Mortar raking - a special kind of hell

Renovating an old property comes with many twists and turns. Ours is dated around 1850, so it has it's fair share of quirks that we've come across. The damp was the main problem when the kids and I moved in, getting a new roof sorted this out, however it has left its scars on the house, therefore drying it out and fixing the damage is taking time.

I want to do the house up sympathetically, not hiding the beautiful features it has. I suspect over the years some have been covered or taken out, or 'updated and modernised' a term I shudder at when used in relation to these old properties. This also often does more harm than good. The old stone houses need to breathe, rendering the outside and plastering the inside, means the stone cannot do this and invites all sorts of damp problems. Many of these are what I inherited! After the little push we did on the Room of Doom (see previous blog post), I concentrated on finishing the bathroom and having Christmas and so on. Now that's all done, it's time to go back to some of these unfinished tasks, one of them being more work on the exposed stone wall in the Room of Doom.

The walls have dried out beautifully now in here, which is a pleasure as it was the wettest room. So now is a good time to do more work on the repointing of the stones. The first task is to rake out the old lime mortar. The mortar is soft so it is a little easier, but all the same this is possibly one of the worst jobs I've had to do.  I think a lot of it is the original stuff, although there does seem to be some small patches of concrete which is harder to shift. Dave initially started doing some of the raking by hand, but it was taking an age. One of my builder mates suggested using a mortar rake, and said they had one we could borrow, they even gave us a lesson in how to use it! It's a Makita electric angle grinder tool with a mortar rake attachment. It's also bloody awesome, in two hours I managed to rake the worst bits off half of the wall!

The down side is that the dust this creates is unholy, I had a dust mask on, but next time I will wear goggles and a head scarf. This stuff gets in your eyes, it scratches and hurts, the other delight was that my hair became a matted thatch, seemingly resisting shampoo until the third wash, even then stones were still dropping out. My hands are rough and desiccated, feeling tightly stretched over my aching finger bones. My face lost any moisture it had, making me resemble a anaemic raisin. The dust and stones ping everywhere, I even had rubble in my bra (cue over shoulder boulder holder jokes)! Also my thumb hurt where I had to continually keep it on the grinder button to control it.

There is another half of the wall to do, but I will need to psyche myself up to do this. There will then be a lot of tidying up the stones, and a hole in the chimney to mend, before the repointing can be done. I know it will be worth it once it's finished. It will add that air of authenticity to the house and showcase the lovely calm, rich colours of the ancient forest stone. I also know this is gonna be an utter hellish, bastard of a job for the next few months!

The wall when it was first exposed

Safety first - something I'm learning fast

Wall before mortar was raked out

Wall after mortar was raked out