I'm currently looking at a first (top) floor flat which although leasehold I'll be responsible for the 1st floor external walls. The entire property has been ribbon pointed with cement at some point which has made the stone work worse, the ground floor section of walls look in reasonably good shape but the first floor needs a lot of work.
It is built with a local blue lias stone.
The property is semi detached so I only have the front, side and rear gable (the neighboring properties are a lot more sheltered so are fine). Most of the side which is the longest wall is ok, it needs attention around the two windows and possibly a few stones replacing, the rear gable has a lot of stones that look like they've completely crumbled, the front section needs attention around all the windows particularly one corner which will probably need the outer section rebuilding.
The scaffold and skips etc will already be in place as I'll be replacing the roof.
I just want to get some advice on what to do with it, obviously removing all the cement render and completely re-pointing with lime and replacing any stones along the way is the best way to go but this would be very expensive. At roughly 80 square meters of stone work I'd be looking at £4000-4500 just to get the re pointing done, plus the extra labor and materials to replace stones and rebuild around the windows plus replacing stones or at worst rebuilding sections of the gable end.
The other option would be to just rebuild or re point around the windows, replace the worst of the stones and then continue with the ribbon pointing in the places where it's missing. I could then spray all of the external walls in a water repellent anti penetrating damp treatment to hold back any further damage. This would be the quickest and cheapest method but I'm unsure how bad ribbon pointing really is, I've heard that it really accelerates the damage to stones.
Any suggestions on what to do? If I do the second option how long will it be before the wall needs any more work? Although the price of the property reflects money is tight but I'd be looking at keeping the place for a long time.
It is built with a local blue lias stone.
The property is semi detached so I only have the front, side and rear gable (the neighboring properties are a lot more sheltered so are fine). Most of the side which is the longest wall is ok, it needs attention around the two windows and possibly a few stones replacing, the rear gable has a lot of stones that look like they've completely crumbled, the front section needs attention around all the windows particularly one corner which will probably need the outer section rebuilding.
The scaffold and skips etc will already be in place as I'll be replacing the roof.
I just want to get some advice on what to do with it, obviously removing all the cement render and completely re-pointing with lime and replacing any stones along the way is the best way to go but this would be very expensive. At roughly 80 square meters of stone work I'd be looking at £4000-4500 just to get the re pointing done, plus the extra labor and materials to replace stones and rebuild around the windows plus replacing stones or at worst rebuilding sections of the gable end.
The other option would be to just rebuild or re point around the windows, replace the worst of the stones and then continue with the ribbon pointing in the places where it's missing. I could then spray all of the external walls in a water repellent anti penetrating damp treatment to hold back any further damage. This would be the quickest and cheapest method but I'm unsure how bad ribbon pointing really is, I've heard that it really accelerates the damage to stones.
Any suggestions on what to do? If I do the second option how long will it be before the wall needs any more work? Although the price of the property reflects money is tight but I'd be looking at keeping the place for a long time.
