Lime plastering

[johnM]

Can anyone recommend a good reference for using traditional lime plaster, book or website etc.

I'm aware of the courses that you can go on but I was thinking of starting off on my own a wee bit first.


Thanks

[red]

I have heard the DVD available from Mike Wyeis good - but have not actually seen it myself

[contadino]

Couldn't be better timing as on Friday I lime rendered for the first time. Have a look at:

http://oikos.com/library/naturalbuilding/lime.html

Be aware that the quality of the sand is the most important thing. You need powder fine sand to get a smooth finish.

[caithnesscrofter]

Best Lime book is by Jane Schofield and I see you are in Scotland so, try Masons Mortar in Leith, Edinburgh they have a website and will put you right for quality lime products. What are you plastering by the way?

[Annpan]

Thanks everyone... lots of helpful pointer, we are looking into.

We are planning on plastering a few small sections of wall around our livingroom and hall. either where there is no original plaster left, where it needs patched up or where it has been ripped out to deal with the damp (rising damp and dry rot)

We also have some render outside that has been damaged by the work that we have had done. It would be great to re-render but for just now we are just trying to patch it all up.

Also want to look into lime wash for some stone-work and for outside, and possible other forms of lime based paint.

Basically we are finding out how modern products suffocate an old house and would like to let our house breath. We can't afford to pay proffesionals to do the work, so we shall have to (and want to) learn.

[red]

same boat as us then! - our kitchen walls are really terrible - bubbling paintwork and plaster - we found under the *gloss* paint, there was gypsum plaster.. under that more gloss paint! under that lime plaster.... wonder why its bubbling..... slowly hacking it off....

[caithnesscrofter]

I take it you live in an old stone house that has been rendered over with cement? Oh dear, sounds like quite a job as I'm sure after the cement render comes off you'll find it'll have been repointed with cement mortar which will also need taking out. Well, it seems all over this country people are finding out how nasty cement really is.. 60 years of experimentation and now a good portion of the population live in damp, dank, unhealthy, mouldy hooses. I just painfully watched my neighbour repoint a 400 year old stone house in cement because it is "cheaper" and "easier to get ahold of" and "easier to work with"...

This is how they literally melted most of the old mudwall/cob hooses right back into the ground in Scotland by rendering them with cement all through this past century.... a shame really and a bit late in the game for Historic Scotland to ban the use of cement in listed buildings.

Masons Mortar website is http://www.masonsmortar.co.uk btw

[contadino]

We limewash our house each spring, and to be honest, getting the mixture right is more difficult than lime rendering. If it's too wet, it is seethrough, too little water and it comes off after the first temporale. Practice makes perfect, I think.....one day I'll have had enough practice.

[mybarnconversion]

Have a poke around on the Ty Mawr Lime (search for that) site ... not sure what's on there but worth a look ...