Rendering | Pointing Joints | Finishing Coat
Rendering / Float Coat
Cover your Façade and walls in natural breathable lime render.
Pointing Joints
Touch up your joints on your natural stone or brick façade to keep your building looking sharp and fresh.
Finishing Coat
Apply a finishing skim coat your render to enhance your surfaces details and leave a smooth texture for painting.
Our Natural Hydraulic Lime products can be used for an array of building applications including, rendering walls, pointing brick/stone joints and finishing or skim coats. Lime is the original building material when it came to constructing buildings before the portland cement was invented in 1824. So, if you’ve got a masonry building built before the 1930s there is a good a chance you’ve got lime mortar rather than portland cement mortar, and if it was built before the 1880’s then it’s almost certain to be lime. Knowing what building material your home or building was constructed with is very important when it comes to renovating or repairing the existing building. These two building materials operate differently when considering the overall performance of your home or building.
The key differences between the two are:
-
Chemical Composition
-
Physical Properties
-
Vapour Barrier
-
Environmental Concerns
Chemical Properties
Lime is produced from natural limestone and in the manufacturing process it becomes quicklime (calcium oxide). The quicklime is then mixed with small amounts of water to create hydrated lime, which may be included in cement or mixed with water for use as mortar. Cement consists of highly reactive silica-containing compounds.
Physical Properties
Lime will harden a lot slower than a cement making it much more workable when trying to render a wall for example. Lime is less brittle and less prone to cracking any cracked areas can absorb carbon dioxide and mend over time. Cement will harden very quickly and this will make it difficult to work with large quantities unless you are casting. Cement can also be too strong for some applications like working with old bricks. Cement is also prone to cracking and usually will require repair to be done once it has settled. Lime is not as hard as cement and it has a lot more flexibility which will allow any necessary movement the building require when settling.
Vapour Barrier
Lime is also breathable, allowing vapours to pass through, which can reduce moisture and improve the environment of the home. Cement creates a waterproof barrier that does not allow vapours to escape, and can absorb water, causing moisture to accumulate -- especially in basements.
Environmental Concerns
Lime production results in release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but lime mortar absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over its lifetime. As a result, lime mortar is considered by environmentalists to be "carbon neutral." In contrast, cement production contributes greatly to global warming, as copious amounts of carbon dioxide are released during its production.
Natural Stone Pointing
Lime is the perfect solution to repair the joints of a natural stone façade.
The elasticity of the lime will stop any pressure being put on the stone as the lime slowly hardens.
Our Products
When it comes to choosing a hydraulic lime, we have a choice of the traditional lime products from two different regions (Portugal and France).
Our Portuguese Lime is manufactured by a company called Secil and we stock 3 variants: (NHL 2 | NHL 3.5 | NHL 5). When mixed with sand it will tend produce a colour similar to the sand being used or a creamy brown colour.
Our French Lime is manufactured by Roundtower and we stock one variant in two different colours; NHL 3.5 Grey | NHL 3.5 White. As described, this lime will produce a bright white and a grey coloured lime mixture.
