Lime Plastering is a specialist lime plastering contractor working throughout Livingston and the wider West Lothian area. As an established West Lothian town, Livingston has a large stock of pre-1919 property built from harled rubble walling — walls that were designed to breathe. We restore them using traditional lime plaster, lime render and lime mortar, never cement or gypsum.
Many properties in and around Livingston sit within conservation areas or carry listed status, so finishes must match the original construction. We work regularly with West Lothian conservation officers and typically specify hot-mixed lime harling, applied in successive thrown coats and limewashed.
Livingston and the villages around it retain a good deal of harled rubble walling. Where that material is soft — as most traditional West Lothian walling is — the mortar and plaster must always be softer than the masonry, so it wears sacrificially instead of eroding the stone or brick face.
Softness is the point. Traditional West Lothian walling of harled rubble walling is weaker than modern cement, so a hard mortar concentrates stress and moisture into the masonry face. Lime is deliberately the weaker material, and that is what makes it correct for Livingston's older homes.
Once the survey is agreed, we protect the site, strip back the failed finish, and apply lime in successive coats with proper curing between each. In Scotland's cold, wet and wind-driven weather we control drying with damp hessian or sheeting so the work carbonates evenly rather than cracking.
The jobs below are typical of the work we carry out on Livingston property — the building types and problems vary, but the answer is always breathable lime rather than cement.
converted steading — A converted steading in Livingston where hard cement render had trapped moisture against Scottish sandstone. We stripped the render back to bare wall, allowed the masonry to dry, then rebuilt the finish in three coats of lime and limewashed it.
sandstone tenement flat — A commercial sandstone tenement flat on a Livingston high street within a conservation area. Decayed render and mouldings were reinstated in lime, run in situ to the original profiles, and finished to match neighbouring frontages.
harled rubble cottage — A harled rubble cottage being brought back into use outside Livingston. Because traditional harling in lime is the historically correct external finish, we plastered internally in lime over a breathable insulating background and left the external stonework repointed rather than sealed.
Yes, but it must be finished with a breathable product such as limewash, clay paint or mineral silicate paint. We advise on suitable finishes for each Livingston project so breathability is not lost at the final coat.
Yes. We regularly work on listed and conservation-area properties across West Lothian and can supply mix specifications and sample panels for Livingston conservation officers where consent is required.
We do. Lime repointing is a large part of our Livingston workload — raking out hard cement pointing and replacing it with a softer, sacrificial lime mortar that protects the masonry face instead of eroding it.
Yes. We take samples of the surviving mortar or plaster from the Scottish sandstone first, then match aggregate, colour and texture so the repair blends into the original rather than patching over it.
Our lime plastering, render and pointing teams also cover these towns and cities close to Livingston in West Lothian and the wider Scotland area.
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