Full Refurbishment & Lime Thermal Insulation

This 200 year-old Grade 2 listed building has been refurbished from ground-up. Being situated at the bottom of a valley, the water table was very high. The walls having a solid stone construction of about 500-600 mm, had also considerable dampness. Being a listed building, the whole renovation had to be done sympathetically with building-friendly materials only.

The renovations started by replastering all walls in lime, however after about 3 months near the bottom of the walls the lime plaster started discolouring and turning dark.

Core Conservation has been contacted at this stage for advice and asked to investigate the reason behind the discolouration of the plaster. Taking dampness and salt measurements it has been found that rising damp and the high salt content of the masonry is responsible for the discolouration and early decay of the plaster. 

To prevent future damages to the plaster a new base coat has been specified by the conservation architect - the Rinzaffo MGN lime plaster - a dedicated Roman lime plaster mix highly resistant to salts and moisture which allows the walls to breathe.

The same Roman lime material has used to waterproof some underground walls to mitigate the sideways penetrating moisture, and to prevent the crumbling and discoloration of chimney areas by the chimney salts. This has been followed by the Termointonaco 2020 MGN high-performance lime thermal insulation plaster and lime finish used to thermally insulate the whole building.

This provided a complete building-friendly full refurbishment solution. The lime plastering being resistant to moisture and salts ensuring a very long service life of the solution (several decades), while the high-quality thermal insulation provided significant savings in the heating costs of the building.

The photo gallery below explains the concept in more detail.