when to rake out and other things...

[vicky whitworth]

Hello, please could I ask for some advice on a couple of things:

Firstly, when should I rake out mortar joints for re-pointing an external rubble stone wall? The wall is mostly lime pointed but has sandex over the top of it. I have been leaving the santex to weather/peel off for a few years but now want to re-point in lime in the summer. Prior to this I will need to rake out the old joints and I am thinking about starting this now. For two reasons: I want to be ready in good time so that I can start the re-pointing as soon as the frosts are over, and also because the walls are horrendously damp with moisture trapped behind the sandex. If I get the sandex off the joints now I thought it might help to get it drying out. But am I being too premature, and the wet weather will just drive in more moisture faster than it can dry off?

Secondly what would you use to make a hearth in an old fireplace? There's nothing of the original hearth left. We have opened the old fireplace. It has a brick arch and is quite wide. I think it would have had a range in it and/or been an open fire. We plan to put a woodburner in it. The floor in front of the hearth is slate flags. I wanted something to contrast with this so it is clear what is hearth and what isn't. What would you go for?

Any advice gratefully received. Vicky

 

[chuckey]

One advantage of raking out now, is that the wind and rain will clear most of the dust out of your newly exposed joints. As for your hearth, its difficult without a picture, to imagine what the colours are, but for a starter, how about a brick hearth? Or approach your local stone cutter to see what they have on offer, perhaps garden centres for slabs or even a funerary mason. Get some head stones with spelling mistakes on'em, turn them over and square the ends of with a disc cutter - voila!
Frank

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Hearth - we had a similar issue - nothing left of hearth, just mud floor. We also have slate flags. We went for York flags as the rest of the opening is stone. Ended up buying about 10 metres of railway platform and removing the white line.

Bought it as a Christmas present for my wife last year - now who else can boast that their husband bought them a railway platform for Christmas?

Voila, a lovely hearth that is already "weathered" through decades of feet tramping over it to get on th 07:10 to somewhere.

 

[DaveBrigg]

We were encouraged by our builder to have a new limestone hearth fitted over the top of some much older flags that were below floor level. The limestone was beautiful, from the same quarry that supplies Lincoln cathedral, with tiny fossils enbedded throughout its finely polished surface. Now, after just over a year's use, it is a grubby brown with darker soot marks, and I'm wishing we had gone for old flagstones instead.
(If the dirt can be sanded out, is it possible to seal limestone so that it is 'wipe clean'?)

 

[Jon Maine]

Nice bit of reclaimed york stone paving for your hearth available at most good reclaim yards. personal taste though at the end of the day.

As for raking out see no problem with doing that when you want, maybe leave the weather elevation til last.

 

[brackendale]

Dave we had a just off white limestone hearth fitted 18 months ago it was sealed - can't remember the name of the fluid but came as a 2 pack it was italian produced and I have seen it in places such as topps tiles, and my local stone suppliers so is commonly available.

to remove marks my wife either just wipes over or if very stubborn uses one of the green plastic pan scourers (something like scotchbrite) we have removed things like tea / coffee rings from guests mugs.

the protection does soak in well but needs a well ventilated room, first chemical was the sealer second was a wax, they did slightly darken the stone on application but after drying it came back to almost the original tone, the wa xapplication did not leave a shiny surface



john

 

[Penners]

the 07:10 to somewhere.

Budleigh Salterton. The 7:10 always goes to Budleigh Salterton.

In the house before the last, before the last, I made a hearth out of brick paviours. They're quite high-fired so don't seem to deteriorate with the heat. I liad them in a herringbone pattern. If you get them reclaimed, you don't have to go through the dirty phase before you get to the characterful phase.

 

[Craig]

Is this the constructional hearth (is that the right term?) - the one under the fire rather than the front hearth?

We have used bricks to patch holes in some of the stone constructional hearths in our house and they seem to be fine so far. We rendered over the top in lime mortar to hide the cracks.

 

[vicky whitworth]

Thank you for all these suggestions. It's given me loads of ideas. I do quite fancy reclaimed brick. The fireplace opening is in brick with a brick arch but it's all in bad nick and I'm planning to lime plaster over the lot which is what, I assume, 'they' would have done. Today we have uncovered an old (very old) back boiler thingy - got quite excited for a while as thought it was an old small range until the full horror was revealed.