Seaward walls are surveyed year-round at low tide and pointed April to October — the salt does not take winters off, so the emergency make-safe line is always on: (555) 118-2296.
Services
The sea-air trades
01
Salt-face repointing
The seaward elevation gets NHL 5 throughout — the harder natural hydraulic lime, twice-struck — while the sheltered field breathes in NHL 3.5. Joints raked by hand to twice their width, never ground, and flushed full in two passes. The exposure decides where the line between the two limes falls, and the line is drawn on the survey before we mix.
02
Anchored veneer, marine grade
Stone hung on 316 stainless Z-anchors and dowel pins at sixteen inches on centre — the chloride grade the driven spray cannot pit — over a two-layer weather barrier, with base flashing and weep vents. The ordinary stainless grades streak and let go inside five spray winters; the anchors are the part of the wall you never want to revisit.
03
Stoves, hearths & chimneys
Harbour cottages burn from October to April, so most boxes are laid in high-duty firebrick whether or not the owner asked — moderate-duty goes to the Sunday-fire houses, and low-duty we mostly decline to sell on the seafront at all. Fireclay joints struck thin, smoke chambers parged, cast crowns that shed water, and the draw gauge-tested while you watch.
How it goes
Tide-walk to last strike
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
The tide-walk
Survey at low water
The seaward face is read at low tide, exposure rated face by face, and a mortar chip leaves an inconspicuous joint. You keep a written square-foot number with the seaward elevation quoted separately — it gets a different lime, so it gets a different line.
Week 1
Rake & sheet
Scaffolding up, sheets down against the spray, joints raked by hand to twice their width and vacuumed clean. The salt gets no powdered mortar to hold against the wall, and the rake depth is verified joint by joint before any mix is batched.
Weeks 2–4
Two limes, one wall
NHL 3.5 in the sheltered field, NHL 5 at the weather face — flushed full in two passes, struck to the original profile, brushed at leather-hard. Anchors and weeps renewed where the drawing says; stoves re-laid between seasons, in the grade the room earns.
Week 6
Cure & warrant
Carbonation under mist and covers, the draw gauge on any flue we touched, and the twenty-five-year warranty signed into your name — waterline included, in writing, because that is where our walls live.
Since 1989
The tide-table ledger
Recent work
The sea walls
Six walls from around the Cove, every one downwind of the worst the harbour can throw. Ask on the phone and we will give you the street — these owners compare joints like tide gauges, and they are right to.
Our gable took the full south-west once a fortnight and shed mortar every March. Two seasons after Saltline pointed it in the harder lime, the sea wall of the house dries before the washing does. The terrace has followed, one house at a time.
They specified 316 for the anchors and explained what the cheaper grades do after five winters of spray. Six years on, nothing has streaked, nothing has moved, and nothing has rusted — which on this street is a triplet no one else can claim.
The make-safe call was answered at nine on a Sunday in February, the tarp was on by noon Monday, and the pointing followed in May exactly as quoted the previous autumn. Harbour trades do not usually work like that.
Salt, lime, stainless
Asked on every quay walk
Why two different limes on one wall?
Natural hydraulic lime comes in grades of hardness. NHL 3.5 breathes beautifully in the sheltered field; NHL 5 sets harder and stands up to driven salt on the weather face. Splitting the wall by exposure costs nothing extra on our quote and buys years of joint — the wall decides where the line falls, not the budget.
Does the salt really eat the anchors?
The ordinary stainless grades, yes — chlorides pit 304 within a few driven-spray winters. We set 316-grade stainless only, at sixteen inches on centre, hot-dipped where it meets the frame. The stone can be re-pointed in thirty years; the anchors are meant to be the part nobody ever revisits.
What firebrick grade does a cottage stove need?
Duty is rated by how hot and how often. A Cove cottage that burns every evening gets high-duty whether or not it was asked for; the Sunday-fire houses get moderate-duty; low-duty we mostly decline to sell on the seafront at all. We ask how the room is used first — the room is the specification.
How fast is the emergency line?
Forty-eight hours, harbour-wide, any month of the year. Tarping and make-safe from $290, with the proper pointing following in its proper season — a winter repair done in winter mortar is how walls end up needing us twice.
Twenty-five years, waterline included
If a joint we pointed fails, an anchor we set lets go, or a firebox we laid spalls inside twenty-five years, we return and correct it free. Salt tests everything; so do we, and only one of us publishes the result.
tide@saltline.example · Tarwhistle Cove · emergency line, 24/7
Send us the weather it faces.
The direction the wall takes its weather from decides the lime, and how the stove is used decides the firebrick. The tide-walk survey brings both answers plus a written square-foot number inside the week.