At S. J. Lambert And Sons, we pride ourselves on giving a professional and reliable service and believe in the old saying, ‘you are only as good as your last job’. We are also very conscious of the conservation of the buildings that we work on. We believe in re-pointing as closely as possible to the original mortars, whether it be lime mortars, in the Victorian era for example, with a flush finish or from the 1920 - 30 with a weather struck finish in a cement based mortar. This is discussed with the client and is an individual choice. You may have a situation where a Victorian house in a block which was originally a lime mortar may have been re-pointed long ago with a weather finish. Us being a conservation minded company would suggest putting it back with the original profile of lime mortar but if the other houses are weather pointed, the customer may not be comfortable with their house looking so different from the rest. You also come across properties that have had extensions built and the pointing finishes that these have are preferred.
Of course, all of this is immaterial if the property is in a conservation area or is listed ect. then any work has to be completed under the supervision of the local councils conservation department which we would work closely with and they would determine what mortar mix and finish would be used. We believe in one man, one trade. This ensures that the standard is as high as possible so if we are in need of any stone work (either repaired or replaced) we use a specialist stonemason who has a diploma in architectural conservation of stone, city and guilds in advanced stonemasonry and is a PACR accredited conservation restorer so we frequently turn to him if we need any mortar analysis or any conservation issues. As you can see from our previous work, we do offer a brick cleaning service and you can see, it can transform a property that has been decoloured from years of grime and carbon. Saying this, it is what most people are looking for however, some people prefer the more aged look and don’t like the cleaning to be done. In the cleaning process, all our chemicals are biodegradable and we never use sand blasters as even though it does take all the discolouration off the brick, it also takes the fireskin which is the hard outer coating that is formed in the kiln when made which in turn makes the brick far more porous than it was leading to a much quicker rate of discolouration. Also on listed and historical buildings where chemicals can't be used we offer a cleaning service using DOFF system, approved and recommended by all conservation departments. If you have any questions or queries, there is a contact page where you can ask us anything. |