Original Lime Mortar

[ivyhalliday]

Hi there! We recently had a stonemason assess our house.

The bottom half has been drilled out and replaced with concrete historically which we are going to re-do in hot lime.

However, the top half has the original rock solid lime mortar, which was then covered over by concrete for ‘style’ back in the day.

He suggested we just chip all the concrete off as it’s eroding the sandstone, but then leaving it as is with no additional new mortar on top as the original lime is largely in good condition - just wondering if people agreed with this?

I have attached a photo of the concrete we’ll be chipping off, which also features sections we have pulled off where you can see the original lime.

Thanks!

 

[Lacan07]

I'm no expert on sandstone but rule of thumb with repointing lime is it should be flush with the brick face to avoid ledges where water can collect. The problem with this is that old brick often recedes at the edges due to weathering which means repointing naturally creates considerably thicker joints than the originals.

If the concrete joints on your wall are protruding excessively then knocking them out and leaving be would be fine I guess.

 

[Kearn]

Sounds like you’ve found a decent stonemason, keep their number.

It’s not uncommon for a pointless, damaging thin line of modern pointing to just be slapped over the previous lime without raking it out first.
I’ve no idea what people thought they were achieving, but the good news is, aside any stone/brick damage from spalling, it will chip off very easily leaving the wall as it should be.

Better still, it’s very easy, so you can do it yourself and save money. Just be careful to get the right few tools and go slowly, chipping away by hand very flat to the wall so you don’t dig into the existing lime when removing the brittle modern muck.

Repointing is a slow, messy, expensive job. Great to be able to avoid it

 

[ivyhalliday]

I'm no expert on sandstone but rule of thumb with repointing lime is it should be flush with the brick face to avoid ledges where water can collect. The problem with this is that old brick often recedes at the edges due to weathering which means repointing naturally creates considerably thicker joints than the originals.

If the concrete joints on your wall are protruding excessively then knocking them out and leaving be would be fine I guess.

Thank you for responding!

 

[ivyhalliday]

Sounds like you’ve found a decent stonemason, keep their number.

It’s not uncommon for a pointless, damaging thin line of modern pointing to just be slapped over the previous lime without raking it out first.
I’ve no idea what people thought they were achieving, but the good news is, aside any stone/brick damage from spalling, it will chip off very easily leaving the wall as it should be.

Better still, it’s very easy, so you can do it yourself and save money. Just be careful to get the right few tools and go slowly, chipping away by hand very flat to the wall so you don’t dig into the existing lime when removing the brittle modern muck.

Repointing is a slow, messy, expensive job. Great to be able to avoid it

Excellent, thank you!