Good Morning
I am currently building a house in Scotland.
We are just about to roughcast the building, when the roughcaster highlighted that the scratch coating originally applied to the concrete block walls ( by the builder ) was too soft ?
He demonstrated this by turning a screwdriver against the scratch coat 3 times whereupon the screwdriver went into the coating by about a 1/4".
The scratch coating ( cement and sand ) has been on the walls for over 4 years and as I understand it should have been rock hard way before now.
The roughcaster suggested that either there was not enough cement in the scratch coating or that perhaps frost got to it while it was curing.
The roughcaster says that I have 2 options -
1. to apply a coating which will penetrate the scratch coating and make it go hard giving a good support for the roughcast - seemingly this product is purple once applied and that it is a type of adhesive ?
or
2. remove and replace the scratch coating - bit of a big job - 2 story house with all windows and doors in and painted.
Based on your experience which option would you suggest I went for.
It goes without saying that I want a good roughcast finish and the last thing I want it to have lumps of the roughcasting falling off in the near future !
Look forward to hearing from all of you.
Many thanks.
I am currently building a house in Scotland.
We are just about to roughcast the building, when the roughcaster highlighted that the scratch coating originally applied to the concrete block walls ( by the builder ) was too soft ?
He demonstrated this by turning a screwdriver against the scratch coat 3 times whereupon the screwdriver went into the coating by about a 1/4".
The scratch coating ( cement and sand ) has been on the walls for over 4 years and as I understand it should have been rock hard way before now.
The roughcaster suggested that either there was not enough cement in the scratch coating or that perhaps frost got to it while it was curing.
The roughcaster says that I have 2 options -
1. to apply a coating which will penetrate the scratch coating and make it go hard giving a good support for the roughcast - seemingly this product is purple once applied and that it is a type of adhesive ?
or
2. remove and replace the scratch coating - bit of a big job - 2 story house with all windows and doors in and painted.
Based on your experience which option would you suggest I went for.
It goes without saying that I want a good roughcast finish and the last thing I want it to have lumps of the roughcasting falling off in the near future !
Look forward to hearing from all of you.
Many thanks.
