Traditional lime plastering in St Albans and across Hertfordshire. Working on flint churches and barns and other solid-wall property, we specify hot-mixed lime, lime putty and natural hydraulic lime to suit each individual wall rather than applying one standard mix to everything.
Whether it is timber-framed and pargetted cottages on the edge of St Albans, a terrace near the centre, or a farm building out in Hertfordshire, each project starts with a survey of the substrate so the lime mix, aggregate and coat build-up are right for that specific wall.
St Albans and the villages around it retain a good deal of soft red brick. Where that material is soft — as most traditional Hertfordshire 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.
In the dry, cold easterly exposure of the eastern counties, an impermeable render is a liability: water gets in at cracks and reveals and then cannot leave. Lime render on a St Albans wall handles that water, releasing it back out through the surface instead of pushing it deeper into the structure.
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 the dry, cold easterly exposure of the eastern counties 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 St Albans property — the building types and problems vary, but the answer is always breathable lime rather than cement.
Georgian merchant's house — A Georgian merchant's house in St Albans where hard cement render had trapped moisture against clay lump and cob. 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.
estate farmworker's cottage — Blown gypsum plaster and tide marks on the ground floor of an estate farmworker's cottage in Hertfordshire. We hacked off the gypsum, applied a haired lime base coat and a lime putty finish, and specified clay paint so the wall could keep drying.
pargetted timber-framed house — Cracked and cement-patched panels on a pargetted timber-framed house in Hertfordshire. Failed infill was cut out, laths and staves renewed where rotten, and the panels made good in haired lime so the frame can move without splitting the finish.
Lime cures slowly by carbonation. Allow roughly a week per coat as a guide, and longer in the dry, cold easterly exposure of the eastern counties. We protect the work and control drying so the finish cures evenly rather than cracking or dusting.
We do. Lime repointing is a large part of our St Albans 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, 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 St Albans project so breathability is not lost at the final coat.
Yes — stripping failed cement render and replacing it with a breathable lime render is one of the most common jobs we carry out in St Albans. It is usually the fastest way to resolve persistent damp in a solid-wall building.
Our lime plastering, render and pointing teams also cover these towns and cities close to St Albans in Hertfordshire and the wider East of England area.
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