Hi,
My second post about my crumbling house. Looking to tackle some damp problems, I started to pick away at a Sandtex type finish on an exterior wall which I thought might be holding in moisture.
The Sandtex fell off straight away revealing the bricks underneath and the mortar had, in the worst effected places, turned to sand.
I raked away the sandy mortar until I got to something a bit tougher. In the worst effected places, I’d say to a depth of 4cm.
I obviously need to get this repointed with lime mortar. But I have a few questions I’m hoping you could help with:
1) It’s probably going to be a few weeks before I can prep the rest of the area and get someone to re-point – should I keep the bits I have raked out (like in the close up) covered and out of the rain?
2) Can you prep large areas to re-point or should you rake then fill and rake another area?
3) At what point (if any?) would raking out defective mortar cause structural problems? It felt like I was pulling big sections of my house out in sand(!).
Thanks in advance.
My second post about my crumbling house. Looking to tackle some damp problems, I started to pick away at a Sandtex type finish on an exterior wall which I thought might be holding in moisture.
The Sandtex fell off straight away revealing the bricks underneath and the mortar had, in the worst effected places, turned to sand.
I raked away the sandy mortar until I got to something a bit tougher. In the worst effected places, I’d say to a depth of 4cm.
I obviously need to get this repointed with lime mortar. But I have a few questions I’m hoping you could help with:
1) It’s probably going to be a few weeks before I can prep the rest of the area and get someone to re-point – should I keep the bits I have raked out (like in the close up) covered and out of the rain?
2) Can you prep large areas to re-point or should you rake then fill and rake another area?
3) At what point (if any?) would raking out defective mortar cause structural problems? It felt like I was pulling big sections of my house out in sand(!).
Thanks in advance.
