Boundary stone wall rebuild (September 2018)
Our client had a front boundary wall that was leaning precariously forward towards the pavement and public highway. The wall was approximately 150-200 years old and with time it had moved and required complete rebuild.
Incastone were tasked with taking down the original stone wall and then laying new footings for the entire wall length of over 12m. We then built an internal retaining concrete block wall that was pinned into the footings with 20mm round steel bar. Weep holes were positioned at regular intervals to allow for effective drainage through the new wall with clean chippings behind the wall to aid drainage.
Wall ties were fixed to this concrete block wall and then a front face of the reclaimed stone walling was built using traditional Hydraulic lime mortar.
Above ground on the interior side of the wall, stonework was built above ground level.
The wall was coped in new reconstituted Bath stone coping’s custom made and supplied locally.
Lime mortar
When building with lime we use Singleton Birch Hydraulic Lime NHL 3.5 Natural Hydraulic Lime for making lime mortar Medium strength, moderate setting speed.
Suitable for most building applications. for most types of brick & stone masonry. General building, pointing and rendering. meets the requirements for mortar, render and plaster for conservation, restoration and new build construction. Lime has been used in building and construction for hundreds of years and many of our most important heritage buildings bear testament to the enduring properties of lime.
As the price of Lime mortar is above that of cement based mortars our prices per sq metre are higher when using lime mortar.
The processes of re-pointing using lime mortar are lengthy and time consuming. Lime mortar must dry slowly and cannot be exposed to strong sunlight or low temperatures during this drying period.
All walls will be hosed down before application and once applied the walls will be covered with Hessian cloth. This cloth will then be kept moist to protect the mortar from drying out to quickly. After a period of 2-3 days the pointing is ready to be brushed back and finished off.
This process also takes time.
To create a strong/dense lime pointing mix, a mix of Hydraulic lime, Warmwell sand and a 1-4mm stone dust/gravel is mixed with water in a cement mixer for a period of no less than 15 minutes.
