I stripped all the concrete of the wall under the stairs and in the kitchen electrical cupboard. Green housing sulutions is going to be installing solar PV panels on the roof and they want to install the invert and monitoring kit in this cupboard. So I need to repoint this wall while i still have room.

I have researched using lime mortar to repoint this wall its a 2' thick wall that needs to breath and line will allow it to do this. I have researched suppliers on the internet and I have bought two 25kg bags of ready mixed mortar from the Cornish line company.

I have to rake out the joints to a depth of 2" and remove all the loose mortar. I need to replace all the pin stones that that are missing from the wall.

I did a bit of recycling for this we are surrounded by clay pits that most of the stone that was used to build the house came  from just went out an collected a bucket of stones.














I forgot to take a before photo of this part of the wall but the process is to chisel out the cement pointing down to the old lime mortar below about 2". Brush out all the loose matter and then soak the joints with water from a garden sprayer. You then repoint with line mortar using pin stones to fill any gaps between the stones that are larger than 2".

You have to look after this for a few hours to ensure you get a good joint as the mortar shrinks as it dries out. You don't want to let it dried out to quickly in warm weather or freeze in cold weather or it will fail.

The method is to over fill the joints slightly and wait until they dry until they are firm enough to leave a thumb print. You then have to  bash it with a stiff brisled brush. This compacts and drives the mortar into the joints priventing shrinkage. Then use the garden sprayer to moisten the joints.

The mortar is composed of lime hydrate and hardens by combining with the cardon dioxide in the air to form calciun carbonate (Limestone). It takes about two weeks to set. We kept it damp with the garden sprayered for the first week then let it dry naturaly after wards.

The limes quite nice to work with and drys to a nice creamy colour. I want to repoint the main bit of the wall abit at a time before I remove the brick and replace them with stone.

The house gets quite cold in winter but I have found a lime plaster which contains hemp and works like an insulator. It called Hempsulate and I'll use it in the main part of the house.

Well thats about it.

KBO.