Flagstone questions

[Alex]

I have waited until I had the house to myself and I have cut up most of the carpet in the livingroom. This has taken most of the day as I had nobody to help me move the furniture first. We knew there were flagstones underneath the carpet but have put off uncovering them for lots of different reasons but when we came in the other night, the smell of damp finally made up my mind. Naturally the floor is damp but not as bad as I thought and the 60s/70s cement repointing of some of the flags seems to chip away quite easily.

I always admire flagstones in pictures of peoples houses in magazines etc but for some reason I am really worried about living with them myself. Please can somebody with flagstones tell me what they are like to live with. Are they really cold in the winter ? How often do you clean them ? (I know everybody on here uses Ecover floor cleaner). I assume that I am going to have to wring the mop out as much as possible when I do clean them so as not to get them soaking wet. We have had a very large seagrass mat made but the flagstones will still be visible around the edge.

I will try and take some photo's tomorrow, I only have the camera on my phone, so daylight would be better as the quality will not be great.

Thankyou in advance

Alex

 

[FamilyWiggs]

They're fine too live with, we have a large rug covering the centre of the room.

They can be chilly in the winter, but we have some underfloor heating.

Cleaning - ours are oiled with linseed oil. We brush every week. Occasionally a wet mop and Ecover. And every year or so we re-oil.

Look forward to the pics!

 

[Alex]

Thankyou for that, I would have been washing the floor everyday, it would have been the wettest but cleanest floor in Wales. I guessed they would be cold in winter which is why I bought the seagrass mat, unfortunetly it has been rolled up in the bag for two and a half years and I can't quite remember what colour the binding is around the edge and now you can see how long we have been putting off this job. No underfloor heating for us, we are tough down here, we will just have to wear 2 pairs of slippers on the very cold days

Alex

 

[Alex]

As promised - Porn


Not great photo's but I took them with my phone.



Shows where I picked some of the cement out of the gap between the flags.

Just have to take up the rest of the carpet now.

 

[LadyArowana]

I bet those flags would clean up beautifully. If it was mine I would be tempted to commit myself to removing all the nasty cement before getting out the lovely new seagrass carpet ( if it's been 2 years a bit longer won't matter ). My guess is it's the sort of job you could do a bit at a time just by having the hammer and bolster there and cleaning one at a time when you have a spare half hour or so. Big tedious jobs only seem intimidating when you look at them as a big tedious job, broken down into small sections they go remarkably quickly. Good luck.

 

[Alex]

Thank you Lady Arowana. The seagrass mat is staying in the bag for quite sometime as not only do I have to get the cement off the flags, the room has to be stripped of its cement and gypsum walls and then replastered in lime. I have found that the cement is coming off fairly easily using a wallpaper scraper and a small rubber mallet causing no damage at all to the flags. Will keep everyone updated with photo's.

Alex

 

[Moo]

Ah, those pictures bring back memories!
Milady is quite right to recommend frequent nibbles at the job - its very satisfying done that way.
And if it's any comfort to you, we didn't find our flags at all cold*, and once we'd got all the grot off we never did any more to them than the occasional sweep and even more occasional mop over, and everyone who saw them admired their gentle lustre.



* laid straight on to earth; no dpm; no underfloor heating.

 

[angrybird]

They're fine too live with, we have a large rug covering the centre of the room.

They can be chilly in the winter, but we have some underfloor heating.

Cleaning - ours are oiled with linseed oil. We brush every week. Occasionally a wet mop and Ecover. And every year or so we re-oil.

Look forward to the pics!

would that be boiled linseed oil ?

 

[Alex]

Thanks everyone for the advice and the encouragement, it is most welcome. The rest of the carpet and rubber underlay is now at the tip, 2 trips in my little car but I am pleased its gone, I should have done it months ago. I have been getting bits of cement off and so far it is not too bad, a lot of it is pretty old cement by the look of it which comes off fairly easily, there are only a couple of places where there is more modern stuff which is going too be harder. As you have advised, I shall do it a bit at a time, thankyou again.

Alex

 

[FamilyWiggs]

We used raw linseed oil. Expensive Holkhams stuff.

The boiled stuff seems to be darker and colours wood a bit. Not that that matters for flags but we used the same stuff as we did for window frames.

It is great to apply once heated, but you have to bury the rags underneath a swimming pool just to be on the safe side.

 

[Alex]

FamilyWiggs, I have been knocking cement off the flagstones for the past 24 hours on and off and I can report to you, that I probably won't be putting my order in to Holkhams for my linseed oil in until at least Christmas. :lol: Maybe longer if I have to dig a swimming pool as well but point taken.

Thank you

Alex

 

[lou]

Hi Alex
I saw your flags and thought they looked very like ours then noticed that you too are in SE Wales - we are near Monmouth and I'll be very interested to see how you proceed. I will try and put some pics of ours on later this week. We have underfloor heating and they have had a lot of lime plaster dropped on them which we are gradually trying to wirebrush away but in any case they seem to be improving with use. I'm not intending to wash them often, just brushing seems to be ok. I have been told about a breathable sealer that Ty Mawr Lime (Brecon) sell but the jury still seems to be out on how effectively this works. The problem area is where I cook as I'm not very tidy but I'm trying to ignore it. If you drop oil on the flags, Ty Mawr also sell some chalky stuff that you mix to a paste then cover with clingfilm for a few hours then brush away. Works like a dream.

Keep us updated - best of luck.

 

[angrybird]

We used raw linseed oil. Expensive Holkhams stuff.

The boiled stuff seems to be darker and colours wood a bit. Not that that matters for flags but we used the same stuff as we did for window frames.

It is great to apply once heated, but you have to bury the rags underneath a swimming pool just to be on the safe side.

I have become a bit obsessive when i have finished using the oily rag (so I thought) until the other day... I had been oiling beams and thought I wont leave the rag at the house I will wrap it in a plastic bag place it in my handbag and dispose of it when I get home, only to realise the next morning that I had left my handbag in the dining room over night with the linseed rag still inside :? D'oh!

 

[tobydog]

You're lucky you still had a house angrybird. We nearly didn't have one after I left a pile of rags in the kitchen and that was only after a fairly short time.

 

[angrybird]

You're lucky you still had a house angrybird. We nearly didn't have one after I left a pile of rags in the kitchen and that was only after a fairly short time.

*Gulps!

 

[Alex]

Hi Lou, thanks for the information. We havent been to Ty Mawr for months as we have been working away from home for the past year and have done nothing for about 18 months so this is my first big project for ages. I remember being in the Ty Mawr kitchen, looking at their vast floor made up entirely of beautiful flagstones, when we went on a lime plastering day there. There wasn't a bit of cement in sight and now I am so jealous but I will keep plodding on. We can go up to Ty Mawr later this week so I can ask them for some advice then. At least I don't have to worry about dropping food on my flags as they are in the livingroom.

Tobydog and Angrybird - I seem to remember that in the Old House Handbook, it mentions using beeswax on flagstones but I can't remember where I put the book. Has anyone else tried this ? It might stop all the linseed oil cloth fires that seem to be breaking out all over the country :shock:

 

[MatthewC]

We laid black limestone flags onto a limecrete screed in our kitchen last year, with just a small amount of underfloor heating where we walk to make a cup of tea. Contrary to other views, we just wipe ours with water when there's a spillage, and then wash it every few months with a fairly weak cleaning solution (something containing 2% sodium hydroxide) followed by rinsing with copious supplies of water (removed with a sponge). It has never been sealed or treated with anything else at all, and comes up a treat.

My advice is to live with it and see how you feel - don't do anything permanent in a rush. T'other half has changed her view since we moved in (she wanted to seal it), and is quite happy with it (thank goodness!).

 

[Keith Bowman]

We used raw linseed oil. Expensive Holkhams stuff.

The boiled stuff seems to be darker and colours wood a bit. Not that that matters for flags but we used the same stuff as we did for window frames.

It is great to apply once heated, but you have to bury the rags underneath a swimming pool just to be on the safe side.

My understanding is that boiled linseed oil tends to seal the surface (like a varnish) and that raw linseed oil soaks in. I would also have thought that it is the same from a local builders' merchant as from any other supplier. I'm probably wrong on both counts. Wouldn't be the first time!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Well all I can say is that I also bought some from the local orange shed for a fraction of the price. It was much thinner and didn't smell quite so nice. I didn't use it.

I may be a sucker.... But there's olive oil and then there's olive oil. Why shouldn't the same be true of flax?

Holkhams is not cheap though.

 

[LadyArowana]

Well all I can say is that I also bought some from the local orange shed for a fraction of the price. It was much thinner and didn't smell quite so nice. I didn't use it.

I may be a sucker.... But there's olive oil and then there's olive oil. Why shouldn't the same be true of flax?

Holkhams is not cheap though.

Cheap materials can be a false economy. It's easy to forget the "cost" of ones time, but if you factor that in, doing a job twice, or getting a bad result, for the sake of spending a little less on what you use may not be the best plan. It's like hand knitting with a nasty synthetic fibre, hours of work to produce something that isn't gorgeous, not worthwhile, buy lovely wool or go to Primark!