A new period property owner

[norfolk house rob]

Hi,
My name is Rob and I've recently bought my first period property. A fantastic 255+ year old 7 bed home in Norfolk, Which although structaly sound is in need of a complete make over.
although i am no idiot as regaurds to home repair, I hope that I will be able to use some of the obvious experiance that you good people have.

My first decision to the maintenance of this house, is the repair and lime washing of the exterior walls, (obviously lime rendered) There are quite a few hairline cracks and a few more obvious ones coming from the windows and doors. Should I beable to just repair the obvious ones and not worry about the hairline ones or should I really strip and re render prior to limewashing?

Iwill be really gratefull to any advice anyone may have

 

[Gervase]

If the hairline cracks are in lime render, I wouldn't worry about them. When you come to limewash, the lime in suspension in the wash will run into and fill the cracks, and by the second or third coat they will have disappeared.
The general rule of thimb with original finishes, be they plaster, render, stucco or pointing, is to leave as much intact and in situ as possible and to patch and repair rather than to replace. It's kinder on the building (an on yoour wallet!).
Sounds to me as though you're in the early stages of what can become a lasting addiction. Good luck!

 

[biffvernon]

Welcome aboard Rob. Firstly, don't rush into doing anything to the house. It would be hard to find a house that old without cracks.

The Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings is well worth joining. They can give a lot of expert advice and run all sorts of courses and events.

What sort of building is it? Brick? Flint? Timber frame?

 

[norfolk house rob]

Thank you Gervase and Biffvernon for your encouraging advice, in answer to your question it is a solid norfolk red brick building with lime render, Glad that it will not cost so much as plenty of projects to complete.

 

[wimorris]

SPAB are running a lime day in Yorkshire on the 12th June if you're interested. Lots of hands on practice and lectures.

 

[middi]

THe chances are, Rob, that your house started life just as red bricks.

The lime render was added at a later stage and most likely done from a fashionable point of view rather than necessity.
If there is no damp problems within the walls, the lime render is doing its job in allowig the breathing mechanism to take place.

It is very inportant that any " cracks" are sealed with a lime and chaulk based filler and obviousely repainted with limewash.

The reason for this is that you do not want excess water to enter behind the cracks as this will inhibit the uniform evaporating process wich is necessary to avoid any damp problems, also if left unattended too much water ingress will eventually break the bonding seal between brick and mortar .
You can test if there is any " loose" bond by tapping the render with the end of a screwdriver or similar and hear for that unmistakeable hollow sound.

Most of the small hairline cracks are usually taken care by the application of limewash.

 

[norfolk house rob]

thank you middi, I will get on to this as soon as possible.
I have checked for hollow patches an there are one or two verry small patches here and there, Should I break out these areas and make good , or should it be O.K. to just fill the cracks and lime wash.

 

[Moreteyne]

Hey Rob
May I suggest any small cracks you dont worry about too much , when you limewash it will flow into these cracks and reseal.
In relation to larger ones I would tap with a hammer to check for hollow sounding render. Remove any loose/hollow sounding render and re render with lime. When patching lime render remember that you should cut/chissle the exisiting render so as the edges are square, this gives the new render a grip hold.

With cracks the chances of water getting behind the existing may have caused blown render. However, if it is stuck on , I wouldn't remove it. No need in taking it all off if it only needs minor repair.

 

[Gervase]

The problem with breaking out the hollow patches is deciding when to stop. Once you start chipping stuff off, it can be tricky to stop larger bits detaching themselves from the wall and you end up with huge areas needing patching.
It's almost inevitable with render that some will have 'blown', however perfectly applied originally. My own view would be to ignore small areas (those no bigger than a sheet of A4 paper) and to be circumspect about bigger areas.
If the render has well and truly 'blown', and the surface is bowed, will flex to finger pressure or there are cracks, then remove carefully with a sharp chisel held at 90 degrees to the surface, put a slight undercut in the edges and patch, but if there's just a hollow sound and no sign of bowing, flexing or cracking, my inclination would be to leave well alone and simply limewash over the top. Three coats of limewash will give some surface stability to the render, and should also penetrate to a degree to reinforce the aggregate under the surface.

 

[norfolk house rob]

thank you guys for your advice, I really will sleep better now that the job in hand seems so much more manageble. I hope to get all the windows and lime washing done by the end of the summer so will keep you informed of my progress- thanks again.

 

[middi]

Now that you are the proud owner of a period property, a couple of points you will do well to bear in mind.

1) Never fix what is not broken.

2) Be always ready to fix anything which is about to break

Good advise from Gervase as to how to deal with hollow plaster.

Enjoy your " new " house and welcome to PPUk

 

[Sue Wilkinson]

Hi, you say you are going to try to get the windows done by end of summer. What do you have to do to them? If you are considering repainting, then I would advise you remove the old paint, make good any repairs with new wood, and then repaint with something like Holkam's linseed oil paint.

My advice is to leave modern, easily available paints well alone. They are totally rubbish on any weather side of a property and not much better on the sheltered bits. It cracks with expansion and contraction of the wood, lets water in that can't get out and rots your frame for you whilst looking good to the passer by!

Hard work to remove the years of accumulated paint, but worth it if you save your windows. Also, linseed oil paints last much longer and should limit your need to attend to them to once every 7 years or so.

Sue

 

[Jocelyn]

Hi,

Welcome to Norfolk, PPUK, and the wonders of limewash!!

Good Luck with it all, we are also just about to move down the road, so to speak, to a very old one in norfolk.

Jocelyn

 

[Paul Hopper]

Hi and welcome to the forum

We all have ideas and I would go along with Middi , Gervase and Biff here

Watch and observe, use the limewash to fill the hairline cracks. tap the render for hollow sections but only renew if you are sure they have "blown" There are some real experts here on rendering, keep reading the forum for ideas.

We are all doing similar things to old property. SPAB is a good guide and there are lots of courses you can attend if you are prepared to travel a bit.

Good luck in my second home ( East Anglia)

Paul Hopper

 

[norfolk house rob]

Thank you everybody for all the advice,
I think I have the situation of the rendering well and trully in hand now,
I feel a lot more confident having had such tremendous feed back from other people who have faced and dealt with the same situation, thank you Sue for the advice on the linseed oil paint, I will give it some serious thought, the only problem I have at the moment is TIME, the windows are in good repair and I wonder if it would be wise to at least cover the windows with a modern paint to protect from the worst of the weather this year while other immediate tasks are dealt with, and then treat each window one at a time next year when hopefully I will have the time to strip the windows back to wood.

 

[biffvernon]

You won't do any harm by overpainting with linseed oil paint from Holkham (actually it comes from Sweden, made by Alback). You just won't deive all of the benefit of starting with linseed oil paint on fresh wood. Don't be put off by the fact that the paint is twice as expensive as the bog-standard. It goes twice as far because it brushes out to a very thin layer.

 

[norfolk house rob]

O.K. Biffvernon, I'll have a look on the web for a supplier, thank you

 

[biffvernon]

Holkam Paints

 

[rshartley]

In case you don't know already, Philip Hendry and Sons in Foulsham have stocks of lime materials and tools. They only stock limewash in white but also sell the necessary pigments to mix up your own colours.

If you want to use a breathable interior paint rather than limewash then you can buy the Earthborne clay paint range at Dereham Decorating Supplies.

Good luck with your project.

Richard