{"id":5173,"date":"2015-01-28T17:30:38","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T16:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=5173"},"modified":"2015-01-28T17:30:38","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T16:30:38","slug":"lime-part-2-lime-mortar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=5173","title":{"rendered":"Lime part 2 – lime mortar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the different types of lime<\/a> I have worked with, lime mortar has been the easiest to work with and most satisfying.\u00a0 Lime mortar should be used to point all stone walls.\u00a0 Whether it is or not is moot point, certainly in the UK its use was forgotten about until comparatively recently.\u00a0 Large parts of my stone house have re-pointed using a cement based mortar.\u00a0 Why should lime mortar be used instead of cement based mortars?\u00a0 As laid out in part 1<\/a> its the breathability of lime.\u00a0 Water can find its way into stone when it rains but needs to find its way out for two reasons, firstly freeze thaw and second all rain is acidic.\u00a0 Both degrade the stone.\u00a0 The outcome of using cement can be seen in the first picture.\u00a0 The stone wears away leaving the cement based mortar behind.\u00a0 Lime will allow this water out.<\/p>\n

\"2015-01-27<\/a><\/p>\n

When we bought our house we paid for an excellent survey as part of the lawyers fees.\u00a0 Everything this survey said was defective has been proved accurate.\u00a0 One thing the survey mentioned was that boundary walls needed re-pointing.\u00a0 In 2004 we paid a building firm do the sideway portion of the wall.\u00a0 I had become aware of the need to use lime mortar and the firm was “lime aware” and did a great job.\u00a0 It cost a fortune though and was only a small proportion of the wall.\u00a0 I did some research and decided I could do it myself.\u00a0 I bought the lime mortar and had a go at a short stretch of wall myself.\u00a0 It looked great so I carried on in the gap between my job ending and doctorate starting in 2005.\u00a0 It took me about 6 weeks to do 40m of a wall roughly 1.3m high that summer.\u00a0 I had one day off when it rained.<\/p>\n

In practical terms there’s not much to it.<\/p>\n