Luckylad

Yes I had problems getting my Sunamp delivered. In the end I spoke directly to Sunamp. I’ve pmd who the distributor is.

We’ve adapted those vents before by taping up the front and drilling a hole in the underside of the vent so the hole is in the head of the render rather than on the face.

That looks good,have you got a photo of how it looks now?

AnonymousBosch have you considered using Airless Plaster?

Glad you like it, I’m not sure why all of the photo didn’t upload. We mix the render scratch coat to a ratio of 4 sand/1 cement/half hydrated lime . The top coat we mix 6 sand/1 cement/1 hydrated lime.Half a mug full of wickes waterproofer in each mix, whether its scratch coat 12/3/1.5 or topcoat 12/2/2. Large handful of reinforcement fibre in the scratch coat and 75% less in the topcoat. The sand is 50% soft washed plastering sand and 50% sharp sand. Rule it off and rub it up quickly.When we’re Pargetting we start tapping the moulds with the butt of a large pointing trowel into the wet render as soon as possible. Speed is of the essence. That piece of wood in the photo is straight in one direction but curved the other way,so I could almost roll out the imprint . We’ve never used mould release oil,just being abit cautious about how masonry paint would stick to it. I mostly use a dry rag to rub the mould when sticky or dip it in a bag of kiln dried sand ,the type they use for block paving.

Hi I like the idea of what you’re trying to achieve. I picked up some timber from the skip at work and pushed it into my render. Don’t know if that’s the appearance that you are after.

+1 to the above, the brickies here mentioned bicarbonate of soda. Hecateh what has your builder used?

I’ve seen people use diluted vinegar,bit smelly but it worked. Find out what your brick manufacturer says.

Hello We use baking soda to clean our plastering machines,do you think it could be harmful in any way to them? Theres very hard rubber inside the machines and I often wonder if it'll do long term damage. Thanks.

Thanks for the suggestion but I don’t think it would work because you wouldn’t be able to build up a thick enough layer of pva. Previously we’ve only done a parge coat for sound proofing behind dot and dab. I was undecided whether to do it on my own house. Having seen your suggestion and read up on it, I’ll do it for airtightness ,on my own house,but it’s not something builders want to pay for.

Hi Is the parge coat really worth doing? Does it make the airtightness that much better?

Hi Do you have a cross section plan of this you could post here please?

Those bricks are a lovely colour and I like the corbel design. That view is amazing!

They are more thermally efficient on paper but not in the real world. The 2 wet looking patches that fall away from the upper window are cracks that can easily be seen in daylight ,the lighter coloured areas had frost on them. glad to hear that about your walls @Declan52, could you give me a detailed breakdown of them please? mine have got bed joint reinforcement, which was a bit like a toy train track. that camera looks the dogs dangles!

@Moira Niedzwiecka ive got a photo of my neighbors house which is 6 years old ,where you can actually see the heat escaping from the cracks in lightweight blocks. You can also see cold bridging and missing insulation!