Lime Pointing, Stonewalling & Cob Walls

Lime Pointing

Lime pointing of traditional masonry using lime mortar based on lime putty or natural hydraulic lime (NHL) offers many advantages over cement based mortars.

Lime mortars for lime pointing are generally softer and more porous compared to mixes using cement, therefore allowing moisture to evaporate from the joints more freely. This can help to lower moisture levels in the wall and reduce the build up of soluble salts in the stone face, therefore reducing potential damage or ‘spalling’ of the masonry.

Stone Wall Restructure and Repair

Natural weathering of stone is inevitable, but some types have a structure that makes them more durable than others.

There are three major causes of deterioration in natural stone; pollutants, frost and crystallisation of soluble salts. Water penetration is the main instigator of decay, and structure is the most important factor influencing the ability of stone to resist decay processes.

The only requirement of a consolidant is to reduce the rate of decay of the stone surface and the most successful treatments are those which least alter the characteristics of treated stone leaving it similar to the underlying sound stone.

We use the ideal polymer for use in stone consolidation in order to reverse the degradation of a stone, returning it as nearly as possible to its original condition.

• BEER STONE
• ORDINARY CHALK
• PEBBLES, COBBLES AND BOULDER STONES

Cob Walls

• COB
• WYCHERT
• CLAY LUMP

Most people associate buildings with earth walls with Africa, Arabia and South America. Yet, despite our damp climate, there are thousands of earth buildings in the United Kingdom, some of which are over four hundred years old.

COB & DEVON COB – The thick cob walled houses in the West Country are probably the best known of all earth walled buildings. Their thick walls are made by piling a mixture of subsoil and straw.

WYCHERT (whitchert) – Between Oxford and Aylesbury, thin walls were constructed using this cob technique. Walls are built with the continuous cob method in which the subsoil is placed in thin layers alternating with layers of straw.

CLAY LUMP – This universal mudbrick, also known as ‘adobe’ is found only in East Anglia in the area east of the A1 and south of the A47, where it was introduced, from abroad, around the end of the 18^th century. For about 100 years it was the principal walling material for every sort of building on the chalky boulder clays of Norfolk and Suffolk.

Construction is similar to brickwork with regular bonded courses, but the dried blocks of adobe or clay lump are much larger and are usually laid in a mortar of fresh earth or clay.