Let’s get in early this month…

I’ve mainly been occupied with repointing the external walls. I didn’t do any repointing last year, but want to get it finished this year so I’ve got my hands full. It needs completing before the weather turns colder so I probably have until the end of September to get it done. I had forgotten many of the small skills and techniques that I’d developed previously - Which tools to use when, how to get mortar into that shaped joint at that angle, the fact that when I try to twist my arm to push mortar up into a diagonal over-hanging gap to my left, I pull a small muscle somewhere deep in my forearm and always to keep a bucket of water nearby. Anyway, after I guess 20-30 hours of pointing through July, much of what I had forgotten has come back to me. I’ve also, at last, come up with a mortar mix that I’m happy with - 1 part lime putty : 2 parts sand : 1/2 (half) kiln dried sand (for colour and to dry down the mix if necessary) : 1/2 sharp sand.

I’ve also put in a 9 inch wide concrete plinth at the base of the back wall where there is no path – it gives me a clean line to repoint down to and generally tidies things up. I need to do the same at the foot of the end wall and build a small retaining wall between the plinth and the path at the back of the barn.

The internal doors have been installed. I wasn’t really very keen on the idea of doors. I didn’t like the idea of being boxed in and the openness of the barn being reduced. However, happily, I like them now they are in - a bit of privacy is nice occasionally, we can close the door on the second bedroom which is still basically a storeroom for tools and materials and pretend it isn’t such a mess and the doors work well in the main bedroom / ensuite, allowing us to keep things darker for longer in the mornings (which is good with a two year old who likes to get up with the sun). It also helps that they are lovely looking doors - oak with chrome fittings. I’ve not taken any pictures of them yet, must get my finger out…

No further progress in earth-moving in the to-be back garden.

Share This

Having spent a fair amount of time over the last few years staring at a wall with trowel in hand pointing I’ve built up some opinions on mortar, pointing and stonework and how the three should mesh together (tragic I know!). I’m no fan of overly fussy, decorative pointing and neither is my new favorite source of heritage building information - the Maintenance Matters webite:

In contrast, there is little historic precedent for the use of ‘ribbon’
pointing, which is so commonly seen nowadays in cement. In this, the
joints stand proud of the wall face to become the dominant visual
feature. It is both ugly and poor practice as the technique slows down
the run off of rainwater, which can increase the amount of moisture
held in the masonry. The cycle of freezing and thawing, and the
movement of dissolved salts can cause rapid erosion, particularly in
soft brick and stone.

Repointing in Lime @ maintenancematterswales.org

‘It is both ugly and poor practice’ - I love that statement and thoroughly agree - ugly!

Share This

Whilst not wanting to become a lime-pointing-bore (I bet there aren’t too many of those in the world) I feel another update is in order.

The tools that I ordered to help in raking out the mortar joints have disappointingly not arrived yet but the repointing tools have. I managed to break the mortar hawk as soon as I took it out of the box so it didn’t score highly for resilience, but it’s nothing a drilled hole and suitably sized bolt can’t fix. More on the pointing gun below…

I’ve tried some innovations to my repointing technique with good and bad outcomes…

Good
Whilst despised by many as water wasting and noisy, I found using a pressure washer to clean out the joints and dislodge loose mortar before hacking out, then tidying up again with the pressure washer saves time and leaves clean, well-prepared joints ready for re-mortaring. (Sorry about the noise and wasted water).

Bad
Don’t use a cement mixer to mix lime putty and sand - it doesn’t work, you just get blobs of putty encased in sand rumbling round-and-round in the mixer. I know everyone who knows anything about lime mortar knows this one - I just had to prove it for myself.

A mix of 3-1 sand to lime putty doesn’t work in a pointing gun (an over-sized version of the sealants guns that we all know) it just compresses the mortar and squeezes out the water. I think the problem is a combination of not using a plasticiser and / or the ‘wrong type’ of sand - I just used standard building sand. As the plasticiser supplied was not to be used with lime and the instructions for the gun say not to use sharp sand I’ve hit a bit of a (stone) wall with this one. I might try messing around with the mix (less sand or a finer one). Anyone know if there is a plasticiser suitable for use with lime?

The saga continues…

Share This

With a set of plans and my ruler I set out to check the figures I’d put together earlier in the Summer when working out how much repointing work I have to do.
All my original figures were based on a total of around 70m2 of repointing which would take around 150 hours of work.
These figures [...]

last weekend’s raking out

In what seems to be an annual event, I’ve restarted repointing the exterior of the barn.
When working with lime you have to take a break over the cold, wet winter months - it’s taken me this long to get restarted.
This time, I’ve taken a more scientific approach and attempted to [...]