Same thing across the board, most plasterers likely don't know about or won't touch lime. Just had to turn away a plasterer for refusing to not use sand and cement. Gypsum, sand and cement has single handily blown all of the render off the wall in my kitchen. Including blocking up the ventilation with Polyfilla years ago. All sense has gone out the window in the name of cheap products and a fast turnaround for the tradesmen. There was even suggestion in boarding this vent over again!
It's difficult to make money using traditional products because of the time they take and the costs incurred. So most tradesmen with financial responsibilities go for modern trades as they're quick turnover. It's always worth bearing in mind that qualified trades like plumbing and electrics will always have more work and can charge more - thus making the trade more viable. It can be really tough to get work when the economy shrinks or when people tighten their belts. It can be more viable to do a gypsum plastering job for £300 than to take on a similar wall in lime for three times the price.
@@michaeljamesdesign hi im just getting my first house and all 3 sides are pebbledash, im not sure if its on lime or cement, but id like to limewash it, please can you tell me what brand will give a creamy colour and not the brite white some do, im also happy to use quick lime and wash it hot, thanks
I just bought a cottage on west coast of scotland and the surveyor report came back with concrete floors, damp proofing, etc, even when I specifically asked for recommendations around damp including removing cement mortar and replacing with lime. Can't agree more with your rant :)
Agreed regarding survey reports. They just have to be seen as doing their job. I’m currently using NHL 3.5 on ironstone. Beautiful to work with. And I had an entire tub of it and it rained so I put a lid over it and stuffed it in the shed. 4 days later and it was fine. I used ecoright
It's a horrible position for a homeowner as they should be able to be naive about this, they shouldn't have to become a specialist in order to ask someone to repair their house. The equivalent would be asking someone to have read a repair manual cover to cover when taking their car into a garage before getting work done. Keep doing what you're doing and we'll turn the corner again and lose the cowboys!
@86379A Oh, I know a lot of people who are excellent at their craft, but certainly a lack of pride in ones work is a big step backwards in our society. The 'good enough' brigade have made genuine skilled labour look ridiculously expensive, when in reality it's what it takes to do the job right in the first place.
Did you use a stop bead where the lime met the cement render and gypsum? I have a similar job and am concerned about cracking where the two materials meet… cheers
Loved your rant! I’m about to point up some walls on my Edwardian property with an NHL 3.5 mortar mix. Your rant was very helpful. Checked the data sheet for the product after your video. Doesn’t state free lime content, but does state a capillary rise of moderate (76-100mm in 6 hours). I’m am not a trades person pretty confident with what I have seen in the data sheet. Your video was so helpful, so thank you. Unfortunately I have to do this myself as there are zero competent builders in my area who will do lime pointing.
@@DTGuitarTech In which case it'll be around 25%. A feeby hydraulic lime will be around 40%. But there's no way for these lime companies to be that accurate as far as lime content is concerned. Secil just bulk out with chalk as this satisfies EU criteria for lime. But actual free lime might only be around 5%. This is why it's worth staying away from Secil and other cheap brands. I always add in lime hydrate to my NHL 3.5 to increase free lime content.
It is, it really is. When you think about it, flour mills were situated right next to the water which drove the wheel which powered the millstone. Never ever was anything tanked or waterproofed. Flour needs a dry environment to get milled and stored. If it ever got wet then people had no bread and starved. But those old mills and mill barns were as dry as the Sahara in mid-summer.
I envy you,you have such lovely buildings to work on.I am in Australia and we just do not have the history that you have there,having said that we still have lime mortar buildings which sadly through ignorance and lack of knowledge is nearly always repaired with cement mortars and indeed when i advised a guy to get his pointing done on chimneys with lime not a single person would do it and said what a load of rubbish so what do ya do?-i am a plasterer and yes in past learnt everything cement in the 80's so now building are starting to show the effects with spallling etc.At 57yrs old i really have a passion to get into this area of work and really make a difference in older properties,but sadly most people just want quick,cheap remedies and just love to paint exteriors with "plastic paints to stop the damp-go figure!!!!
You are so right! I am at present trying to repair a miners' cottage that was built around 1890 and I am having no end of trouble finding someone who knows anything about the importance of using lime in the areas where there is brick around the house. I have had to do heaps of research in case I have to end up doing it myself.
Do you know how plaster is fairing up now? I am interested to know if hygroscopic salts have transferred into new plaster and causing staining. Ground levels are high, so wall base will inevitably be rather wet
@@finchy3394 That won't serve you very well. It's a good start but you need a decent website and you need to SEO it as far up Google rankings as possible. The kind of clients you want won't be found on social media.
great vid. thanks for sharing. i have a fireplace like yours that i'm intending to repoint with lime putty. inside the chimney is a soft mush in between the bricks and someone at some point has rendered the lower meter of the fireplace in what i'm guessing is portland cement. i'm thinking either remove the render and repoint, or leave and limewash. my pref would be for the first option but wondering if i would be opening a can of worms. what would you do, sir? any guidance warmly accepted.
Hi Angus. Difficult to make an assessment without seeing it but I'd say you need to bear in mind that internal pointing is really messy. Very. And soot stains very badly so you need to make sure that your lime does't touch it.
Hi Michael, really appreciate the videos and knowledge share. Keep them coming! When repointing brick what are your views on mix proportions using builders sand + washed sharp sand with saint astier nhl? And would you use their nhl2 or the 3.5? Any thoughts would be most helpful
Thanks for posting, I have found nhl 3.5 sets hard very quickly even at 1:3 lime/sand and gets very hard over time even when compared to the old school weak sand cement and (hydrated) lime mixes for heritage builds that was seen as best practice 20 odd years ago
Thanks for the comment. It's very important that the message concerning NHL is proliferated. Although a good product and suitable for many situations, many 3.5s can get bullet hard and aren't necessarily appropriate in all cases for repointing stone and antique brick.
@@michaeljamesdesignI have been telling people this for years I love your house and its brilliant that you are putting the lime back absolutely love it 👍
did my victorian red brick garden wall with 3.5 a couple of years ago. I hope I did the right thing. 2 seemed to be too weak. What do you think? @@michaeljamesdesign
@@dugbert9 All NHL mortars are subject to ongoing strength gains. It depends, in part, on which brand you chose, what ratio of lime to sand you put together, how much sharp vs. fine in your mix etc etc etc.
@@michaeljamesdesignso the nhl 3.5 is going to get hard but it still breathes, problem is it won’t allow much movement with building so unless the stones are well pinned cracks are likely to emerge potentially letting in other stuff.
Hi Michael really appreciate your knowledge weve got a basement property in the east end that has been tanked all the way through weve stripped the tanking off in the basement we want to now manage the moisture so the space is habitable were fully prepared for the moisture to come through the lim plaster what do you suggest we do after that
There are many things you're not telling me here so we'd have to go through a list of questions. And youtube isn't really the platform for this type of query. Ideally it would be your contractor who would be the person to speak to. If you're doing it yourself then your supplier should be able to assist with technical enquiries. On this occasion, it's not me.
I managed to get a figure out of tarmac for the free lime content of NHL 3.5. The wording their labs carefully gave was that the Limelite NHL 3.5, as packed and shipped in standard form, has a free lime content equal to or greater than 25%. I suspect that that means it’s very close to 25% and not much greater. Hope this helps
Thanks James. I eventually got the same result after a good few emails but they won't give me any information concerning their compressive strength data. They tried to fob me off by telling me it was 3.5.
@@michaeljamesdesign good to know they’re giving out/not giving out consistent information. I was expecting free lime content to be lower given their secrecy, not sure why it’s all so cloak and dagger especially if the product does turn out to be decent!
@@michaeljamesdesign I found Hanson quite helpful on the phone. Their lime comes from France, has 30% free lime content (average but no lower than 25%) and average compressive strength after 28 days is 0.69.
I buy pure lime, it's a powder and it boils when you add water. I put 10 kilo in a metal drum and I drown it and run away. After it calms down and becomes putty I keep it for whenever I need it. I add 1 part lime putty with 3 parts rough sand. to make mortar & I have no idea what that mix is called.
That's a lime putty mortar. Alternatively, you could add your your unslaked lime to your sand and whisk it together whilst damp. Then add more water to make a hot mixed mortar and use it straight away or bank it for when you need it. But your way is just fine.
@@michaeljamesdesign That's good to know. One bonus of having the separate lime putty is that I can water down the putty to a watery mix and paint the wall with lime when I am done building the wall.
Hi I hope you don't mind my question. I'm in the States and I was searching UA-cam for some ideas. I live in an old house in New England built around 1800. The foundation is stacked stone - no mortar. Dampness seeps in. I've addressed water run off the best I can with new gutters and drainage. We also have a damp basement racket here. But their recommendations don't make sense to me. I want to keep water from coming in our basement, but it doesn't make sense to me to use hydraulic cement to do it. It seems to me that I would want the wall to breathe to dry out any moisture that happens to get in. Would using lime plaster as a mortar be a good idea or bad? Thanks in advance
Hi from Greece. Great work you do. What’s your opinion about ready made mortars for plastering? They say that they have ingredients inside that fight damp etc, despite they have cement elements.
As I thought, the last owner of our 1828 cottage has ruined the gable end which is causing damp. We have signs of injected damp proof course, cement render on the outside, all the way up and normal plaster on this inside. Difficult to know where to start with it. It’s so bad I fear the gable end will fall down if I attempt to remove it. Another issue is knowing who the hell you can trust, not good! We are getting damp coming through the plaster and it’s generating mould too :-(
I tend to do plaster first when there's mould. It seems to help the exterior masonry dry out and stay more healthy. Try and get someone who will include Perlite in their mortar as this'll help keep everything warmer. I usually substitute one gauge of sand for Perlite nowadays.
I am happy I met your video and right before starting the process of buying and replacing the current cement render with lime one. I am from Portugal, and god bless for you made that remark because I'm not sure what to look for in here. Also, noticed that you only removed about 1-1.5 meter from the bottom to re-do with lime. I was thinking doing from bottom to ceiling but now I am starting to think if do i need to? or just from bottom to 1.5 meters?. I also wanted to do render on the second floor, from lime. My problem at the moment is that I can only do so from the inside. At the moment I can not remove the cement render from the outside of the house. I can try, maybe, on the external part to remove about 1.5 meters from the floor and replace with lime, but can not do the entire wall (which again, goes until the second floor). Would be happy to get your thoughts, and if I can contact you for further consultation, would be great. Thank you again.
em portugal é impossivel achar cal hidraulico natural(NHL3,5) só acha o HL5 que é misturado com cimento e é muito duro pra esse tipo de trabalho. O negócio é fazer com cal hidratada e achar a proporçao certa.
@@zaxmaxlaxsee if you can find non-hydraulic lime in Portugal it is a wet putty (different to NHL aka natural hydraulic lime) The trick is in the proper name Hydraulic means it begins to harden and cure in the presence of moisture in many cases making it to hard for stone/cob buildings. Non-hydraulic means it doesn't set when in the presence of moisture, instead it sets by absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it has a higher free lime content and takes longer to fully cure.... But it's very vapour permeable, it's softer on masonry so it won't damage the stone and also has a certain amount of flexibility meaning it works with natural thermal expansion It's also self healing for small cracks, as once it's cured if it shrinks a little. but rain water will hit the surface and carry small amounts of lime with it into the cracks and begin to form calcite crystals in the cracks (basically the same way stalagmites and stalactites are formed)
Hi - what technique would you use, for internal lime rendering, where the outside ground level is 2' + above the internal floor height, in terms of damp control ? Many thanks.
As far as techique is concerned, most plasters simply use a trowel and hawk to apply the plaster but you could harl it on if you like. Depending on the circumstances you could throw on a pricking out coat first.
Its a real shame, lime is a wonderful material to use, very low wastage and it breathes, self heals, moves with the property.. I think its just the time required to lime plaster, and desire for a quick turnaround. Also I think some builders with good faith perhaps got into the damp proof game and invested into it. Thanks for the heads up on the lime qualities though. I used a 3.5 but I will look into this deeper
What caused the damp issue in this property, to the point where they likely paid people thousands to fix it? Lime breathes really well, so why wasn't it wicking the moisture out?
@@michaeljamesdesign sorry I wasn't clear. At the beginning of the video you're talking about lime mortar. It's also the title of the video. What I'm asking is, what caused the damp issue in the property where lime was already used, but they still felt it necessary to spend money on cowboy damp fixes
@@DanielOlivierArgyle You're still not being clear. Do you mean the original lime plaster? If so lime plaster will eventually fail with age. Particularly if it's painted with non-breathable paints and the outside of the wall is pointed with cement mortar. That leads to damp which leads to replastering with the wrong stuff which leads to more damp. There's also the issue of poor ventilation in older houses. These get sealed up when fireplaces are closed off, double glazing is fitted and air-bricks are removed from bedrooms. One of the reasons this place got damp was because successive previous owers did not lime wash the outside. In fact, none of the cottages got lime washed and they all suffered with damp.
@@michaeljamesdesign Thanks for your patience. Not talking at all about the plaster at all. On the outside of the building at the beginning, you show how chemical damp proofing has been used. I'm hust interested to know what cause of the damp was. Was the property at the bottom of a hill? Was it near a flooded river? Burst drain? Etc. Thanks!
Ive just bought a stone cottage in North Somerset. My, old school, surveyor recommended removal of exterior cement rendering and interior vinyl wall papers to let the walls breath.... Ive been looking into lime lite and would grateful for your opinion on it... Hope you had a nice holiday.
Don't go anywhere near it as it has zero conservation credentials. It's just a scam. If you want a recommendation then just get some NHL2 and mix it with three sand. It'll be better.
I'm in the middle of a disaster repointing my 17th century house stone wall and chimney with hot lime. Rainwater is leeching through the chimney walls and soaking the roof purlin ends which then wicks all the way to the main truss. It's putting me off the use of hot lime and back to NHL based mortars that I've used in the past with no problem at all😢
Yep! this Surveyor ignorance regarding period buildings doesn't surprise me. Involved in construction for almost 40 years some 25 years as a surveyor ( incl. historic buildings) and an ex member of the old boys club. The RICS today covers a range of activities. Many RICS members have never been on a construction site or involved in construction but they all call themselves Chartered Surveyors. In my recent experience fewer and fewer of their members have any building knowledge having worked and trained in Property Management, lettings, estate agency ,facilities management or Project Management or simply gained a higher degree to become Chartered. Many members are QS's who in the main have some general but not specific technical construction knowledge as they have probably completed a QS degree at college but in fairness they at least have probably been on a building site. When it comes to stone construction you may be hard pushed to find a Chartered Surveyor with the requisite skills and experience. As a venerable judge pointed out in a recent case involving an RICS Chartered surveyor using the " I followed our current guidelines" defence but still creating a botch up, the Judge concluded " it seems the RICS exists to protect Surveyors not the public" . I now unkindly refer to the RICS as the Royal Institute of Chartered Shopkeepers ! well ! most of them work for Estate Agents !! and I do on occasion see some of the appalling house purchase survey reports their members churn out ! Using the wrong lime mortar on stonework can be as detrimental as using opc. !
Had a Builder knock on my door last week saying I have slipped tiles and a hole on the rear side of the roof No one has access to the rear of the house Lived here 28 years and if I had a quid for every lying bar steward who says they are a Builder who has knocked on my door I would be a rich man I put Builders below MPs, second hand car salesmen...as far as liars go
Your fab m8 ! But being that you are all that, let's hope you didn't tactlessly upset the Ol Gent who'd spent out of his brood's increasingly diminished Aenglander coffer ? Other than that, keep up the good work & we'll be in touch...
To be honest you’ve just got to see what works best for you and your mortar. What’s most important is the time you take. Never rush, take time. Really slow it down. Do it at a snail’s pace if you have to as that’s the only way with lime.
@@michaeljamesdesign no still an insistence for a mortgage if a surveyor flags up rising damp. Peter Ward did so much work with the chair of the RICS but it was all a waste of time. RICS say rising damp on the survey and you need to get a member of the PCA. If people know about heritage House they can opt to go with them or opt not to get a rics survey but if they do and they say damp then mortgage companies want the damp man in. I was talking to Pete Ward a few days ago. He told me the PCA got him chucked off twitter for his constant abuse which made me laugh.
@@strikemehandsome Thanks Steve. It's a shame we're all working so hard to promote the use of sympathetic materials which work with the property but find ourselves up against the surveying industry which encourages cowboy workmanship. We have architects who specify tanking, surveyors who recommend damp proofing, tradesmen who don't know or care whether they're doing the right thing and financial institutions who have no idea. All this combined with manufacturers and suppliers of so called ecologically friendly products which eventually do more harm than good. No wonder the built environment has suffered so much. As you said the other day, politics and money. Keep on with the hemp mate. Once people realise just how environmentally friendly it is they'll start going over to it. I've put something on my website about its benefits so here's hoping the tide will slowly begin to turn.
The more research I do on UA-cam the more confused I am. So much contradictory content. I have a cement plinth on the sides of my cottage unfortunately. I hope lime is the solution but didn't realise how many different varieties there are. Help!
I usually use NHL3.5 for plinth work as they're usually in place because the property is by the roadside or the rain water from thatch roofes splashes up from the ground. Other than that there's no need for plinths. But you can use any lime mortar.
What about all those people who have shares in Portland cement? If people with stone built properties move away from Portland to Lime, Capitalism will collapse... As I have a stone built house (and my Surveyor said I'd need to have the outside re rendered with cement...), I did a two day Lime course instead, at a heritage building specialist Lime centre called Ty Mawr in Brecon. Best two day course I've done. People tend to think about waterproofing a stone building by rendering with cement. Then put cement basecoat followed by gypsum on the inside. Trouble is (as they say), these old buildings were designed to breathe - no concept of a damp proof course, so the moisture climbs the stone wall, becomes trapped and blows the plaster off inside (and maybe outside too) - all that money you spent :( :( The right way to do the job is to use Lime to point and or plaster inside and out. The KEY aspect of Lime is that it breathes, so the building attains a dynamic moisture balance. Also to note that you can't just ask a plasterer to use lime instead of cement. It's a totally different product and you have to know what you're doing. Trowelling skills are the same, but that's about it. Thanks for posting :) :)
The same question could be asked about those poor people who have shares in British Gypsum. Lime mortar doesn't actually breath as the infers a gaseous exchange. What you have is moisture laden air which is pulled under pressure along a minute bridging network facilitated by drying pores situated on the outside of the pointing or rendering mortar. Rather like transpiration. So when cement - which has no capillarity - gets wet then it becomes saturated and you get damp. Glad you're taking an interest - you're correct about the moisture balance.
I passed a lovely little cottage in my village the other day. Scaffolding up and all the exterior walls were being re rendered with cement. The owner told me she was having to have them redone as she'd had so much damp. I could have cried, but what do I know.
Because, after a couple of hundred years, properties need replastering and repointing with lime. When this isn't used then problems arise. I thought I'd made this clear in the video - obviously not.
@michaeljamesdesign so do lime built houses need gutting every so often , replastering , pointing , limecrete floors to keep them working or is it just outside elements ?
All these new builds have an inner of blocks and outer of bricks with the centre filled with Insulation Absolute madness...but I am the only one thinks so
It’s brilliant that your doing this. Although I must say doing a small bit of wall with internal lime plaster - £92 - just for two bags of Duro base coat and two bags of Solo lime plaster! Why is Lime so dear ?
Ah, your problems lies in the fact that you're using premixed products (with very low capillarity, I may add). You only need buy the lime and - depending on the which lime - just mix it 1:3 or 1:4.
@@michaeljamesdesign - well Michael … you go up to a place that calls itself “We Sell Lime” and you tell them you want to put on a lime plaster on an wall, and this is what they suggest. I didn’t exactly feel I was getting good information to be honest. I’ll need to look into it more. There is a lot of conflicting information out there for the amateur.
Was that Mr porter by any chance the one that tells you NHL 3.5 isn't any good for outside And does everything by weight He hasn't a clue about lime lol Keep up the good work hot lime all the way for me
@@andyobrien5696 Seriously hard. No need. Mind you, I knew a builder who added cement to NHL5 because he didn't trust the strength. Says it all really.
Excellent post I love watching Peter Ward at Heritage House moaning about the very same damp wallies. I live in a 220 year old stone house that unfortunately had been refurbished by village idiot builders who have pointed inside and out with cement. Fortunately I am a more than average diy er so have slowly removed it and repointed with lime and suprise suprise the house has dried out and no longer has a damp smell. I also fitted a cheap mvhr and against all the doom and groomers run the house heating with a ASHP which is brilliant. Love to see the old buildings put right although the adjoining house to us is just being refurbished by a local builder and when I asked him what he was doing with the signs of damp he said he would just plasterboard over it😮 there is no hope !
Same thing across the board, most plasterers likely don't know about or won't touch lime. Just had to turn away a plasterer for refusing to not use sand and cement. Gypsum, sand and cement has single handily blown all of the render off the wall in my kitchen. Including blocking up the ventilation with Polyfilla years ago. All sense has gone out the window in the name of cheap products and a fast turnaround for the tradesmen. There was even suggestion in boarding this vent over again!
What should I use instead of polyfilla? What does polyfilla do, moisture-wise? Doing up my house at the minute.
Give them my card, I love the lime and every poor bugger that meets me gets a lecture from me 😂
Lime putty with very fine sand
It's difficult to make money using traditional products because of the time they take and the costs incurred. So most tradesmen with financial responsibilities go for modern trades as they're quick turnover. It's always worth bearing in mind that qualified trades like plumbing and electrics will always have more work and can charge more - thus making the trade more viable. It can be really tough to get work when the economy shrinks or when people tighten their belts. It can be more viable to do a gypsum plastering job for £300 than to take on a similar wall in lime for three times the price.
@@michaeljamesdesign hi im just getting my first house and all 3 sides are pebbledash, im not sure if its on lime or cement, but id like to limewash it, please can you tell me what brand will give a creamy colour and not the brite white some do, im also happy to use quick lime and wash it hot, thanks
Thoroughly enjoyed your passion for these heritage buildings and hydraulic lime.
Looking forward to your video on comparing different free limes contents and comprehensive strengths.Thank you
Yet again, a great video! Keep up the good work, despite how frustrating it can be!
I just bought a cottage on west coast of scotland and the surveyor report came back with concrete floors, damp proofing, etc, even when I specifically asked for recommendations around damp including removing cement mortar and replacing with lime. Can't agree more with your rant :)
Amazing isn't it. Makes you wonder what they study at college.
Agreed regarding survey reports.
They just have to be seen as doing their job.
I’m currently using NHL 3.5 on ironstone.
Beautiful to work with.
And I had an entire tub of it and it rained so I put a lid over it and stuffed it in the shed.
4 days later and it was fine.
I used ecoright
It's a horrible position for a homeowner as they should be able to be naive about this, they shouldn't have to become a specialist in order to ask someone to repair their house. The equivalent would be asking someone to have read a repair manual cover to cover when taking their car into a garage before getting work done.
Keep doing what you're doing and we'll turn the corner again and lose the cowboys!
@86379A Oh, I know a lot of people who are excellent at their craft, but certainly a lack of pride in ones work is a big step backwards in our society. The 'good enough' brigade have made genuine skilled labour look ridiculously expensive, when in reality it's what it takes to do the job right in the first place.
Houses should not be repairable. Buldozer it over and build up high-rise flats, multiplying the value.
So true
Did you use a stop bead where the lime met the cement render and gypsum? I have a similar job and am concerned about cracking where the two materials meet… cheers
Loved your rant! I’m about to point up some walls on my Edwardian property with an NHL 3.5 mortar mix. Your rant was very helpful. Checked the data sheet for the product after your video. Doesn’t state free lime content, but does state a capillary rise of moderate (76-100mm in 6 hours). I’m am not a trades person pretty confident with what I have seen in the data sheet. Your video was so helpful, so thank you. Unfortunately I have to do this myself as there are zero competent builders in my area who will do lime pointing.
The supplier should know. If not then speak to the manufacturer.
@@michaeljamesdesign I’ll ask them 👍
@@michaeljamesdesign Asked the supplier. They’ve said “we’ll get back to you as soon as we can”. 🤣 I wonder if they will 🤔
@@michaeljamesdesign They just replied. With “Between 25-40% depending on product.” 🤣🤣🤣 I think they may be guessing.
@@DTGuitarTech In which case it'll be around 25%. A feeby hydraulic lime will be around 40%. But there's no way for these lime companies to be that accurate as far as lime content is concerned. Secil just bulk out with chalk as this satisfies EU criteria for lime. But actual free lime might only be around 5%. This is why it's worth staying away from Secil and other cheap brands. I always add in lime hydrate to my NHL 3.5 to increase free lime content.
Thankyou! I've been saying this for years.
Well said sir
Bloody damp proofing is a needless sneaky trade!
It is, it really is. When you think about it, flour mills were situated right next to the water which drove the wheel which powered the millstone. Never ever was anything tanked or waterproofed. Flour needs a dry environment to get milled and stored. If it ever got wet then people had no bread and starved. But those old mills and mill barns were as dry as the Sahara in mid-summer.
I envy you,you have such lovely buildings to work on.I am in Australia and we just do not have the history that you have there,having said that we still have lime mortar buildings which sadly through ignorance and lack of knowledge is nearly always repaired with cement mortars and indeed when i advised a guy to get his pointing done on chimneys with lime not a single person would do it and said what a load of rubbish so what do ya do?-i am a plasterer and yes in past learnt everything cement in the 80's so now building are starting to show the effects with spallling etc.At 57yrs old i really have a passion to get into this area of work and really make a difference in older properties,but sadly most people just want quick,cheap remedies and just love to paint exteriors with "plastic paints to stop the damp-go figure!!!!
You are so right! I am at present trying to repair a miners' cottage that was built around 1890 and I am having no end of trouble finding someone who knows anything about the importance of using lime in the areas where there is brick around the house. I have had to do heaps of research in case I have to end up doing it myself.
Do you know how plaster is fairing up now? I am interested to know if hygroscopic salts have transferred into new plaster and causing staining. Ground levels are high, so wall base will inevitably be rather wet
It's all fine
Great advice, well done for sharing your warnings.
I point a lot but only with newer building. How do I get into the more heritage side of this work. I'm fascinated by it.
I just put an advert in the Yellow Pages after doing a bit of cement work and the work came in. I take it you've got a decent website.
@@michaeljamesdesign no I'm a caveman when it comes to the Internet and making websites. I have a page on Facebook.
@@michaeljamesdesign I really want to work with a tradesman that works with lime.
@@finchy3394 That won't serve you very well. It's a good start but you need a decent website and you need to SEO it as far up Google rankings as possible. The kind of clients you want won't be found on social media.
great vid. thanks for sharing. i have a fireplace like yours that i'm intending to repoint with lime putty. inside the chimney is a soft mush in between the bricks and someone at some point has rendered the lower meter of the fireplace in what i'm guessing is portland cement. i'm thinking either remove the render and repoint, or leave and limewash. my pref would be for the first option but wondering if i would be opening a can of worms. what would you do, sir? any guidance warmly accepted.
Hi Angus. Difficult to make an assessment without seeing it but I'd say you need to bear in mind that internal pointing is really messy. Very. And soot stains very badly so you need to make sure that your lime does't touch it.
@@michaeljamesdesign ah, yes, soot - very good point (no pun intended). thanks so much!
Hi Michael, really appreciate the videos and knowledge share. Keep them coming! When repointing brick what are your views on mix proportions using builders sand + washed sharp sand with saint astier nhl? And would you use their nhl2 or the 3.5? Any thoughts would be most helpful
I never use building sand unless it's washed. And your NHL2 needs to be 1:3.
Thanks for posting, I have found nhl 3.5 sets hard very quickly even at 1:3 lime/sand and gets very hard over time even when compared to the old school weak sand cement and (hydrated) lime mixes for heritage builds that was seen as best practice 20 odd years ago
Thanks for the comment. It's very important that the message concerning NHL is proliferated. Although a good product and suitable for many situations, many 3.5s can get bullet hard and aren't necessarily appropriate in all cases for repointing stone and antique brick.
@@michaeljamesdesignI have been telling people this for years I love your house and its brilliant that you are putting the lime back absolutely love it 👍
did my victorian red brick garden wall with 3.5 a couple of years ago. I hope I did the right thing. 2 seemed to be too weak. What do you think? @@michaeljamesdesign
@@dugbert9 All NHL mortars are subject to ongoing strength gains. It depends, in part, on which brand you chose, what ratio of lime to sand you put together, how much sharp vs. fine in your mix etc etc etc.
@@michaeljamesdesignso the nhl 3.5 is going to get hard but it still breathes, problem is it won’t allow much movement with building so unless the stones are well pinned cracks are likely to emerge potentially letting in other stuff.
Do you give advice to home owners? I have a 200 year old property in Derbyshire with a large damp basement.
Hi Michael really appreciate your knowledge weve got a basement property in the east end that has been tanked all the way through weve stripped the tanking off in the basement we want to now manage the moisture so the space is habitable were fully prepared for the moisture to come through the lim plaster what do you suggest we do after that
There are many things you're not telling me here so we'd have to go through a list of questions. And youtube isn't really the platform for this type of query. Ideally it would be your contractor who would be the person to speak to. If you're doing it yourself then your supplier should be able to assist with technical enquiries. On this occasion, it's not me.
In Australia we don't really have much choice. Its hydraulic lime or nothing.
I managed to get a figure out of tarmac for the free lime content of NHL 3.5. The wording their labs carefully gave was that the Limelite NHL 3.5, as packed and shipped in standard form, has a free lime content equal to or greater than 25%. I suspect that that means it’s very close to 25% and not much greater. Hope this helps
Thanks James. I eventually got the same result after a good few emails but they won't give me any information concerning their compressive strength data. They tried to fob me off by telling me it was 3.5.
@@michaeljamesdesign good to know they’re giving out/not giving out consistent information. I was expecting free lime content to be lower given their secrecy, not sure why it’s all so cloak and dagger especially if the product does turn out to be decent!
@@jamesw3446 You'd think they'd at least put it on their data sheet but they're similar to Hanson in that way the last time I looked.
@@michaeljamesdesign I found Hanson quite helpful on the phone. Their lime comes from France, has 30% free lime content (average but no lower than 25%) and average compressive strength after 28 days is 0.69.
@@jamesw3446 Go James! Well done, thanks for sharing.
I buy pure lime, it's a powder and it boils when you add water. I put 10 kilo in a metal drum and I drown it and run away. After it calms down and becomes putty I keep it for whenever I need it. I add 1 part lime putty with 3 parts rough sand. to make mortar & I have no idea what that mix is called.
That's a lime putty mortar. Alternatively, you could add your your unslaked lime to your sand and whisk it together whilst damp. Then add more water to make a hot mixed mortar and use it straight away or bank it for when you need it. But your way is just fine.
@@michaeljamesdesign That's good to know. One bonus of having the separate lime putty is that I can water down the putty to a watery mix and paint the wall with lime when I am done building the wall.
@@mikefiatx19 Quite right sir
Hi I hope you don't mind my question. I'm in the States and I was searching UA-cam for some ideas. I live in an old house in New England built around 1800. The foundation is stacked stone - no mortar. Dampness seeps in. I've addressed water run off the best I can with new gutters and drainage. We also have a damp basement racket here. But their recommendations don't make sense to me. I want to keep water from coming in our basement, but it doesn't make sense to me to use hydraulic cement to do it. It seems to me that I would want the wall to breathe to dry out any moisture that happens to get in. Would using lime plaster as a mortar be a good idea or bad? Thanks in advance
yes get some nhl
@@michaeljamesdesign I am not familiar with that. Is it a particular type or brand of lime plaster? Thanks for the reply
@@wildgoose82667 Natural Hydraulic Lime.
Hey mate, greetings from australia!
Do you use similar ratios of lime and sand on granite, bluestone etc as limestone?
Cheers!
Not similar. Identical.
Hi from Greece. Great work you do. What’s your opinion about ready made mortars for plastering? They say that they have ingredients inside that fight damp etc, despite they have cement elements.
You have answered your own question sir.
I’m not sure i understood
@@dip9037 I don't use them.
As I thought, the last owner of our 1828 cottage has ruined the gable end which is causing damp. We have signs of injected damp proof course, cement render on the outside, all the way up and normal plaster on this inside. Difficult to know where to start with it. It’s so bad I fear the gable end will fall down if I attempt to remove it. Another issue is knowing who the hell you can trust, not good! We are getting damp coming through the plaster and it’s generating mould too :-(
I tend to do plaster first when there's mould. It seems to help the exterior masonry dry out and stay more healthy. Try and get someone who will include Perlite in their mortar as this'll help keep everything warmer. I usually substitute one gauge of sand for Perlite nowadays.
Impressed by your work. What mortar mix did you use for the chimney breast?
Just sharp and putty.
I am happy I met your video and right before starting the process of buying and replacing the current cement render with lime one. I am from Portugal, and god bless for you made that remark because I'm not sure what to look for in here. Also, noticed that you only removed about 1-1.5 meter from the bottom to re-do with lime. I was thinking doing from bottom to ceiling but now I am starting to think if do i need to? or just from bottom to 1.5 meters?. I also wanted to do render on the second floor, from lime. My problem at the moment is that I can only do so from the inside. At the moment I can not remove the cement render from the outside of the house. I can try, maybe, on the external part to remove about 1.5 meters from the floor and replace with lime, but can not do the entire wall (which again, goes until the second floor). Would be happy to get your thoughts, and if I can contact you for further consultation, would be great. Thank you again.
em portugal é impossivel achar cal hidraulico natural(NHL3,5) só acha o HL5 que é misturado com cimento e é muito duro pra esse tipo de trabalho. O negócio é fazer com cal hidratada e achar a proporçao certa.
@@zaxmaxlaxsee if you can find non-hydraulic lime in Portugal it is a wet putty (different to NHL aka natural hydraulic lime)
The trick is in the proper name
Hydraulic means it begins to harden and cure in the presence of moisture in many cases making it to hard for stone/cob buildings.
Non-hydraulic means it doesn't set when in the presence of moisture, instead it sets by absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it has a higher free lime content and takes longer to fully cure.... But it's very vapour permeable, it's softer on masonry so it won't damage the stone and also has a certain amount of flexibility meaning it works with natural thermal expansion
It's also self healing for small cracks, as once it's cured if it shrinks a little. but rain water will hit the surface and carry small amounts of lime with it into the cracks and begin to form calcite crystals in the cracks (basically the same way stalagmites and stalactites are formed)
Hi - what technique would you use, for internal lime rendering, where the outside ground level is 2' + above the internal floor height, in terms of damp control ? Many thanks.
As far as techique is concerned, most plasters simply use a trowel and hawk to apply the plaster but you could harl it on if you like. Depending on the circumstances you could throw on a pricking out coat first.
Its a real shame, lime is a wonderful material to use, very low wastage and it breathes, self heals, moves with the property..
I think its just the time required to lime plaster, and desire for a quick turnaround.
Also I think some builders with good faith perhaps got into the damp proof game and invested into it.
Thanks for the heads up on the lime qualities though. I used a 3.5 but I will look into this deeper
Mate that was a great rant, going through similar i can relate
What caused the damp issue in this property, to the point where they likely paid people thousands to fix it? Lime breathes really well, so why wasn't it wicking the moisture out?
It wasn't lime, it was cement render and gypsum plaster.
@@michaeljamesdesign sorry I wasn't clear. At the beginning of the video you're talking about lime mortar. It's also the title of the video. What I'm asking is, what caused the damp issue in the property where lime was already used, but they still felt it necessary to spend money on cowboy damp fixes
@@DanielOlivierArgyle You're still not being clear. Do you mean the original lime plaster? If so lime plaster will eventually fail with age. Particularly if it's painted with non-breathable paints and the outside of the wall is pointed with cement mortar. That leads to damp which leads to replastering with the wrong stuff which leads to more damp. There's also the issue of poor ventilation in older houses. These get sealed up when fireplaces are closed off, double glazing is fitted and air-bricks are removed from bedrooms. One of the reasons this place got damp was because successive previous owers did not lime wash the outside. In fact, none of the cottages got lime washed and they all suffered with damp.
@@michaeljamesdesign Thanks for your patience. Not talking at all about the plaster at all. On the outside of the building at the beginning, you show how chemical damp proofing has been used. I'm hust interested to know what cause of the damp was. Was the property at the bottom of a hill? Was it near a flooded river? Burst drain? Etc. Thanks!
@@michaeljamesdesign Thank you!
Ive been learning about this for a few months now. Ive realised 99% of damp is condensation caused by properties being unable to breathe.
Air flow is so important. It's half the battle.
Your right surveyors haven't got a clue about lime,think u got there in time as most of the stone is still ok not started to spall
Ive just bought a stone cottage in North Somerset. My, old school, surveyor recommended removal of exterior cement rendering and interior vinyl wall papers to let the walls breath....
Ive been looking into lime lite and would grateful for your opinion on it...
Hope you had a nice holiday.
Don't go anywhere near it as it has zero conservation credentials. It's just a scam. If you want a recommendation then just get some NHL2 and mix it with three sand. It'll be better.
I'm in the middle of a disaster repointing my 17th century house stone wall and chimney with hot lime. Rainwater is leeching through the chimney walls and soaking the roof purlin ends which then wicks all the way to the main truss. It's putting me off the use of hot lime and back to NHL based mortars that I've used in the past with no problem at all😢
Happened to me once. I've never bothered with hotmixed mortar since on chimneys.
Yep! this Surveyor ignorance regarding period buildings doesn't surprise me. Involved in construction for almost 40 years some 25 years as a surveyor ( incl. historic buildings) and an ex member of the old boys club. The RICS today covers a range of activities. Many RICS members have never been on a construction site or involved in construction but they all call themselves Chartered Surveyors. In my recent experience fewer and fewer of their members have any building knowledge having worked and trained in Property Management, lettings, estate agency ,facilities management or Project Management or simply gained a higher degree to become Chartered. Many members are QS's who in the main have some general but not specific technical construction knowledge as they have probably completed a QS degree at college but in fairness they at least have probably been on a building site. When it comes to stone construction you may be hard pushed to find a Chartered Surveyor with the requisite skills and experience. As a venerable judge pointed out in a recent case involving an RICS Chartered surveyor using the " I followed our current guidelines" defence but still creating a botch up, the Judge concluded " it seems the RICS exists to protect Surveyors not the public" . I now unkindly refer to the RICS as the Royal Institute of Chartered Shopkeepers ! well ! most of them work for Estate Agents !! and I do on occasion see some of the appalling house purchase survey reports their members churn out !
Using the wrong lime mortar on stonework can be as detrimental as using opc. !
Thanks you James. Pleased you stopped by for a rant. May the lime be with you.
"If I was making sea defences I'd use NHL5" 😅 I came to learn about lime but stayed for the entertainment.
Just looked at a 150 year old property today it was damp injected twice it's a massive con
Where there's ignorance there's brass.
@@michaeljamesdesign or an old lady they scammed twice on this occasion
@@GMTpointingspecialistsltd Bastards.
Love your Rant, Damp Gangster are @ it Again
Good genuine knowledge Michael 👍🏻
is st austier nhl 5 suitable for repointing and rendering a chimney stack? I have stripped the old cement render and looking to replace,
I tend not to bother with NHL5 anymore. You certainly wouldn't want to render with it.
Had a Builder knock on my door last week saying I have slipped tiles and a hole on the rear side of the roof
No one has access to the rear of the house
Lived here 28 years and if I had a quid for every lying bar steward who says they are a Builder who has knocked on my door I would be a rich man
I put Builders below MPs, second hand car salesmen...as far as liars go
Your fab m8 ! But being that you are all that, let's hope you didn't tactlessly upset the Ol Gent who'd spent out of his brood's increasingly diminished Aenglander coffer ? Other than that, keep up the good work & we'll be in touch...
How you brush back your mortar is the best I've seen so far - any tips from beggar to beggar? The finishing is a very important part.
Laird to beggar rather.
To be honest you’ve just got to see what works best for you and your mortar. What’s most important is the time you take. Never rush, take time. Really slow it down. Do it at a snail’s pace if you have to as that’s the only way with lime.
Unfortunately because mortgage companies insist on damp proof courses it will never end.
I know they used to but I thought all that had changed.
@@michaeljamesdesign no still an insistence for a mortgage if a surveyor flags up rising damp. Peter Ward did so much work with the chair of the RICS but it was all a waste of time. RICS say rising damp on the survey and you need to get a member of the PCA. If people know about heritage House they can opt to go with them or opt not to get a rics survey but if they do and they say damp then mortgage companies want the damp man in. I was talking to Pete Ward a few days ago. He told me the PCA got him chucked off twitter for his constant abuse which made me laugh.
@@strikemehandsome Thanks Steve. It's a shame we're all working so hard to promote the use of sympathetic materials which work with the property but find ourselves up against the surveying industry which encourages cowboy workmanship. We have architects who specify tanking, surveyors who recommend damp proofing, tradesmen who don't know or care whether they're doing the right thing and financial institutions who have no idea. All this combined with manufacturers and suppliers of so called ecologically friendly products which eventually do more harm than good. No wonder the built environment has suffered so much. As you said the other day, politics and money. Keep on with the hemp mate. Once people realise just how environmentally friendly it is they'll start going over to it. I've put something on my website about its benefits so here's hoping the tide will slowly begin to turn.
@@strikemehandsome excuse my ignorance . What is PCA?
@@samarshi539 property care association. They teach and govern the chemical damp industry.
The more research I do on UA-cam the more confused I am. So much contradictory content. I have a cement plinth on the sides of my cottage unfortunately. I hope lime is the solution but didn't realise how many different varieties there are. Help!
I usually use NHL3.5 for plinth work as they're usually in place because the property is by the roadside or the rain water from thatch roofes splashes up from the ground. Other than that there's no need for plinths. But you can use any lime mortar.
What about all those people who have shares in Portland cement? If people with stone built properties move away from Portland to Lime, Capitalism will collapse...
As I have a stone built house (and my Surveyor said I'd need to have the outside re rendered with cement...), I did a two day Lime course instead, at a heritage building specialist Lime centre called Ty Mawr in Brecon. Best two day course I've done.
People tend to think about waterproofing a stone building by rendering with cement. Then put cement basecoat followed by gypsum on the inside. Trouble is (as they say), these old buildings were designed to breathe - no concept of a damp proof course, so the moisture climbs the stone wall, becomes trapped and blows the plaster off inside (and maybe outside too) - all that money you spent :( :( The right way to do the job is to use Lime to point and or plaster inside and out. The KEY aspect of Lime is that it breathes, so the building attains a dynamic moisture balance. Also to note that you can't just ask a plasterer to use lime instead of cement. It's a totally different product and you have to know what you're doing. Trowelling skills are the same, but that's about it. Thanks for posting :) :)
The same question could be asked about those poor people who have shares in British Gypsum. Lime mortar doesn't actually breath as the infers a gaseous exchange. What you have is moisture laden air which is pulled under pressure along a minute bridging network facilitated by drying pores situated on the outside of the pointing or rendering mortar. Rather like transpiration. So when cement - which has no capillarity - gets wet then it becomes saturated and you get damp. Glad you're taking an interest - you're correct about the moisture balance.
cement cheaper than lime mortar Lyme Motors quite hard to get old of depending where you are in the country
What a load of tosh the damp game is
I passed a lovely little cottage in my village the other day. Scaffolding up and all the exterior walls were being re rendered with cement. The owner told me she was having to have them redone as she'd had so much damp. I could have cried, but what do I know.
Find out if it's listed first then take it from there.
If lime is the wonder product why did they need damp proofing in the first place. ?
Because, after a couple of hundred years, properties need replastering and repointing with lime. When this isn't used then problems arise. I thought I'd made this clear in the video - obviously not.
@michaeljamesdesign so do lime built houses need gutting every so often , replastering , pointing , limecrete floors to keep them working or is it just outside elements ?
@@aaronsmith786 They're like everything, they just need a bit of maintenance.
Nice to see someone who cares
Lol I always wondered what those copper strips were for, I assumed it was something electrical to be honest!
I think a lot of people do. I was reluctant to touch them until I figured it out.
All these new builds have an inner of blocks and outer of bricks with the centre filled with Insulation
Absolute madness...but I am the only one thinks so
It’s brilliant that your doing this. Although I must say doing a small bit of wall with internal lime plaster - £92 - just for two bags of Duro base coat and two bags of Solo lime plaster! Why is Lime so dear ?
Ah, your problems lies in the fact that you're using premixed products (with very low capillarity, I may add). You only need buy the lime and - depending on the which lime - just mix it 1:3 or 1:4.
@@michaeljamesdesign - thanks, you are very kind ! I’ll investigate further.
@@terencequinn2682 Lime plastering is actually using lime. You're using premixed products that aren't lime.
@@michaeljamesdesign - well Michael … you go up to a place that calls itself “We Sell Lime” and you tell them you want to put on a lime plaster on an wall, and this is what they suggest. I didn’t exactly feel I was getting good information to be honest. I’ll need to look into it more. There is a lot of conflicting information out there for the amateur.
@@terencequinn2682 They do some really nice high free lime content NHL3.5
you can't just go to any builders merchants for it every builder yard in Europe you can buy it that's all they use their cement is for concrete
Liked and suscribed,excellent video
Thanks bruv.
Was that Mr porter by any chance the one that tells you NHL 3.5 isn't any good for outside
And does everything by weight
He hasn't a clue about lime lol
Keep up the good work hot lime all the way for me
Bless him. He means well.
NHL 5 and granite, as MJD states, he meant well. But that is some hard gear for a house.
@@andyobrien5696 Seriously hard. No need. Mind you, I knew a builder who added cement to NHL5 because he didn't trust the strength. Says it all really.
@@michaeljamesdesign yes it does. NHL5 with granite would be great for canal banking re-pointing 🙂
@@andyobrien5696 I accidentally added way too much GGBFS to some hot lime last year. It turned it too rock. Personally I'd be tempted to use that.
Wouldn’t you start at the top and work down ?
There's no top work to be done.
Excellent post I love watching Peter Ward at Heritage House moaning about the very same damp wallies. I live in a 220 year old stone house that unfortunately had been refurbished by village idiot builders who have pointed inside and out with cement. Fortunately I am a more than average diy er so have slowly removed it and repointed with lime and suprise suprise the house has dried out and no longer has a damp smell. I also fitted a cheap mvhr and against all the doom and groomers run the house heating with a ASHP which is brilliant. Love to see the old buildings put right although the adjoining house to us is just being refurbished by a local builder and when I asked him what he was doing with the signs of damp he said he would just plasterboard over it😮 there is no hope !
Dotting and dabbing. Plaster board = cheap. It's never just the builder. The client also plays a part.
Couldn’t agree more!
Have they become their subject 😆
Great vid.
99% of people know zilch about everything
No matter the age they are clueless
And are upset when you tell them they're a doorkn
Most people are bullshitters, if the truth be known.
They're not even good at unblocking the drains.
Yes leaking drains
It’s just as bad as ever :(. Damp wallies.