Hi,
The internal walls of my cob cottage were rendered in the 60s with a layer of concrete at least 5 cm thick. The aggregate is coarse: ~15mm diameter. The cob behind the concrete is dry.
Is the concrete render providing structural strength?
I know that the best thing would be to remove all the concrete render, and fix properly whatever problems we uncover. Time and money mean this is not an option. Instead, to raise cash, we need to do a partial renovation and re-mortgage. Not ideal, but so it goes.
So, which of the following is the least-bad option:
1. Leave the concrete as it is.
Against this is the fact that it looks ugly - hard edges and stupid thick. The thought of it being there also annoys me.
2. Remove the concrete and re-plaster with gypsum-based plasters.
Whilst not wonderfully breathable lime-based plaster, is this any "less-bad" than the concrete?
The use of these mainstream plasters comes from cost - lime ones are sold at designer goods prices! - and the fact that lime may take many weeks to set. We simply haven't got this much time!
There's also the worry that i know how to use conventional plaster quite well (obviously not like the pros, but no money for them0; i don't have time to learn a new art-form!
Any advice hugely appreciated!
Crawf
P.S - Anyone know why the concrete was used in the first place? Isn't this quite an unusual thing to have done?[/u]
The internal walls of my cob cottage were rendered in the 60s with a layer of concrete at least 5 cm thick. The aggregate is coarse: ~15mm diameter. The cob behind the concrete is dry.
Is the concrete render providing structural strength?
I know that the best thing would be to remove all the concrete render, and fix properly whatever problems we uncover. Time and money mean this is not an option. Instead, to raise cash, we need to do a partial renovation and re-mortgage. Not ideal, but so it goes.
So, which of the following is the least-bad option:
1. Leave the concrete as it is.
Against this is the fact that it looks ugly - hard edges and stupid thick. The thought of it being there also annoys me.
2. Remove the concrete and re-plaster with gypsum-based plasters.
Whilst not wonderfully breathable lime-based plaster, is this any "less-bad" than the concrete?
The use of these mainstream plasters comes from cost - lime ones are sold at designer goods prices! - and the fact that lime may take many weeks to set. We simply haven't got this much time!
There's also the worry that i know how to use conventional plaster quite well (obviously not like the pros, but no money for them0; i don't have time to learn a new art-form!
Any advice hugely appreciated!
Crawf
P.S - Anyone know why the concrete was used in the first place? Isn't this quite an unusual thing to have done?[/u]
