Removing stone cladding

End to end

What we did:

  1. Remove the stone cladding
  2. Replace the uPVC windows with wooden sash windows
  3. Replace the upVC white door with a new composite door
  4. Grind off the top layer of bricks to reveal the original London yellow brick underneath
  5. Pointing of all the joints
  6. Remove the rendered / painted archway walls
  7. Repair underlying damage

How it started

Our Victorian terrace was covered in ‘colourful’ yellow, red and blue (?!) stone cladding which someone in the 70s or 80s had, for some reason known only to themselves, thought was a good idea.

It was so ugly that the online photos to sell the property did not include a photo of the front of the house AT ALL. This is what it looked like after we’d just started stripping them back and realised we should have taken a photo of what it looked like beforehand:

The 70s mash up

What we did

We started by picking the blocks off using a hammer and chisel and dropping the bits into a bucket. In some areas, particularly near the top of the house, they came off worryingly easily meaning they weren’t very well attached in the first place and people walking under them were risking being hit by falling debris before we started so removing them was a safety thing if nothing else!

We were concerned as we knew that the facia can be either 1. a fashion thing or 2. to hide problems with the brickwork so we were relieved when it turned out this was a fashion mistake.

Using a bucket to collect the debris

 

Slabs removed

The next stages were:

    1. Replace the cheap and nasty uPVC windows with wooden sash windows.
    2. Replace the cheap and nasty uPWC door with a composite blue door.
New windows and door

The next activity was to sort out the brickwork and bring it back to its original yellow London brick glory.

We hired someone to restore the brickwork to the original and take the 100 years of soot and grime out. He then used weather pointing, which means the mortar joint is slightly recessed and the top and protrudes at the bottom, directing away from the brick face and creating a slope. This directs water away from the joint and provides better protection than a lot of the standard pointing you can see on restored houses where the pointing is recessed.

Arches

The arches looked okish but were cheaply painted and badly done so we agreed to remove the paint and restore this brickwork too.

The doorway as we found it

This involved stripping back the badly done paintwork on the arches to see what damage was underneath. There were some knocks in the brickwork which must have taken a beating at some point but on the whole not too bad considering the rest of the house.

End of the process

Other work not described here:

  1. Replacement of the (original Victorian) bay window roof
  2. Replacement of guttering system
  3. Repairing and painting the Victorian columns, cills, arch roof etc.
  4. Fixing a hole in the top right which led right into the loft cavity

Conclusion

We definitely feel this was worth the time and effort as the house (we think) looks a million times better. It’s also better protected against the weather and more natural as the house was meant to be i.e. the brickwork can ‘breathe’. Would definitely recommend a professional, it was far quicker having a brickie who specialised in this work.