. I hope someone may be able to give me some good advice.
The job has been down now for about four and a half years and is generally good, no loose or rocking stones etc,however the pointing is very inconsistent, rock solid in places and in others had began to break up after about 18 months and has got to the stage now where it is an eye-sore and something has to be done.The guy who did it cannot be traced unfortunately so that avenue is closed.
The man who I have chosen to do the pointing I believe has under-estimated the amount of work involved and I think is now rushing the job, yesterday he ground out the original mortar (all the good stuff had to go as well as the bad he tells me or else the colour won't match) and I notice that where he started he has chased it out deeper than where he finished at the end of the day, probably starting at around 20mm and in places barely scratching the surface. When I challenged him on this he assured me that he'd done this plenty of times before and it wouldn't be a problem. My feeling is that the deeper the mortar the stronger it will be and the more likely it is it last. Can anybody shed any light on this please?
Also some of the stone sets around the edge of the patio have come loose since he started but he tells me that they don't require re-bedding as the pointing will hold them in place, I doubt this as being on the edge of the area they only have pointing on 3 sides.
I would be grateful for any advice. Thanks.

[lutonlagerlout]

you are right
all the pointing needs to be chased out to at least double the width of the joints
so if a joint is 10 mm 20mm is minimum
I have repointed patios and it is a ballbreaker of a job
slabs that were rock solid come loose when the pointing is out
and need to be rebedded
is he charging you a lot of money?I seem to recall charging about £30 per metre to do it properly and point with easipoint
all the joints need to be hoovered out before pointing begins
LLL

[tk onion]

No, it'll come out at well under £5 a metre pointing with 4 builders sand to 1 Cement at the price he has quoted me. I think he's under estimated the amount of work involved to some tune as the patio is about 35 square metres but then theres about the same area again in paths and most of it is edged with sets so theres a hell of a lot of linear pointing to grind out. The lads a grafter and I feel a bit sorry for him but I'm not prepared to accept a sub-standard job. Would I be a fool if I offered to negotiate a higher price for him to do the job to the standard you suggest? I don't want something for nothing just a job thats going to last. Cheers for the reply LLL.

[lutonlagerlout]

thing is if he crashes on then the whole thing will be no good
maybe speak to him early doors tomorrow and offer a compromise
dont want to appear soft but you dont want him to come unstuck
i dropped a bollock on 1 patio where we used 6 blades over 2 days to rake out 65 m
the original layers had bedded the slabs on wet concrete and it had squirted up between the slabs
trying to grind this out was a total nightmare
and the client was looking for fault all the time
we did the job on time and just about for wages but raking and repointing can be thankless when its underpriced

the main thing is double the depth of the width of the joint and mist joints before pointing
cheers LLL

[DNgroundworks]

Ive done lots of jobs in my few years in the business just like yours, and every time we have had to lift the patio and relay the lot, like LLL says flags that seems solid...after a bit of grinder action and tapping with the plugging chisel these flags come loose.

Obviously i pre-warned the customer about this, gave them one price for grind out and re-joint, and another "worst case scenario price" for a lift and relay, its always ended up in the latter for especially with indian stone.

Must of looked at over 400 square metres of this sort of work last year.