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Dale McCabe - Breathe Heritage

@limedruid

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Cob builder. Repairing historical buildings that require natural, breathable materials.

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The Cittadella, Gozo — 3,500 years of defence built into one hilltop.Fortified since the Bronze Age, this hill's held everything from a Roman acropolis to a medieval refuge. Then 1551 happened: an Ottoman raid sacked it and dragged 5,000+ Gozitans into slavery. The Knights' answer? Tear down the south walls and rebuild them as a proper gunpowder fortress (1599–1622) — thick sloping limestone curtain walls, ashlar-faced with a rubble core behind, battered bases to deflect cannon fire and stop scaling. The medieval north wall survived untouched and still looks it.Quarried straight from the hill it sits on. Still standing, still nearly complete — one of the best-preserved 17th-century bastioned fortresses in the Med.#gozo #Malta #building #fortress #limestone by @limedruid

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15 hours ago

Happy birthday to the man, the myth, the legend, the viking: Mr Starbeam Explosion himself, my brother and everyone's favourite. May the wind be forever at your back and the rains of time not weigh you down. Thank you for your continued support, wisdom and presence.Happy birthday to the most handsome builder.#handsome #builder #birthday by @limedruid

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21 days ago

Second layer lime wash going on, starting to come together now but have to repeat the process around the other side of the house and get it all finished by September. Will I manage it? 'Course I will. This limewash is 10yrs old but still fine to use provided you give it a good whisk. The only thing you'll tend to find is that the pigment fades over time, I'm not sure on the science behind why this happens but yellow and red pigments are just iron oxide so something to do with being held wet in a high Alkaline limewash must neutralise the colour, it still happens with any natural pigments not just the iron oxide hues. #lime #building #repair #limewash #oldhouse by @limedruid

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a month ago

During some of the many excavations of Roman ruins, archaeologists found and exposed lime mortar that had been concealed away from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for almost 2000yrs. Only when they excavated and exposed the mortar did it begin to set and cure! With that logic you can see why putting putty mortar into deep joins can be tricky. One way would be to build it out a couple of inches at a time and leave a week or more between layers, similar to render or plaster systems. However this would take a long time. Another option is to add pozzolans which is basically clay that reacts with the lime and helps it set regardless of carbonation. I ended up choosing NHL 2 for this purpose as it can be stuffed into deep cracks and with set no problem, still paying attention to keep it damp and tamp and shrinkage.This Wealden Stone is hundreds of millions of years old but very soft, estimates around 30MPa or less. So given that NHL 2 will continue to harden over 24 months it will probably get Upto around 10-15MPa so still being stronger but weaker than the stone as per. We packed out any deep cavities with the NHL2 and left approximately 30mm for lime putty mortar to be used at the surface matching the dormers this enabled us to be fast as the NHL will set behind the putty so we can fill large areas quickly whilst still being sympathetic to the building. #stone #lime #pointing #repair #building by @limedruid

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a month ago

Probably one of my favourite characteristics of very old buildings is they tend to have developed a few undulations, kinks, wonks and wobbles over the centuries, so when it comes to maintenance and repair it's often nice to see these things be celebrated rather than try to fight against them and make everything dead straight. As you can see these ridges tend to bow down in the middle, of course we could have made them dead straight but it would look weird. Even the saddleback ridges aren't all the same as they are hand made and irregular. Better to work with the building and follow it's curves as long as the end result has a decent flow then it always looks fitting. #lime #building #roof #tiles #oldhouse by @limedruid

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a month ago

The stones in this façade are a local sand stone quarried for this house from the land very near by. It's very soft and has been kept consistently damp by having deep cement mortar pointing. Repointing in natural lime putty is not just breathable and flexible but it actually wicks moisture out of the stones themselves.Although this has had some questionable repairs we are taking a minimal intervention approach to conserve as much of the existing and original fabric of the building as possible. #lime #stone #historical #oldhouse #building by @limedruid

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a month ago

It was a nice material to work with, I did notice some very small cracks in the base coat but nothing to worry about but I'm glad I did it in 2 coats as the bricks clearly drank a lot of the moisture in the base coat and I found the second coat to be much more stable when putting it onto the base coat instead of brick. After a bit of fettling I'm quite happy with how it turned out, the fibers didn't come through the surface and I just troweled the finish couldn't use a float because it would drag too much so it's not perfectly flat as you can see when the sun shines on. Overall it will hopefully make a noticeable difference now with this insulating render applied roughly 25-30mm thick as well as new lead apron flashing which will fix some of the damp they've had below that area.Still have to limewash in a few weeks when I come back. What do you think? #limerender #building #repair #warmcote #lime by @limedruid

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a month ago

Lime shrinks and cracks, obviously that's annoying. Part of the process requires returning to the work to "push-up". That means literally compressing the lime back to seal any cracks that have formed, eliminating any hidden air pockets and flattening the surface to a smooth flowing finish. Now some of the water has dried away and the lime begins to carbonate the structure of the mortar is much firmer and still flexible. The key here is not to remove or scrape off any of the mortar but rather to compress it into itself for a durable repair. It's been about 24hrs since I applied it and it will be fully cured in about 10-14 days. If you leave it too long between application and pushing up then you might find it's gone off too far and cracks and comes away as you try to push it back. This would fail and need to be done again. Sometimes you have to return more than once as it will continue to shrink. This is why using the minimum amount of water in a mix is preferable. #lime #repair #oldhouse #building #limeplaster by @limedruid

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a month ago

Lime wash is and always will be the king of breathable finishes. It can come in almost any colour you like with a pastel hue due to the nature of the material. People often get put off by the idea they "might have to re-do it" in a few years but this notion is slightly misleading. Yes, in some cases you do want to keep topping it up every few years just like a service on your car. It's preventative maintenance. Especially on faces exposed to driving rain or abrasion from vegetation rubbing in the wind. It's such a quick job that topping up one coat is a relatively cheap process. Provided the substrate beneath is healthy then the limewash can last a decade or more in the right conditions.Very low tech, therapeutic and reasonably beginner friendly, I highly recommend you give it a go and save yourself some money! Let me know if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer or help if I can.Thanks#lime #building #limewash #maintenance #natural by @limedruid

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2 months ago

Trying out a pre-mixed insulating lime render Nice and creamy but still goes off fast on these bricks behind. Will top coat it at the end of the week. #lime#render#building #repair #renovation by @limedruid

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2 months ago

Some absolute melon did a lovely job with all the lead, proper lead welding etc. this leads me to believe it wasn't the monkey who rerendered this place last time. As the the monkey had vapour barriered over the existing wattle & daub and then battened off to render, they created this vulnerable stepped out area and unfortunately such a tiny mistake of not directing the final lead soakers into the guttering has allowed this issue to manifest and destroy the render from behind. The render should be about 4~5" back towards the house if it was done properly so I bet they also cut the gutter shorter to accomodate the new renders extra space. Now with the leak fixed I can repair the render and it'll stay good. #lead #lime #oldhouse #building #repair by @limedruid

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2 months ago

There is so much wrong here I almost don't know where to start: This is a grade 2* listed building with significant historical value and the fact some cowboy has been paid thousands to carry out this work in the last 20yrs absolutely grinds my gears.1: Ribbed Elongated Metal Lath or "Riblath" is a galvanized mesh designed for render applications HOWEVER, the protective zinc coating can be quickly destroyed by the high Alkaline pH of fresh lime renders, especially if the lath sits wet as this has been. Compared to the fixings you can see it still looks quite good but I guarantee in less that 10yrs it will be rusty as Fuck. AND they've installed it upside down, the ribs are there to space the mesh up away from where it's fixed so mortar can get behind it. 2: The Vapour barrier. This is a very common and uneducated approach to trying to prevent damp inside the house. Unfortunately it does exactly the opposite by obstructing the movement of vapour through the fabric of the building. Now moisture in the air will only escape if you open the windows. 3: Cracks have appeared all over the render because they didn't put any hair or fiber in the mix so it has very little tensile strength and the Riblath is not a strong enough backing for the render so it's too flexible and the cracking is a result of this combination of errors. 4: I came tell this has been attempted to be fixed atleast twice before because there was 2 different patches of cement render ontop of the lime. Need I explain why this is bad? 5: THE ACTUAL PROBLEM. The real issue here is that all the water that comes down the valley of the roof is better directed straight into the wall because the design of the render and leadwork is completely wrong. Again someone has stuffed it full of mastic which probably worked for about 5 minutes. Because of the multitude of mistakes made in the actual render system this leak has been exacerbated and here we are. #cowboy #building #historical #repair #lime by @limedruid

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2 months ago