Another stone problem

[Moo]

I've just received this plea for help from an old friend who has been most impressed in the past by the expertise that sloshes around on PPUK:

" HELP..Pat my cleaner has been over vigorously removing the London green moss which develops on my 2 lovely new front steps. I do not know what the stone is but it is now back to pristine white. The bad news is that she seems to have broken down the surface - I have yet to find out what she has been putting on . It is a bit embarrassing. the main point is that white sediment is washing off the stone on to the front path and the surface of the steps is rough. Please !! do you know a product that I can put on to stabilise the stone surface and stop the process? I did see a stone sealer in a decorators shop but it was for indoor use. Could you ask your gurus on the property website? "


For the past forty years she has lived in one of those lovely Edwardian terrace houses in Ealing and a couple of years ago had her red&black tiled front path (the only one left in her street!) beautifully restored, and the new steps put in, so this development is a real disaster for her.

 

[chuckey]

I believe that most stones tend to be alkali, limestone, chalk etc. so if she used an acid, this would fizz and break down the stone. However until the acid is used up - should only take minutes there will be no point of sealing the stones. I had a new fire place built out of limestone and it was as white as the driven snow when delivered, but the whiteness was partially the surface inclusion of the dust from cutting the stone, two years on, indoors, and the stones natural colour is coming through, sort of light yellow with lots of tiny BLACK sea shells in it.

If you really want to seal it use patio sealer, two coats, it may make your steps shiny and slippery. I would not panic, rather look forward to the stones natural colour coming out. If its the wrong colour, paint it with a concrete paint.
Frank

 

[Feltwell]

If its the wrong colour, paint it with a concrete paint.

No! Bad idea. You'll end up with a step like mine - a grey stone in my case, painted brick red - the paint wears away in patches over time and it looks cr@p. Even on similar colours I wouldn't do it.

 

[Lime]

I can't quite believe i'm reading such nonsense on PPUK, do not put paint on stone steps unless you want to completely spoil their looks for the next 30 years.
Sealing is a waste of time and may cause odd patches to remain in evidence for years to come too.

Wash the steps thoroughly.
Leave alone.

 

[Feltwell]

I can't quite believe i'm reading such nonsense on PPUK, do not put paint on stone steps unless you want to completely spoil their looks for the next 30 years.
Sealing is a waste of time and may cause odd patches to remain in evidence for years to come too.

Wash the steps thoroughly.
Leave alone.

I agree, and hasten to add it wasn't me who painted my step!

 

[JoceAndChris]

My apologies that this is your second viewing of this photograph, but here is a good example of how awful stone steps look when they've been painted 40 years ago and the paint has worn off.

 

[Jon Maine]

Sounds like she may benefit from a stonemason re-facing the steps by rubbing them back a bit. I am sure the acidity will have gone but something alkali may be worth applying to neutralise incase it has not.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Jon's idea is good, alternatively simply leave them alone, they will soon build up a natural patina again.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I assume it's no longer fashionable for people to holystone their front steps as my grandmother did well into the 1980s?

Not that it was fashionable when she did it - merely "respectable"

 

[JoceAndChris]

Please explain "holystone"- I've looked it up and can't find anything.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Funnily enough, I googled it before posting and couldn't find anything either - possibly the wrong word, or just something that's died out totally just before the internet age.

A softish stone used (I think with water) to scrub or scour doorsteps, which left a fine, powdery, whitish finish on the step, thereby making the step (and by extension, the house) look clean in a smog-ridden atmosphere.

Ted Hughes (no relation, needless to say) used the image in the last line of this:

View of a Pig
The pig lay on a barrow dead.
It weighed, they said, as much as three men.
Its eyes closed, pink white eyelashes.
Its trotters stuck straight out.
Such weight and thick pink bulk
Set in death seemed not just dead.
It was less than lifeless, further off.
It was like a sack of wheat.
I thumped it without feeling remorse.
One feels guilty insulting the dead,
Walking on graves. But this pig
Did not seem able to accuse.
It was too dead. Just so much
A poundage of lard and pork.
Its last dignity had entirely gone.
It was not a figure of fun.
Too dead now to pity.
To remember its life, din, stronghold
Of earthly pleasure as it had been,
Seemed a false effort, and off the point.
Too deadly factual. Its weight
Oppressed me — how could it be moved?
And the trouble of cutting it up!
The gash in its throat was shocking, but not pathetic.
Once I ran at a fair in the noise
To catch a greased piglet
That was faster and nimbler than a cat,
Its squeal was the rending of metal.
Pigs must have hot blood, they feel like ovens.
Their bite is worse than a horse's —
They chop a half-moon clean out.
They eat cinders, dead cats.
Distinctions and admirations such
As this one was long finished with.
I stared at it a long time.
They were going to scald it,
Scald it and scour it like a doorstep.

But then we get back to my grandfather's (other side of the family) keeping of pigs in the 1940s and 50s, and the "A Private Function" like shenanigans when meat was still rationed just after the war and Auntie Alice walked the pig's corpse across town in a pram with a bonnet on its head to the butcher's, hoping to avoid detection.

Thanks, Joce, you've just brought back memories of childhood family Christmas parties when that tale would be retold (doubtless with embellishments), followed by "skinning the rabbit" - a narrated parlour game in the dark which also seems to have eluded the interweb, but which was also fantastic, disgusting, and sometimes slightly rude.

We also used to play the Chocolate Game exactly as described here, though I doubt its alleged German origins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chocolate_Game

 

[Schoolmarm]

Donkey stone. Given out by the rag and bone man in cream or white.

 

[Gervase]

Holystoning is a naval thing - a backbreaking task to keep the wooden decks clean and tight. There's a well-known song The Banks of Newfoundland which has a chorus "Well rub her down and scrub her down with holystone and sand", while this is a description from the pre-war Australian navy:

"Then came the day when we were drafted to the sea-going training ship, H.M.A.S. "Sydney". We had our own boy's mess deck and sleeping deck, but during the day we had to work with the able seamen in whatever part of the ship to which we were detailed. So all the jobs hated by the AB's came our way. Chipping rust, painting and of course "holystoning". Holystoning was rubbing a piece of sandstone about six inches square by four inches thick on a section of the upper deck which had become less immaculate than the remainder. The quarter-deck was always a prime starter in the "holystoning" stakes. As it was at the after end of the ship where, in a harbour, the Officer of the Watch paraded up and down during his time on watch, we were continually under his watchful eye. First the deck was wetted down and then fine sand was sprinkled on it. Then it was down on your knees for a couple of hours or so, kneeling on whatever you could find to kneel on, and broken only by a "smoko" of ten minutes half way through. Holystoning was a favourite punishment given by the Commander for minor offences committed by the boys. No wonder the Quarter deck was always spotless. "

The blocks were called holystones because the sailors went down on their knees to use them and they were about the size of a ship's bible. Smaller ones were given the nickname 'prayerbooks'.

 

[Feltwell]

The blocks were called holystones because the sailors went down on their knees to use them and they were about the size of a ship's bible.

Another bit of trivia to add to the brain! I love things like that, thanks Gervase.

Back to the earlier posts, I'm not sure I'd want to regularly attack nice stone steps with anything abrasive, even if it is softer. As a one-off maybe, with extreme caution. Over-cautious?

 

[Lime]

Apart from normal wear, the reason most old stone steps have a general rounded appearance is from the use of such stones for whitening.
No respectable housewife would have been without their white step/steps, before 8 o'clock in the morning too.
A bit like hanging out the washing.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Nemesis advises that donkey stones are still available, (sounds like traditional handcraft-scale manufacture nowadays):
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/50/50948_the_donkey_stone_is_still_in_step.html

 

[JoceAndChris]

Mmmm, just woken up, how fantastic to read all that over a sunny breakfast. More digressions, historical interludes, and childhood memories please.

Why have we ditched those old parlour games?

Although I set up the chocolate game with a bunch of Japanese littlies, it was a disaster. Not only were they completely bemused and rather disgusted at taking turns in putting on someone else's old hat, scarf, and gloves, they also couldn't manage the knives and forks and wanted to share the chocolate with eachother rather than fight for it. It's amazing what these games tell us about our culture.

Anyway, please can I add my own very troublesome steps to this thread? I think they're way beyond the help of any holystoning!

Down we go. (I'm up and down these steps about 100 times a day)

Stripping off the paint should be relatively simple, but I haven't done it as it will do nothing for the damage that's been done to these steps by ripping off the metal nosings (is that the right word?)

Before joining this forum we were all set to pour over something unmentionable from B&Q.

I'm now wondering if a stonemason could get them into a nice shape? Or whether I should just instal a central runner?

Thanks for any ideas.

 

[Schoolmarm]

The place in Ev's link where they are made is right near me 8) I am off to order some and get my steps sorted.

 

[JoceAndChris]

In case anyone is curious about stone repair, thought I'd update you all on my scabby old Georgian staircase as I've just had a stonemason round who chiefly works on historic and listed properties.

He said that if a CO saw that staircase they would probably insist it was left in its current condition.

If that's true, I think it's a bit unreasonable as this is the staircase down to the kitchen (ie, used tons) and my aging Mama is struggling with it.

He also said it would be sacrilege and against good conservation practice to do any chipping away, smoothing out, or any covering with any cementitious product.

His only suggestion was that treads and risers are cut in a matching sandstone after a template is made of each individual step. The original staircase would then be completely covered, but I'd have a more attractive and safer staircase in an appropriate stone.

I await his quotation with some trepidation, but, a good solution? Not like decopierre, is it?

 

[Lime]

I await his quotation with some trepidation, but, a good solution? Not like decopierre, is it?

As someone not paying for it I think the idea is a good one.
I'm pleased they gave the advice they did, at least some people have scruples.
It will look good.