Tapster

Great, thank you! The precise technique details are particularly helpful. 😄

Do you mean that granite should use nhl5? I can’t see why 3.5 wouldn’t be fine and that certainly will knock up next day in this weather Mine's softish sandstone, so I'll be looking for a softer mortar by the sound of it. Any suggestions?

Thank you, Mike .... secondhand mixers seem to be around 200 quid in these parts; that's a bit much for me. Lime mortar seems quite forgiving, so mixes will last a few days, meaning I can mix more each time and not have it go hard. Yay! ............. and, er, incomplete/ incompetent mixing doesn't matter too much??

Thank you for all the very useful advice ... Now, do I need to buy a small cement mixer for a job like this or can I easily make multiple mixes by hand/shovel? If I'm doing this job on and off, over weeks, how helpful will a small mixer be?

We have recently moved to rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Our property has two steadings and a bothy. You can see the dilapidated end of one of the steadings in the photo. We call this one Mordor as it is the steading from hell which we can't use for fear of death from falling masonry; it's a project for another day and another bank account! Please see attached photos. The bothy is the issue for today. The pointing is in a terrible state: a mixture of very eroded hundred-year-old lime mortar and newer sand and cement repairs. The advice from a local roofer/mason is to rake it all out and replace it with lime mortar. The mason's estimate for the work was way beyond my budget, but he guaranteed it for a hundred years!!! I haven't done work like this before but the resources are all there on the internet, so I'll do it this year. What I'd like advice on, please, is how to repair the chimney stack. Let's assume that I might use it as a chimney sometime in the future. Crows have nested in the chimney stack and in the end wall of the bothy. They cleverly removed mortar to create access. You can see right through the chimney stack in one of the photos. There are quite large voids to be filled before the outer faces can be pointed. The stack has weathered three severe wind storms in the last twelve months but it won't last forever in its present state. The mason recommended that I collect stones to fill these voids but I don't know how to do the repair with these stones. If I place stones inside the voids, do I just cover them in mortar to secure them and restore the inside shape of the chimney, then build the chimney back out of the hole? How do I finish the outer faces? Please help!! Many thanks for any contributions.

A good start, indeed! Can you offer any advice on the chimney repair, please? That's the part of the job that I have least experience with.

We have recently moved to rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Our property has two steadings (barns) and a bothy (a simple stone structure; in this case, it was used for pigs at one end, and the pig-man at the other: hence the chimney and fireplace). You can see the dilapidated end of one of the steadings in the photo. We call this one Mordor as it is the steading from hell which we can't use for fear of death from falling masonry; it's a project for another day and another bank account! Amusingly, the term they use for an old roof like this is that it's suffering from 'nail sickness'! Please see attached photos. But I digress! The bothy is the problem for today. The pointing is in a terrible state: a mixture of very eroded hundred-year-old lime mortar and newer sand and cement repairs. The advice from a local roofer/mason is to rake it all out and replace it with lime mortar. I haven't done it before but the resources are all there on the internet, so I'll do that this year. Incidentally, the mason's estimate for the work was way beyond my budget, but he guaranteed it for a hundred years!!! What I'd like advice on, please, is how to repair the chimney stack. Let's assume that I might use it as a chimney sometime in the future. Crows have nested in the chimney stack and in the end wall of the bothy. They cleverly removed mortar to create access. You can see right through the chimney stack in one of the photos. There are quite large voids to be filled before the outer faces can be pointed. The stack has weathered three severe wind storms in the last twelve months but it won't last forever in its present state. The mason recommended that I collect stones to fill these voids but I don't know how to do the repair with these stones. If I place stones inside the voids, do I just cover them in mortar to secure them and restore the inside shape of the chimney, then build the chimney back out of the hole? How do I finish the outer faces? Please help!! Many thanks for any contributions.