New House New Problems...

[R King]

Hello All,

We moved house 7 weeks ago from a lovely 17thc limestone farmhouse to a lovely 16thc thatched limestone farmhouse.

There is lots to do but the house is much more habitable than our last house when we first moved in. Our first few jobs are the usuals - dealing with damp etc.

We have some beautiful stone mullion windows, but in my daughter's bedroom these have some black mould growing on the stonework. I would have normally just bleached this as it is a health hazard. The problem is that the stonework has layers of old limewash which we wish to preserve. Can anybody suggest a way of getting rid of the mould which will not damage the mullions or the limewash?

Thank you!!

R King

 

[worms]

I'm not sure why you would be worried about using bleach, but an alternative might be a weak solution of sodium dichlorophen, which I think is available in a spray bottle as "Bio Moss Killer"in the garden centres. It wouldn't clean the black staining but should kill the mould very effectively.

 

[Penners]

I don't think I would hesitate to use bleach to get rid of the mould. If it spoils a little bit of the surrounding limewash, this surely won't be too difficult to touch in, will it?

 

[R King]

Thanks for the replies. I was not sure if the bleach would cause any damage.

 

[Penners]

Wash the bleach off well afterwards. If there's any local deterioration of the limewash, a bit of touching in should solve it (as I said above).

But bleach and limewash are both alkaline, so hopefully you might get away with very little deterioration. Do let us know how you get on.