Garden wall - Maintenance and re-finish

[dazzler9000]

Hi all, I'm hoping for some advice here. I have some small decorative walls in my front garden. As you can see, the walls aren't in great shape but I don't want to rip and replace them.

I'd like to strengthen and refinish them but need some advice from someone that knows what they're doing

The walls are probably 50 years old, so not too bad considering their age. I'm considering fixing any loose stone and then just covering with a sand and cement mix to strengthen and flatten them out and then clad with some slate shown here - https://www.realstonecladding.co.uk/knossos

Can somebody let me know if this would work and offer advice as to whether a mortar mix is the best option? Water does run through from the upper levels, so do I need to take this into consideration and do anything differently?


Thanks

 

[dazzler9000]

I've done some research since posting yesterday. My research suggests to fix any loose stone, I need to make a lime motor mix and make repairs.

To flatten out the wall and cover the stone (render), I can use a render mix of plastering sand and hydraulic lime.

Does this sound okay? As you can see there are a few cracks in the wall so presumably, a render will strengthen everything? As mentioned previously, water does run through the wall, will my lime mortar pose any problems? I'd appreciate any advice from the pros on here.

 

[Charlie George]

Don't render them,will work out better and probably easier to reuse the stone to rebuild walls with weep holes,are the sizes of that cladding correct,would take forever and cost a fortune.
(Thickness is 20 - 30 mm. It comes in lengths of 100 - 200 mm and heights of 20 - 40 mm.)

 

[dazzler9000]

I was only planning on rendering the wall to 'pull everything together' and strengthen it. Just thought that it would be a fairly cheap way of achieving strength and a flat surface to tile to. Yeah, I appreciate it would take some time and wouldn't be cheap but we're not moving and I would like it to look nice.

Do you think drainage would be an issue if I was to render? Are weep holes essential for a lime mortar?

 

[dazzler9000]

I should probably be clear, I'm not a renderer/plaster by trade, so I'd be DIY'ing it and when I say render I mean just apply a base coat or scratch coat to flatten the surface.

 

[conny]

I think renering those walls would make it look ugly and a bit of a 'Council estate bodge'.
The walls are the actual feature of the garden. Why would you want to cover them up to make things look like concrete blocks? Reset the loose stones using whatever method is the best for that particular type of stone work and simply make a number of weep holes/slots along the base of each wall right down to the lowest level. The cracks have probably appeared because not enough water could seep through and became trapped, adding excess weight to bear against the stones. When it gets to path level you could consider removing the edge stones from the path and fitting a french drain with a nice metal grill to drain the final run off water away.
I reckon the cost of this will probably be less than the cost of rendering, the time spent rendering and have a much more pleasing look.

 

[dazzler9000]

Hi Conny, I agree but the plan was to clad the walls (after flattening everything out) with the stone shown in the image attached and the link in the initial post. To be fair, it would cost a bloody fortune, so it very much debatable as to whether it would be worth it. Because of the costs, I need to make sure that if I did do it, I'd done the research and did it correctly, so the tiles wouldn't end up falling off in a few year's time.

I do actually quite like the current wall, so I should consider taking the easy option and repairing it.

 

[StephenStephen]

If it were my wall, I'd be tempted to take out loose stones, refix them, and possibly re-point the wall, but rendering and facing sounds like an expensive waste of time that will likely leave you with something weaker than you started with.

 

[dazzler9000]

If it were my wall, I'd be tempted to take out loose stones, refix them, and possibly re-point the wall, but rendering and facing sounds like an expensive waste of time that will likely leave you with something weaker than you started with.

Cheers for the feedback, looks like I may have an easier repointing job on my hands instead.