Blog of interest to anyone restoring a cement rendered house

Hello fellow period property enthusiasts. I wanted to share my ongoing blog about the restoration of our Shropshire farmhouse. The renovation work is now well under way and I hope some of you may find it interesting in the coming weeks as things progress. Please take a look http://www.oldlawnsrenovate.blogspot.com

Already looks much better. I shall watch progress with interest!

thanks Plasticpigeon

Quite illuminating how wet the bricks were behind that render.

Will be great to see some pictures when the windows are in – the eyes of the house. Try and set them as far back as can be managed – much better to have some depth and articulation to the facade (unless local precedent for flush).

Looks good. Whereabouts in Shropshire are you? I'm in Wellington.

Roger, in some places the bricks and lime mortar were soaked, in other places dry. All depended on the amount of cracking in the cement render and the degree of exposure to the elements. The south elevations are by far the worst as that's where most of our winter winds and weather come from. We are 750 feet up in the Shropshire Hills so it gets wild at times and decades of rain had penetrated the render and damaged the walls behind. The stone west wall will also be a feature of future blog posts as it basically consists of two skins of rubble stone with a load of s**t in the middle and its FULL of voids, some big enough to stick you arm in! Its is going to require many, many tons of lime mortar to be poured into the centre to fill all the holes! Nevertheless, what was very noticeable after removing the render from the brick elevations last autumn/winter, despite knackered brickwork and mortar was that the condensation on the internal walls pretty much disappeared, mould stopped growing in cold corners and the walls started to dry out, even in a VERY wet winter. In fact this old house had quite literally started to breath again!

Good comment regarding the fitting of the new windows - we plan to set them about 3-5 cm into the reveals which I think will look the business. Right now, as I stare at a plastic sheet over the hole in the living room window I'd settle for any kind of window! :lol:

Feltwell, hi - we are near Pulverbatch, about 10 miles south of Shrewsbury.

Stuwlam,

Have a look at some local period windows - a common set-back distance would be 4" (10.16cm), as stipulated in post Great Fire of London building regulations! Gives a pleasing articulation to the elevation and by setting them back, protects the timber from the weather (and licking flames...). 3" is a more common modern target depth to aim for. Might not seem a big difference but on my building the set back windows look 10x better than the flush ones. They will all be getting levered out and repositioned at sometime.

Roger H said:

- a common set-back distance would be 4" (10.16cm), as stipulated in post Great Fire of London building regulations! Gives a pleasing articulation to the elevation and by setting them back, protects the timber from the weather (and licking flames...). 3" is a more common modern target depth to aim for.

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Thanks Roger, we will definitely consider this when the windows arrive.

Update from week 4 just published here http://www.oldlawnsrenovate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-restoration-week-four.html?m=1

What a project! Looking forward to the updates.

I can't believe how much damp the render was trapping, quite alarming.

What better illustration you're doing the right thing than having the wall dry out on front of your eyes.

Thanks Mr S. I have been amazed by the way the walls have dried over the last 9 months and how old, crumbly, soaking wet lime mortar dried out and has miraculously solidified! I had read a lot about this stuff before we started our project but, as you say, seeing is believing! I hope my blog in some small way can encourage others to pick up a hammer and chisel and get rid of their cement render!

Here's the latest news from last week http://oldlawnsrenovate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-restoration-week-five.html

A bit late but here's the news from week 6 - more brick arches rebuilt and the start of preparations for grouting our big stone wall which appears very hollow! :shock: http://oldlawnsrenovate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-restoration-week-six.html

Week 7 Blog post is now online. Repairs and lime mortar repointing of the big old stone wall begins http://oldlawnsrenovate.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-restoration-week-7.html

Seems like very good progress, lovely to see all the pictures on there. Good luck for the next 7 weeks

Enjoying this blog, it's looking great. I hope your new windows will do the brickwork justice!!!

Thanks both! I'm really chuffed with how the stone wall is looking now. We were very worried about it when the render came off :shock: Glad you're enjoying the Blog - been a bit slow to post this - I managed to break my ankle last week! Just as well it's not me doing the building work!!

stuwlam said:

Thanks both! I'm really chuffed with how the stone wall is looking now. We were very worried about it when the render came off :shock: Glad you're enjoying the Blog - been a bit slow to post this - I managed to break my ankle last week! Just as well it's not me doing the building work!!

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Oh, no, the PPUK virtual hospital is getting quite full, but I guess Vicky is just about mended now, and you can have the space next to Zebra. Get well soon.

LadyArowana said:

stuwlam said:

Thanks both! I'm really chuffed with how the stone wall is looking now. We were very worried about it when the render came off :shock: Glad you're enjoying the Blog - been a bit slow to post this - I managed to break my ankle last week! Just as well it's not me doing the building work!!

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Oh, no, the PPUK virtual hospital is getting quite full, but I guess Vicky is just about mended now, and you can have the space next to Zebra. Get well soon.

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Well, I'm going in on Oct 15th so someone had better get discharged before then. Are the wards unisex or mixed?
Matthew

See my other blog http://diaryofakidneydonor.blogspot.co.uk/