Before we can replace our sill beams the corner of the house needs to be repaired, it had some really funky repairs done on it in the past so I’m glad we’re fixing it. Weather is just about decent enough to risk doing lime mortar.
From the photos you can see it was in pretty bad shape and even worse by the time I removed all loose and flaking mortar. A lot of the mortar was of very poor quality and would crumble in you hand, hence the huge hole you can see.
On Saturday we rebuilt the main structure of the wall by hand, filling in small cracks & gaps and on Sunday we used our mortar sprayer to finish the job off. We had to spay a lot on as in some places the mortar is a couple of inches deep. We did push in stones whenever we could and we do add fiberglass strands to the mix – in the old days they may have added horse hair.
I’m not great at finishing the surface but my trick is to go over any irregularities with a diamond polishing/grinding disk which will give great results. I’ll grind the top nice and flat and it will also have to be at an angle as the two beams are at a slightly different height, probably due to subsidence etc.
The last couple of nights have dipped below freezing (disastrous for lime mortar) so we built an outside tent around the wall and left a small fan heater inside. Each day we’ll spray the wall with water which helps the lime to cure.
The reason why we look like we’re not doing much in the video is that each batch of mortar takes about 25 minutes to mix – it’s a lime thing. Also the SD card ran out of space, hence the abrupt end.
Is the mortar a render texture or more like plaster? Can you float it to finish it, can you use a bit 2×1 to level and finish it off or a metal meter rule if it’s a smoother finish. Ideas you might have already tried but thought I’d mention them just in case.
Looks much better!
No I hadn’t thought of leveling if off with a 2×4 and now I have build up the walls I’ll have something solid to attach them too 🙂 It’s likely that I’ll be removing material and also adding it in places so I’ll use the laser level for removal. Thanks Chris!
I was getting really worried that you weren’t going to have anything to do this year. Thank the heavens for more work to keep you out of trouble,. I’m quite handy with a sewing machine, if that’s any help to you.
Well we’ll need some curtains 🙂 I think we have about 40 windows!!!
Would you believe it, the machine just broke!
Ah I was a bit puzzled by your comment but now I know you meant the sewing machine!!!!