Hi,
We are just finishing purchasing an old 1800s end terrace house with solid sandstone walls and are looking for some thoughts with regards to some external render work we are planning.
A bit about the house:
• The house has recently had an injected damp course which from what I have read is pointless as they rarely spread out enough to create a complete damp course on ½m thick old walls.
• Externally on all walls down to the floor there is a roughcast render coat which is in need of some repair, particularly the bottom foot.
• Around the base of the property is a 1m wide concrete path.
• There is no evidence of internal damp however, high moisture readings were recorded inside the property during a buildings survey. This was put down to a high external ground level.
After doing a lot of reading, I have been unable to work out what is on our external walls, whether it is lime roughcast or cement roughcast, is there any way of finding out other than having it sent off for analysis?
Our plans for renovating the external walls is to angle grind / dig out a ½ foot channel down 15-20cm in the cement path down to soil and fill with gravel to create an evaporation point . Then remove the lower 1 foot of render (as this is blown in quite a few places) and re-render in hydraulic lime mortar NHL3.5 and over paint in 4 coats of lime wash.
Our worry is if the house has been rendered at some point in rough cast cement will this be OK or are we better to simply patch render in cement or lime and paint with a good masonry paint (if cement). If lime I think we will need to look at stripping the existing masonry paint as there are quite a few layers, patching the wall with lime putty and lime washing .
We know in an ideal world the house should be lime rendered but if it is cement we want to avoid stripping off all the render and being subject to the BCO Thermal Element 24% rule as the remaining render is in relatively good condition and adding insulation to the wall internal or external would not be in keeping with the property or its surroundings.
Thanks for your thoughts guys.
Dave
We are just finishing purchasing an old 1800s end terrace house with solid sandstone walls and are looking for some thoughts with regards to some external render work we are planning.
A bit about the house:
• The house has recently had an injected damp course which from what I have read is pointless as they rarely spread out enough to create a complete damp course on ½m thick old walls.
• Externally on all walls down to the floor there is a roughcast render coat which is in need of some repair, particularly the bottom foot.
• Around the base of the property is a 1m wide concrete path.
• There is no evidence of internal damp however, high moisture readings were recorded inside the property during a buildings survey. This was put down to a high external ground level.
After doing a lot of reading, I have been unable to work out what is on our external walls, whether it is lime roughcast or cement roughcast, is there any way of finding out other than having it sent off for analysis?
Our plans for renovating the external walls is to angle grind / dig out a ½ foot channel down 15-20cm in the cement path down to soil and fill with gravel to create an evaporation point . Then remove the lower 1 foot of render (as this is blown in quite a few places) and re-render in hydraulic lime mortar NHL3.5 and over paint in 4 coats of lime wash.
Our worry is if the house has been rendered at some point in rough cast cement will this be OK or are we better to simply patch render in cement or lime and paint with a good masonry paint (if cement). If lime I think we will need to look at stripping the existing masonry paint as there are quite a few layers, patching the wall with lime putty and lime washing .
We know in an ideal world the house should be lime rendered but if it is cement we want to avoid stripping off all the render and being subject to the BCO Thermal Element 24% rule as the remaining render is in relatively good condition and adding insulation to the wall internal or external would not be in keeping with the property or its surroundings.
Thanks for your thoughts guys.
Dave