Repair Rendered Plinth on Front of House

Hi,

I recently dug out a channel at the front of my house as I was replacing the stone chips that were there.

When I excavated the area I noticed that chunks of the existing facing had blown and where coming away easily when I touched them.

I have removed all the bad areas now and am about to begin repairing but am unsure what to do next and was wondering if someone could confirm that this would work.

1. Apply a thin scratch coat using 4 parts sand 1 part cement.

2. When scratch coat has set apply the finishing layer and make it flush with existing layer and a slight run at the bottom to carry water away from house. Use 2 parts sharp sand and 1 part cement.

3. Once it has set apply a weather seal, primer and then paint.

Here are some pics of the area I'm repairing.

http://i60.tinypic.com/2qx23xe.jpg

http://i57.tinypic.com/2rfae5e.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/svgrvc.jpg

Sorry for the bump but would really appreciate any help or advice.

Thanks

I presume that you have a damp issue inside the house, and that the channel was dug in an attempt to relieve any damp problem(s)?

The channel filling is almost useless - you need much larger stones and stones only, not that gritty particles stuff. Is your channel a true French drain - does it actually drain off to a sump or away from the property?

Do you have a stone walled cottage?

The render application seems to have been originally very poor and its only got worse - all loose or damaged or cracked, or hollow render should be removed.
Contact with the ground level should be broken by 50mm.

The metal air vent needs renewing with a 9" x 6" plastic air brick.

There might be other issues & if you want to pursue them then why not post pics of the whole wall for instance? Dont do anything else until you've come back here - only saying.

Hi Ree,

We moved into the house a while ago and there was a damp problem in that area when we did so. However, we had a damp proof course injected into the wall and have not had any issues since.

With regards to the channel, it used to be just a thin layer of stones with earth underneath. I dug up the old stones and some of the earth as I was intending to put a thicker layer of bigger stones down (20-30mm) for decorative purposes. As far as I am aware, there is no French drain.

Our house is a terrace house, circa 1920-30. From what I have seen I would say that there is 2 courses of internal brick work, then a cavity, then 1 course of brickwork with a stone cladding (this is the front of the house). It is the same at the back but instead of stone cladding it had render.

When you say contact with ground level should be broken by 50mm, what do you mean exactly? (sorry I'm a bit of a noob but a keen one)

Are plastic air bricks easy to install or would I have to hire someone to carry out the work? I tend to be able to manage most DIY jobs as long as I have good instructions.

I dont understand - so what are the pics showing? Are the pics before or after? Where are the injection holes? Why does the render appear to have been applied to rough stonework?

Why dont you post pics of all external walls/areas of concern showing whole walls and detail near the ground?

Keep the bottom of the render up 50mm from the ground - typically the render is finished with a bell cast that stops 50mm above GL.

Knock out the old metal vents and set the plastic air bricks in sand and cement mortar. Use a cold or brick chisel if the rough hole needs enlarging. Its very DIY'able.

Plumbing supplies sell small bags of ready mix mortar.

The pics are showing the front of my house at the base but only the damaged areas. I took the pics a few days ago and this is what it currently looks like. You can see the injection holes on the second and third pics and I have filled them in with mortar.

The pics I posted are the front of the house and I don't think it is render (I may be wrong). To me it looks like a stone cladding that has been applied to the brick work (now painted), although I think it is rendered at the bottom in the pics I posted.

If I take the render up 50mm above ground level, I will have to remove about 1-2 rows of the stone cladding as well.

I will post pics tomorrow as it is dark and raining at the moment and I don't have a decent flash.