Old cottage renovation

Abaigh

I have been doing up a 200 year old stone holiday home for a few years now and had no buidling experience prior to this.

What I did to get the damp out of the house is as follows: Got a power tool and took off most of the cement render inside (there was a very bad damp problem); scrapped out between the stones, repointed with lime/cork mortar and put a coat of lime/cork mortar over this. Finally used a skim coat and painted over this with a clay paint. The walls look wavy which is nice. The lime mortar I used had cork aggregate - I used this both to repoint and coat the walls (about 2 cms) and would recommend this as it's lightweight and the room will feel warmer (I discovered this product after I had done one room with lime putty - grand but does not insulate). I am about to do up the kitchen and will repoint the stonework and this time will use a calcithem board over the repointed stone as this will be more robust in a part of the house where the walls will be knocked around more through wear and tear. I have no experience with calcitherm but think it will be fine.

About the floors downstairs, I got a builder to concrete these with a very thin layer of insulation (no headroom - low ceilings). Prior to this there was the thinnest layer of cement on the old floor, so thin that you could see earth in places and you would feel the cold coming up through you. The proper thing to do would have been to dig down and do the limecrete job, but my funds were way too limited for that and no doubt I would have hit a spring at some stage. Anyway, the job that was done on the floor was fine although I would have like better insulation on the floor had it been possible. There was a risk that moisture would make its way up the walls because the floor is concrete and to minimise this I put a heavier layer of lime/cork mortar on the part of the wall closer to the ground level and it seems to have worked. All the walls were uneven anyway and I could live easily with them bulging out a little where they meet the floor (no skirting boards). If anyone is going to do this, be aware that it could take a year to feel results as lime cures very slowly especially in cold damp parts of the house close to the floor.

About the outside, this seems to have a cement type render - kind of old style pebbledash, but I do think its important to stop rain getting in in the first place and I did seal up cracks etc. I did not have the funds to take off this render and do the limeworks here.

Overall, I am very happy with the house. Although I don't think it will ever be as warm etc as a new house, it's unrecognisable from the way it was previously. We use it as a holiday home and are not there often in winter and you don't get a smell of must anymore even when clothes are left there all winter (well, very very slight if you go looking for it, but there's no heat on when vacant). If you live in a very old house, you have to accept that things won't be perfect. If I have not been there for months and it's winter, I usually use a dehumidifier just to reduce humidity in the air and this makes for a more efficient use of heating and the house warms up more quickly. Moisture management is just a fact of life in old houses (as expected) but it is very manageable and the house is comfortable and has a lovely atmosphere. I have lived in 1960s and 1970s houses when I was a student in the 1980s and these were often damp, musty and badly built and took alot of heat to make them comfortable and so have as many challenges. Actually, virtually every house I ever lived in as a student was damp but there was no money for heating back then. None of these houses were particularly old.

I would recommend hygroscopic insulating products (have used a few types - hemp, wood fibre and sheep's wool in different places), but be careful that they are exposed and not sealed in any way or they will rot. (I fairfaced mine with sacking material in one place and painted straight onto woodfibre with a clay paint - worked fine.) Sheep's wool tends to smell if damp but is fine where there is plenty of air. Also most builders don't understand the principle of using hygroscopic material so be careful what advice you get. (I got mine online). Final point, don't take any shortcuts in terms of health and safety around lime - it's alkali and burns and is very dangerous if it gets in your eye.

chillit

I am very interested in your lime/cork mortar. Did you buy this product or make it up. Any advice you can offer about sourcing and applying the product would be really helpful

Abaigh

Dear Chillit -
Re the lime/cork mortar it comes already mixed in a bag, so you have to add water and mix. (Wear a mask and rubber gloves). Notwithstanding that lime products are more expensive than usual materials, the lime/cork is quite cost effective I found. The product was called Secil ecoCORK and I got in in Stoneware Studios in Youghal - they deliver so if you are buying quite a bit this is handy. Because the lime (in the lime/cork mix) is NHL, there is a sell-by date on the bags so you need to watch that. It actually looks sort of grey when it goes on, but once skim coated with 'fine-stuff' (the very smooth finish coat) it is lovely. I used clay paint over this. You can fire away with clay painting before the mortar below is cured as there is meant to be a degree of infusion and this is actually an advantage. I am sorry that I did not try the lime/cork product from the start for repointing as initially I used used lime putty - the stuff that comes already 'wet'. This was easy to use, but the advantage of the lime/cork is of course that it insulates as well as stabilising the stones. Also, the walls never feel cold - it's a bit like touching a cork mat. (These walls were previously always damp and cold in winter) Also, it's a light mortar which is physically easlier for people who are not very strong.

About applying it here is what I did.

-Wear safety glasses and rubber gloves.
-Scrape out the loose mud or old mortar between the stones (there's info on this on You tube)
-Dampen the stone and between-stones with water - (spray or brush). Do this about an hour ahead depending on conditions. Humid conditions are best.
-Stuff the space between the stones with the lime/cork mortar. I always use rubber-gloved hands (very heavy duty but quite close fitting) but masons use tools. I have found the direct gloved approach very easy.
-Once the between-stones are filled, apply the mortar to cover the whole stone/wall - about 2cm thick. The mortar should be quite 'dry' ie not runny. I use gloved hands for this. I have plastered most of the house with gloved hands.
-One can put on a second lime/cork coat of 2cm when the first coat has started to stiffen (few days later depending on conditions) but while there is some damness still in it. I only did this second coat in places like close to the floor, as my budget and time were limited.
-Whether you use one or two coats of the lime/cork mortar, I smoothed the last one by running my gloved hand dipped in water over the surface, to get that nice smooth surface before the final skim coat goes on (days later). Do this smoothing job very soon (ie straight away) after you apply the lime/cork mortar before it starts to cure. A large very wet sponge gently moved around on the surface is also good and you don't get the finger marks that can happen by using gloved hands.

I should say that skilled masons would use tools and trowels etc for this job but I am very happy with my DIY efforts, and would never have been able to afford a stone mason. Another tip is to do relatively small sections of a wall at a time and work your way around the room. It's a messy job but worth it.

pablo128

My folks have a holiday home, although it's only about 14 years old. It has a pretty basic OFCH system fitted. They just set the heating to come on for an hour a day in Winter if they are not there. There's never damp in the house at all. Would that be an option?

Abaigh

Yes, leaving the heat on an hour a day is an option that some people go for with a vacant house, but I'd rather spend the money on heat while I'm there! Since I started sorting it out, the house is surviving well without heat in the winter, including that very wet winter 2015-16. There's no mould in the rooms I have done, and items at the back of the wardrobe have only a tad of a musty smell when closely sniffed after winter. It takes about 24 hours to heat up the house (stove and plug in rads) when I go there in the winter, which is not that often, but this is okay.

chillit

Hi abaigh. Thanks for the detailed response. Good info

yellowellie

Great information Abaigh. I'm thinking about renovating a 200 year old cottage too. I know the concrete floors will need to come up and a new roof will need to go on and new doors and windows. It'll need rewiring and plumbing and it needs an extension for a kitchen and bathroom. There's concrete on the walls inside and out so that needs to come off and it'll need repointing. I'm thinking of putting in a French drain which might help with the damp. I'd like to do some of the work myself (and might rope in some help).

Would you mind if I ask you a few questions and sorry if some of these are very basic/obvious

1. Can you suggest things that I could start on or do myself? I guess taking off the concrete and repointing..
2. What was the power tool you used to remove render? I've watched youtube videos where they remove with a hammer and chisel but a power tool sounds much easier!
3. About your lime/cork mortar. What size and price are the bags and could you estimate roughly what area of wall a bag would cover? *EDIT I googled that and found out that it's about 10 pounds sterling (UK site) and is 14kg and makes up 20l which covers one square metre at average of 20mm thickness* Was this your experience?
4. What sort of roof have you? My heart would love the original thatch but my head says go with a metal roof.
5. Light. Is the house dark? Are any of your rooms raised ceilings with skylights/velux?
6. Where did you use the insulating products? The hemp, sheeps wool etc. (feel stupid asking that..)
6. Any other 'If I was doing it again or had the funds I would xyz...?

Abaigh

I’m no expert and can only share my experiences, but I hope to anwer your queries:

1. Can you suggest things that I could start on or do myself? I guess taking off the concrete and repointing..

Yes you could do these yourself. I had no experience whatsoever before I did this. Watch You Tube videos on re-pointing.

2. What was the power tool you used to remove render?

2. Einhell hammer drill - I got it online at a hardware supplier for just over 100 euro and about 5 euro for delivery. Excellent tool for the price. For my job at least, hard tools would not be enough as the cement render was an inch thick in places. Use protection for hearing/ears.

3. About your lime/cork mortar. What size and price are the bags and could you estimate roughly what area of wall a bag would cover? *EDIT I googled that and found out that it's about 10 pounds sterling (UK site) and is 14kg and makes up 20l which covers one square metre at average of 20mm thickness* Was this your experience?

I sort of ordered about 20 bags at a time and didn’t really measure ahead. The coating of lime/cork in my place is uneven, as parts are fairly deep with cork/lime and other parts very light where some stones stick out more markedly. In my case, some walls were damper than others, and I have adjusted the thickness of the cork/lime mortar accordingly. I have not used the maximum thickness, mainly because I don’t have time to apply, it although it would be ideal. I think that even though I have skimmed and clay painted parts of the house over the lime/cork already, I might some day get back to adding another layer of lime/cork mortar in future if I score the surface a bit. For now, we are already using the house, and parts of it look finished and we are really enjoying the house. If I have to get back to add an extra cm of lime/cork in a few years, that’s okay with me.

Just as an update to my previous posts, after re-pointing with lime/cork, I have also now started using calcitherm insulation board in parts of the house I am moving on to, and it’s brilliant. I have had to do my own thing a bit with this, as it’s designed for straight walls, but it is an excellent product, albeit quite expensive. It’s a calcium silicate board that has a special lime-based adhesive (sold separately) to allow it to stick to stone. I have had to deviate from the ideal way to use this in light of my very wonky stone walls. First, I re-pointed with the lime/cork mortar before applying the calcitherm boards. – I have divided single boards to smaller sizes to ensure that each part of the board sticks without being compromised by air pockets, and fill the cracks between boards with lime/cork mortar. After that, I skimmed with ‘fine stuff,’ and then clay painted. This is not exactly as indicated by the manufacturers, but seems to have adhered well. I think that this is fabulous in particularly damp parts of the house, and as indicated, I have used it next to cork/lime mortar which is more flexible for filling in bits. I never mix the adhesive (even though it is lime-based) with the lime/cork mortar as these are distinct products, but I have used them side by side, and thus far with no problems. There’s a very good You Tube video on how to apply calcitherm boards (the ideal way!)

4. What sort of roof have you? My heart would love the original thatch but my head says go with a metal roof.

A metal roof sounds good and in keeping with the traditional cottage, and probably lot more durable than thatch in the long run. Mine is a traditional farmhouse – like a big two-story cottage of strong tenant farmers in 19th cent – and a metal roof would have been fine, but in the end I went for recycled plastic that looks like natural slate. Slate would be more expensive and I also spent some time reading up about potential problems with it – porous, some is of poor quality, natural slate sources are finite etc. It’s a little embarrassing to admit that the roof is recycled plastic opposite my admiring visitors who think it is slate but the benefits outweight this. I did push the boat out with above-rafter wood fibre Gutex insulation on the roof that the roofer had never seen or installed before. Anyway, it’s like a tea-cosy over the house, encapsulating all the rafters, and the benefits are obvious as the upstairs is warmer than downstairs, even without additional heating (stove is downstairs). The coldest part of the house is the perimeter of the wall downstairs where the wall meets the floor, but I am still working on this.

5. Light. Is the house dark? Are any of your rooms raised ceilings with skylights/velux?

I took out one part of an upstairs floor (lost a bedroom) for double-height ceiling and had veluxs (well cheaper equivalents) installed. I would recommend this as most of the house is not dark now – actually there is some great light coming in. All of the ceilings are pitched upstairs and in the open area off the mezzanine and the former animal houses at the back. Raised ceilings are great, but a bit more heat is required to heat the extra space. Cash was scarce after paying for the Gutex insulation – otherwise I would have got bigger skylights as these are all at the back of the house.

6. Where did you use the insulating products? The hemp, sheeps wool etc. (feel stupid asking that..)

Good question as I used the lime/cork mortar in the walls, and more recently the calcitherm boards. In this house, there are internal stone walls as previous animal houses at the back became part of the dwelling area over time. When the ceilings were taken out, there were gaps at the top of the internal walls between the pitched roofs and the tops of these thick internal stone walls, so I put insulation into any gaps so that the heat would not drift into rooms I was not using, or be absorbed into these thick walls, or be wasted in rooms that tend to be used quickly and briefly (bathroom – former fowl house - tends to be cold and is usually unheated). Also, I laid insulation in the eves over the 2-3 feet of wall as there’s a good overhang now on the new roof. I initially started using between-rafter insulation on the roof supplementary to the above-rafter, but this is not a priority as the tea-cosy effect of the Gutex is evident. There are other priorities so I have parked this for task for now.


6. Any other 'If I was doing it again or had the funds I would xyz...?
Bigger veluxes, calcitherm board in most places, but it does cover the beauty of the stone. I would also have maximum thickness hygroscopic insulation everywhere. If I really had had the money, and lots of it, I would have dug and put in a proper limecrete insulated floor. Super hygroscopic insulation on the lower part of the walls downstairs is the only option to counterbalance this in my case and is okay rather than ideal. Overall though, the house looks lovely and is full of character.

Best wishes with your project. I had days of feeling tired etc but it’s still worth it!

Abaigh

see reply posted

Day Lewin

Following

JonathonS

There is some good info on lime mortar and how to use it in Pat McAfee's book Irish Stone Walls.

Also on this site http://www.buildinglimesforumireland.com/

yellowellie

Abaigh, thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions. It's very helpful and informative

johney

Abaigh,

reading your post with interest as I am doing similar.

You commented above about a metal roof and that it would have looked good also. Am thinking of going this route so was glad you think that..
What kind of metal roof would look good on an old cottage like this? Bright Galvanize? Or dark corrugated sheeting? I also have an ulterior motive as I hope to put an extension at back which may have a very low pitch.

All help appreciated.

Thank you

kingbhome

Abaigh wrote: »

I have been doing up a 200 year old stone holiday home for a few years now and had no buidling experience prior to this.

What I did to get the damp out of the house is as follows: Got a power tool and took off most of the cement render inside (there was a very bad damp problem); scrapped out between the stones, repointed with lime/cork mortar and put a coat of lime/cork mortar over this. Finally used a skim coat and painted over this with a clay paint. The walls look wavy which is nice. The lime mortar I used had cork aggregate - I used this both to repoint and coat the walls (about 2 cms) and would recommend this as it's lightweight and the room will feel warmer (I discovered this product after I had done one room with lime putty - grand but does not insulate). I am about to do up the kitchen and will repoint the stonework and this time will use a calcithem board over the repointed stone as this will be more robust in a part of the house where the walls will be knocked around more through wear and tear. I have no experience with calcitherm but think it will be fine.

About the floors downstairs, I got a builder to concrete these with a very thin layer of insulation (no headroom - low ceilings). Prior to this there was the thinnest layer of cement on the old floor, so thin that you could see earth in places and you would feel the cold coming up through you. The proper thing to do would have been to dig down and do the limecrete job, but my funds were way too limited for that and no doubt I would have hit a spring at some stage. Anyway, the job that was done on the floor was fine although I would have like better insulation on the floor had it been possible. There was a risk that moisture would make its way up the walls because the floor is concrete and to minimise this I put a heavier layer of lime/cork mortar on the part of the wall closer to the ground level and it seems to have worked. All the walls were uneven anyway and I could live easily with them bulging out a little where they meet the floor (no skirting boards). If anyone is going to do this, be aware that it could take a year to feel results as lime cures very slowly especially in cold damp parts of the house close to the floor.

About the outside, this seems to have a cement type render - kind of old style pebbledash, but I do think its important to stop rain getting in in the first place and I did seal up cracks etc. I did not have the funds to take off this render and do the limeworks here.

Overall, I am very happy with the house. Although I don't think it will ever be as warm etc as a new house, it's unrecognisable from the way it was previously. We use it as a holiday home and are not there often in winter and you don't get a smell of must anymore even when clothes are left there all winter (well, very very slight if you go looking for it, but there's no heat on when vacant). If you live in a very old house, you have to accept that things won't be perfect. If I have not been there for months and it's winter, I usually use a dehumidifier just to reduce humidity in the air and this makes for a more efficient use of heating and the house warms up more quickly. Moisture management is just a fact of life in old houses (as expected) but it is very manageable and the house is comfortable and has a lovely atmosphere. I have lived in 1960s and 1970s houses when I was a student in the 1980s and these were often damp, musty and badly built and took alot of heat to make them comfortable and so have as many challenges. Actually, virtually every house I ever lived in as a student was damp but there was no money for heating back then. None of these houses were particularly old.

I would recommend hygroscopic insulating products (have used a few types - hemp, wood fibre and sheep's wool in different places), but be careful that they are exposed and not sealed in any way or they will rot. (I fairfaced mine with sacking material in one place and painted straight onto woodfibre with a clay paint - worked fine.) Sheep's wool tends to smell if damp but is fine where there is plenty of air. Also most builders don't understand the principle of using hygroscopic material so be careful what advice you get. (I got mine online). Final point, don't take any shortcuts in terms of health and safety around lime - it's alkali and burns and is very dangerous if it gets in your eye.

I hope this is ok for a bump and if you cant answer it, maybe a mod can. Doing up these old houses, does one have to abide by the new building regs or are old 200yr old houses exempt from them.

flatty

I'd also like to ask whether ye needed or sought planning permission?

kingbhome

flatty wrote: »

I'd also like to ask whether ye needed or sought planning permission?

I dont think one needs to apply for planning to renovate an old house if everything is inside but if one needs a waste system, then this where it will be needed.

BryanF

kingbhome wrote: »

I hope this is ok for a bump and if you cant answer it, maybe a mod can. Doing up these old houses, does one have to abide by the new building regs or are old 200yr old houses exempt from them.

there is a separate section in TGD L for example that slightly less onerous. There is no exemption unless the property is ‘listed’ on the coco website as having historical merit

flatty wrote: »

I'd also like to ask whether ye needed or sought planning permission?

if the dwelling is derelict, planning is required.

Voodoomelon

Interesting to read your original post OP, i've been doing much the same thing as you in my house in Dundalk for the last 5 years and went with many of the methods you mentioned yourself. Well done.

See it all at:

http://georgianrenovation.blogspot.com/

kingbhome

BryanF wrote: »

there is a separate section in TGD L for example that slightly less onerous. There is no exemption unless the property is ‘listed’ on the coco website as having historical merit

if the dwelling is derelict, planning is required.

Is the planning just for the septic tank? What if one renovated the inside of the house first then applied for planning for the septic tank.

BryanF

kingbhome wrote: »

Is the planning just for the septic tank? What if one renovated the inside of the house first then applied for planning for the septic tank.

Hi I answered question about building regs

As regards planning, was the house derelict to begin with? Does it have an esb meter?

kingbhome

BryanF wrote: »

Hi I answered question about building regs

As regards planning, was the house derelict to begin with? Does it have an esb meter?

No Esb meter but someone lived in it the last 5 years. Died at 87yr old and lived as they did 100 years ago. Sad to see someone live like that but its what they wanted.