Fatfield Hall, Fatfield Washington.
History
Previously called Pipestrille House and recently re-named Fatfield House. This work was for a private client and was a conversion into a home. It was originally a barn and listed and it required some serious intervention.
Project.
The works required drilling out of cement pointing from the beds and joints, grouting, removal of cement patch render, new stone lintels and corbels, a new roof and gutters, and finally a total re-point of the existing façade, but not before the Pipestrille bats tenancy was up and they had vacated the building were works allowed to proceed.
Photo [A] shows the serious settlement cracks probably due to flooding. The wall was stabilized and grouted from the bottom upwards. This took careful management of the grouting, and plugging of small holes near the areas was done to avoid spillage.
Cement is an impervious material and should
not be used in the conservation or restoration of older or historic buildings,
we now know today that stone units within a building need to breathe. Lime
being more permeable than cement assists water to evaporate from the stone
units taking any salts with it through the lime mortar joints. When these
joints are blocked with cement i.e. over pointing some of the moisture is
locked up within the stones and this is the main cause of stone decay.
Photo [C] shows cement pointing. You can
see by this photo the rapid acceleration of stone decay due to the impervious
nature of the cement. Photo [D] shows this cement pointing carefully removed
and re-pointed with the appropriate lime mortar mix.
Photo [E] shows the extent of the cement pointing and render to the face of the wall on this elevation, and photo [F] shows the careful removal of this cement and properly restored using lime mortar, prolonging the life of the stone.
The roof of this property also benefited from a full replacement using as much of the original slates as possible. New corbels and coping stones were also replaced as they were so badly damaged or did not exist at all. The roof timbers were sprayed with appropriate chemicals to preserve them.
Created: 18/01/2011 - [Team Force Restoration Ltd © 2012]