hotdog85
Member
- Messages
- 1
- Location
- Nottingham
Hi, I’m Tom. I bought a 1930 something property in July 2024 in the city suburbs of Nottingham. The property had been empty between 4-10 years (nobody can give me an accurate answer!) the house was riddled with damp/sodden walls down stairs mainly due to poor condition render, bridged DPC (block paving was above DPC and house was rendered to the floor!).
The house was built in 1930 something and was built with lime mortar and is of solid wall construction, no cavity. The house has had extensive restorations and work carried out to it mainly in the 90’s where a big extension was added to the house and the suspended floor was filled in with a concrete slab (without any hardcore I may add!). All of the works carried out on the house was done badly.
Which leads me to the render as what seems to be the norm to ignorant and uneducated plasterers and renderers, the house was rendered with cement render and a very strong mix of it too. This had inevitably caused horrendous damage to the brick work and mortar. The mortar is in a terrible state Infact I don’t even think it can be classed as mortar as it is all but sandy dust.
I regrettably paid some idiots to remove the render as Ito do it properly would’ve take me a very long time. Well £2.5k later and horrendous damage to the brick work and a lot of it still on the wall as I told them just to get the top coat off in the end. The bricks are in not very good condition. Before the house is rendered again (yes in lime) the mortar needs to be attended too. I’m going to have to do a full depth repoint, not just the usual 20mm or so due to the condition of what is currently there.
My question is, with many of the brick faces blown, spalled and damaged do I use NHL2 or 3.5? What is classed as ‘soft masonry’? I have fitted a few lintels using NHL3 however I think to repoint the house possibly NHL2. Can anyone advise on what ‘soft brick’ is? I will add a few photos to give you an idea of what I’m working with. The brick work is going to be sandblasted to remove the rest of the cement from the bricks that I cannot remove with hand tools.
Tom
The house was built in 1930 something and was built with lime mortar and is of solid wall construction, no cavity. The house has had extensive restorations and work carried out to it mainly in the 90’s where a big extension was added to the house and the suspended floor was filled in with a concrete slab (without any hardcore I may add!). All of the works carried out on the house was done badly.
Which leads me to the render as what seems to be the norm to ignorant and uneducated plasterers and renderers, the house was rendered with cement render and a very strong mix of it too. This had inevitably caused horrendous damage to the brick work and mortar. The mortar is in a terrible state Infact I don’t even think it can be classed as mortar as it is all but sandy dust.
I regrettably paid some idiots to remove the render as Ito do it properly would’ve take me a very long time. Well £2.5k later and horrendous damage to the brick work and a lot of it still on the wall as I told them just to get the top coat off in the end. The bricks are in not very good condition. Before the house is rendered again (yes in lime) the mortar needs to be attended too. I’m going to have to do a full depth repoint, not just the usual 20mm or so due to the condition of what is currently there.
My question is, with many of the brick faces blown, spalled and damaged do I use NHL2 or 3.5? What is classed as ‘soft masonry’? I have fitted a few lintels using NHL3 however I think to repoint the house possibly NHL2. Can anyone advise on what ‘soft brick’ is? I will add a few photos to give you an idea of what I’m working with. The brick work is going to be sandblasted to remove the rest of the cement from the bricks that I cannot remove with hand tools.
Tom