Pointing Top Tip #94

[Flyfisher]

"Chatsworth House has reopened after its biggest restoration project in 200 years. The 10-year long programme, which cost about £32m, has seen "priceless" paintings restored, brickwork scrubbed and turrets rebuilt. Dentistry tools were used to scrape out mortar in between huge blocks in the Derbyshire stately home's walls."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-43501436


Coincidentally, I've also been working on our project for about 10 years, though I'm not yet up to £32m. :wink:

 

[malcolm]

Only 5 years here. For pointing the heritage people don't like aggressive tools, but it you are doing it yourself and can be careful an angle grinder with a stone cutting disc is speedy for removing old pointing.

 

[88v8]

Although I do have a couple of dental picks, there is no fine ashlar here. Here, it's not so much the removal of the thin sliver of old cement pointing that has been the issue, it's the lime repointing.
I suspect we have not been consolidating it sufficiently; somewhere I read recently that lime needs to be walloped so that all free water and all air is driven out of it, otherwise it will not be really waterproof. This needs bits of wood. Multiple thicknesses of wood to deal with the random gaps in the coursed rubble walls.

I and the lime-friendly builders I used when first we bought the cottage, have done our consolidating with a churn brush. That I suspect is the lazy man's method. An olde texture, OK indoors, not so good outdoors especially if it's exposed to driven rain.

My growing ToDo list includes repointing the rear wall. It gets the weather. The cement pointing of 1972 is keeping the water out and the stone has not spalled. There is a strong temptation to leave well alone.

Ivor