Victorian stone house & cement render/pointing...

garrysibbald

Some good points raised above and as a specialist pointing company, here's some more!

1.when buying a property get a surveyors report - a surveyor will point out (excuse the pun) this type of issue and i've yet to find a surveyor that will advise cement to be used for repointing a property when it has originally been built using Lime mortar.
2. Try and use a specialist, don't assume that all brickies can point a property well. Many brickies and handymen say they can point but standards can vary and trying to find someone to put right a bad job that someone else has done is not going to be economic or very succesful. For example, we often get called in by experienced brickies who have built an extension to a house but use us to complete the pointing so there is a match to the style and mortar colourwith the rest of the house.
3. Insist on "no cement to be used" stated in writing when requesting lime mortar as you may be intentially deceived into thinking that you are getting a lime mortar when you are not. As mentioned in other posts, Hydrated lime can be used with cement but this differs from a lime mortar where Natural Hydraulic Lime (NHL) is used without cement.
4. Don't assume you can't afford a lime mortar. Lime is dearer to buy in as a material but not prohibitively so, as the main cost of pointing is the labour intensive element the main reason lime mortar is not used more often is purely that brickworkers are not familiar in working with Lime Mortar. Our costings normally differ due to the style of mortar required rather than the fact that we are using a Lime Mortar.