Stone Identification

paulroberts

Im trying to remove the paint from the front of my house which is made of stone  i was thinking of buying a chemical paint stripper to aid in the removal of paint Allot of the paint strippers are not suitable for limestone my house is a Victorian house built in Cardiff could anyone identify the stone it is made from? is it also possible to use a  needle gun of this stone? 

stuart45

I've used a needle gun for a customer on Chert, which is like flint. Anything softer will get wrecked.

tspeding

Hi how do we know if our paving slabs are limestone? 

tberry6686

Scratch a piece till you are down to bare stone then drop some vinegar on it.  Give it a couple of minutes and see if any little bubbles have formed where the stone is.  If so it is almost certainly limestone.  (10% HCL works better and faster if you have it)

Davesnave

The first things you should be considering are the location (approximately) and the age of the property. In ye olden days people didn't transport building materials far if they could help it, or if the demands of fashion weren't a consideration. I think the area around Cardiff has limestones, but you'd need to check.

From what I can see, it's possible two types of stone were used on your older house, both of which might be limestone, but the darker one could be something else. For example some houses in Somerset I know have mainly limestone walls, but key stones may be something harder called andesite, which is so tough it's now used for making roads.

Jackmydad

I thought it looked a bit like some sort of sandstone.
I found this.
https://ecohomecentre.blogspot.com/2013/01/stone-in-cardiff-homes.html
So it looks like there's a chance that it is.

-taff

You could try a pressure washer first on the paint.

daveyjp

Another vote for sandstone.

FreeBear

-taff said: You could try a pressure washer first on the paint.

That would be my first suggestion, but do test on a small area that isn't too visible first. If that doesn't work, dry ice blasting would get most of it off without doing too much damage to the soft stone. Sand or grit blasting would probably be too aggressive. Modern paint strippers will get very, very expensive real quick if you have a large area to do - Most formulations are pretty ineffective in my opinion.

You could try a wire brush & elbow grease - That would get the loose stuff off which may be enough depending on what you plan on doing next.