Damaged stone doorway

Detritus70

Hello good people of Boards. I have an old vaulted cellar in my garden and the doorway is damaged. I plan to support it with an acrow, whilst I chisel both ends of the damage flat in order to cement in a repair section.

Three questions. Does that sound feasible and what kind of cement and stone (or other material) should I use?

And how do I turn those blasted pictures the right way round?

The Continental Op

I think I'd be looking at putting some stainless steel reinforcing bars in that. Angle won't be easy but I'd drill an over sized hole up and down and then epoxy a bar in the middle. If the angles for the holes don't work out then a bar in the top and another in the bottom. Obviously you will have to decide if that stone will drill without further damage. With the bar in place for the concrete to set around I don't think you'd need to get those ends flat, maybe just put a few flats like steps top and bottom.

Edit>Be aware that the top section may fall out if the lintel is supported with acrows. You may want to use a trench prop across the frame at the top to hold it in place and I'd leave that connection section at the back?

To avoid to much hammering on the stone a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder would get in and do a good bit of the work if not all thats necessary.

Good username for the job in hand :-)

Detritus70

Thanks! It's not something I'll be doing this week or next (or even this year), and every piece of information is valuable to me.

The Continental Op

You may get some better advice but thats my take on it. Not sure if PVA glue would be useful on the cut surfaces to help adhesion. If that area of damage gets wet during the winter then PVA would seal it and might help prevent frost damage. Not sure about PVA on stone work?

If thats a cellar in the garden what does the rest of the Chateau look like?

cnocbui

I wouldn't chisel anything. Using an angle grinder with stone disk, I'd cut a groove in the top and bottom faces of the broken frame, in the same plane as a closed door. Then i'd get some stainless steel stiff wire of abot 3-4mm thickness - a straightened one of those ties they use in cavity walls would be ideal. Then use two lengths of this - a short and a long, sized so one spans the gap with it's ends in both grooves near the bottom of the V and the other 2cm in from the open end of the V. Or if you want to be real tricky, bend a single piece of said wire so it both spans the gap as mentioned while having two lengths in the grooves. the two ends of the single piece would be in the groove. That makes it self supporting and no need to epoxy the ends in as with two single pieces.

The next bit would depend on the wood working tools you have available. But roughly speaking, and given I have a table saw and router, I'd span the back edge, front face and front edge relief with wood glued to the frame with something like contact adhesive. These bits of wood would form two sides of a mould extending a good bit beyond both ends of the gap. They'd have grooves machined in them facing each other so as a thinish flat piece of plywood or metal plate could be slid up from the bottom with two opposing edges in the grooves that would be flush with the door facing edge of the frame. All inward facing bits of the wood could be rubbed with a candle for a bit of extra release.

Then it's just a matter of sliding the shutter up from the bottom and filling the void with cement/mortar, while sliding the shutter up until the whole void is filled and the shutter completely closes it off.

Then remove the mould when the cement/mortar has set.

Detritus70

The rest of the chateau is a bog-standard house build in 1990. 😁

But the neighborhood is quite old, so you'll find old walls and a few of these cellars around the place. I have this crazy idea to clean up the place and chain a few plastic skeletons to the wall. Otherwise it's just for storage.