I’m trying to establish whether I need to use lime or cement mortar to re-point my 1897-built walls.
Fortunately, the main thing I need to tackle is a single-skin garden wall rather than the house itself. The mortar is really badly weathered and needs to be re-pointed. I was going to cross my fingers and hope that it gets through this Winter and then do it in the Spring. However, my neighbour’s told me that a section of it (that I can’t see, because it’s inaccessible from my side) is close to collapse, and that she’d like us to get someone in (it’s a party wall) before the weather takes it down altogether. Apparently she’s had a quote from people who’re about to do some other work for her. Trouble is, she is absolutely appalling at commissioning work because she’s well-off, scatty-posh, indecisive and unassertive; she’s just had some kitchen re-modelling work done which took, I kid you not, 3 MONTHS! And our houses are just standard-size 3B Victorian semis. God knows what it ended up costing her.
Anyway, matey-boy from ISawYouComing & Sons (Builders) has quoted her…wait for it…”…£5-10,000″ to put in new footings and re-build a single 10ft-long panel of this 5ft-high single-skin garden wall.
So, obviously, bollocks to that.
It’s true that the footings have gone, as they’ve been undermined in one place by a single foxhole, but I was just going to whack some rubble in there and then fill it with 3 or 4 bags of Postcrete (total cost £30) and then re-point / re-build above as necessary. But if she’s going to want to press ahead now, rather than wait til Spring, then the least I want us to be able to do is to know that the right materials are being used. And then I’ll use the same when I do the rest of the wall in Spring.
Hence, “lime or cement mortar in an 1897 external brick wall?”.
Thanks in advance.
PS I should have said that I want us to know what the right materials are so that we can put a simple spec. together and then get other quotes.
Back years ago I taught brickwork, lime mortar will be fine. Put it this way if it’s lasted this long then you don’t need cement.
Hubert, I meant to say yesterday that brickwork is a great skill to have and, indeed, to teach. Is it a skill you still use?
Was teaching it for adult Ed about eight years ago, but the back has gone, had an op for the sciatica in my left leg last year. Still point out brickwork bonds when out and about.
Fell into it by accident, got a job in the brickwork dept of my local college. After working there a few years one day no one turned up to teach the class, so it fell to me to do it.
Did it for quite a few years until the department closed.
Great story about how you just fell into it! Them’s the days!
Bad news about your back / leg though – hope you’re able to get about ok.
Don’t know if you know Reading at all (where I live) but the Victorian / Edwardian housing stock and some of the notable buildings are known for their decorative brickwork, as the town sits on the London Clay / Reading Formation and so there used to be loads of brick kilns here. Here’s a link to a bit of info if you’re interested / bored:
http://sbcox.history-redlands.tripod.com/brick-kilns.html
…and here’s a pic of a completely over-the-top example, Foxhill House (at the Uni) designed by local lad Sir Alfred Waterhouse (ie National History Museum, Manchester Town Hall, the nave in the church at the end of my road…):
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Foxhill_from_the_west.jpg/1024px-Foxhill_from_the_west.jpg
I do like a bit of local history – thanks for the links @Jeff
My pleasure @rigid-digit.
Actually, having had a look at the Waterhouse page on that local history site I see that not only was he not a Reading lad (being born in Liverpool, in fact, though he did live and work here for many years) but he was also never Knighted.
Still, let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?
Lime mortar.
And that bloke who gave the £10k quote is having a giraffe.
Excellent, thanks very much gents.
And yes Bingo, I agree, though I think it’s actually a “We don’t need this piddly little job, especially outdoors in February” quote.
We’ve had a lot of those in the past. I guess it’s the equivalent of those “I don’t have this book in stock, but if you’re willing to pay £1,000 for it I’ll certainly try to source it for you” listings on Amazon Marketplace.
From the age of the wall, it sounds like lime mortar to me but if you can get hold of him/her, try and speak to your local historic buildings/conservation officer who, if they’re anything like ours, should be able to confirm from a photo or a small sample of the existing mortar if you can get a bit to them.
Thanks Smudge, that’s a good suggestion – I used to know a conservation officer so I’ll see if I can track him down and ask if he knows of a brickie who could do a sympathetic job.
Not a brickie, but I’ve been looking into the same thing for our 100 year old place which is all lime mortar. It appears that if you use regular modern hard mortar in a lime mortared wall, the new mortar has no give in it so it’s the bricks (which are old and not as hard as modern ones) or the remaining lime mortar that shatters under load, so in that respect it’s important to use the appropriate mortar. How much that should cost is a different question…we have tuck pointing which also seems to be a license to print stupid quotes.
This video is incredibly boring but shows you what will happen…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGs6GhGZiso
Yes, that is a truly boring video, but thanks nonetheless Harold.
I’d known about the incompatibility between lime mortar and modern bricks, and I also knew that the use of lime mortar had died out “…at some point in the late C19th”, to be replaced by OPC, but I just couldn’t find any information anywhere about what that cut-off point was (even in broad terms). So I thought I’d just punt out the construction date and see if anybody on here had some relevant knowledge.
And, as always with this site, someone did. Good stuff.
Blimey! Building quotes aren’t an exact science, are they?: “somewhere between an hefty four figure sum which – although eyewatering – carries the possibility that a great amount of thought has gone into its calculation and, arbitrarily, exactly double that amount”.
It’s like they’re working for Spinal Tap: “If those measurements for Stonehenge are in centimetres it’s x grand, if that’s meant to be inches it’s 2.54x grand”…
I’m just relieved that the quote didn’t go to 11.
I need to get some pointing done at some point. This thread is interesting. It’s an old place so probably it’s lime? It’s well crumbly and areas missing now so it needs to be done. How much do you need to take out the old stuff? I’m worried it might all come out and the place collapse. Any tips?
More to the point it’s probably not a big enough job for a builder to be interested so it might have to be DIY.
It would seem that Mr H. Rawlinson, above, would be your source of expert info there, Twang.
For what it’s worth, as I’ve got several hundred square metres to do (groan), I’ve bought both a mortar rake and a mortar gun, which you might find helpful, though I’m sure an experienced practitioner like Hubert would tell us both to point the proper way with a pointing trowel and hawk. But have a look at these sites anyway:
http://www.wonkeedonkeetools.co.uk/mortar-rakes/how-deep-do-you-rake
http://www.screwfix.com/p/roughneck-brick-mortar-gun/67965
I’ve got a a different brand of mortar gun from the one shown on the Screwfix site – can’t remember what it is, and it’s in the shed and it’s dark, cold and wet outside so I’m not going down there!
Brilliant thanks Jeff. Looks great. I once did a wall which took a lot of weather and which was leaking using those cartridges of filler, but there were only a few holes and even so it was horrendously expensive, This looks much better for a larger area.
My pleasure Twang.
Twang,
There are plenty of sites on the internet telling you how to repoint. The only problem I could think of is matching up the colour of the original pointing. Rake it out to about 25mm, clean it out then wash it out. Work from the top down, and just tackle what you think you can manage. Use a fairly dry mix and with a hawk and using the back of the pointing trowel, fill the joints.
Have a look at this for pointing technoiques
http://www.brick.org.uk/resources/brick-industry/mortar-joint-profiles/
Think of doing it as a Zen challenge as you’ll be staring at a wall for most of the day.
Good luck with it.
@Jeff thanks for asking about the leg, my left leg which the sciatica affected is much better, however my right leg is affected by another medical condition which has weakened it somewhat. A friend has likened me to the Rutles manager Leggy Mountbatten. Oh and the back is bad today.
Cheers HR that’s brilliant. A Zen job for a spring day then. Sounds good actually.