Exposing old stone wall in house

Renno123 · 15-11-2020 02:00PM #1

My house is about 200 years old built with thick stone walls. The walls were cemented and plastered sometime in the last 50 years or so.
One wall in particular suffers from condensation and staining with paint turning to dust. I was looking at removing the cement and replastering with lime however my neighbour had exposed a problem wall and left the stone showing.

I would like to do this instead of replastering. My only issue is that there are sockets on the wall.
How have people incorporated electrics etc on a stone wall? Would that portion need to be plastered?

Thanks

Calahonda52 · 15-11-2020 03:05PM

whats the outside finish?
have you french drains all round outside?
are the walls damp because of no DPC?

What suggest in such cases is that the airtightness, and insulation are brought up to spec, and then fit an MHVR system which will continually remove any damp air and let the walls breath, both inside and outside

Romer · 16-11-2020 11:30AM

I'm in a very similar situation. House was built in 1800, renovated many times through the years and it seems that everything ever done compounded the issue. Outside walls were rendered with concrete and painted numerous times effectively sealing the outside. Internally, walls were overlaid with what looks like some kind of tar lined aluminum that was painted over a few times, then wallpapered with some horrible thick vinyl stuff. Then painted over many more times. All this served to seal the walls so they could not release the moisture as they were designed to do. The building was then left vacant for a few years and a missing ridge cap allowed water to freely enter and get soaked in. So there is a lot of internal damage that I will be addressing over the next few months.

First thing I've done was find and fix all the ways the water was entering. I think I've got most of them.

To your question. The plaster on one of the sitting rooms walls had failed in many areas so I pulled a lot of the plaster and paint off to allow the moisture an escape and found the same thing you are seeing. The sockets that are at floor level were chased in from the ceiling that is 3 meters high. I'd like to keep the one wall bare stone as a feature but not have the wires breaking that feature with nasty looking conduit from ceiling to floor. The only way I can think to keep the electrics similar to what they are is to rewire from the ceiling down in each of the corners, then encase those in conduit and trim it somehow to look nice. Then cable from the corners to the sockets at floor level. Either that or just run the wiring up from the floor instead. I've got pull that floor anyway as there are some fairly significant sags that need fixing.

But that's probably gonna wait until Spring.

meercat · 17-11-2020 09:13AM

Renno123 wrote: »

My house is about 200 years old built with thick stone walls. The walls were cemented and plastered sometime in the last 50 years or so.
One wall in particular suffers from condensation and staining with paint turning to dust. I was looking at removing the cement and replastering with lime however my neighbour had exposed a problem wall and left the stone showing.

I would like to do this instead of replastering. My only issue is that there are sockets on the wall.
How have people incorporated electrics etc on a stone wall? Would that portion need to be plastered?

Thanks

To answer your electrical question. I’ve done numerous jobs like this with surface steel conduit and box’s. It does have an industrial look(some customers have painted conduits but I prefer it left as is).

GreeBo · 17-11-2020 10:41AM

I would either make a feature using "industrial" steel conduit and surface mounted boxes or completely go the other way and bring it all up through the floor.
Trying to do a mix by hiding the conduit in corners will just like bad imo.

Romer · 17-11-2020 11:20AM

Never thought of using steel. That would look pretty cool actually..

GreeBo · 17-11-2020 11:27AM

Yeah I think it can look well, below is obv on redbrick but the idea is the same.

Renno123 · 17-11-2020 02:22PM

Really appreciate all the replies. That looks like the way to go. If down the line the exposed stone doesn't look good I will plaster with lime

Exposing old stone wall in house

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