Would you break off this render? And patio on concrete.

[danlightbulb]

Hi,

Been doing some more work on the exterior of my house. Ive had areas of water damaged brickwork replaced, stripped horrible thick paint from large sections of wall, had a section of wall professionally repointed, and Ive repointed a section of a wall myself too.

Im now lifting pretty old worn out slabs on my patio near to the house. They are bedded on 20-40mm sharp sand which is on top of an old concrete slab as you can see in the pictures.

Also there is an area of render around the french doors which goes all the way to the ground, bridging the DPC. This is painted with the same horrible thick latexy paint as the wall was, and areas are clearly flaking off due to damp. However the render itself does not appear to be falling off the wall.

So do you think I should break off this render? Ideally I don't want it rendered but the bricks under may be in a state.

And for the patio, do you think its ok to lay a new patio on top of this old concrete slab? The only issue I'll have will be the levels and slope, as the patio appears to slope quite alot more than is required and slopes away from the house and away from the outbuilding to the right.

Here's a before picture before I started any of the work:

Here's the paint stripped and repaired/repointed walls:

Here's the rendered section and concrete slab underneath the slabs/sand bedding layer:

 

[Wayners]

I was told to remove concrete patio before I layed slabs.
I hired a concrete breaker and got at it. Wasn't to bad. Took a day and a half.
Think it's becoming of drainage.

 

[ree]

OP,
What a great job you've done in removing the paint without damaging the brickwork - well done.
Why not remove all the paint on the shed etc. and FWIW also knock off all the panels of render below the windows? Removing the render will give you a fresh start for whatever might be next.

 

[danlightbulb]

Render is off. Red paint underneath now also mostly removed using a 40 grit flap disc. The brickwork here is pretty poor, whoever fitted the french doors did a poor job as it should have been repaired properly when the doors/windows were out.

Repointing tomorrow.

 

[Wayners]

You can use duck tape on bricks to keep clean in tricky areas. Maybe get something like storm dry brick sealer.
A good job your making of that

 

[danlightbulb]

Do you think it really needs 3 airbricks there? Could I get away with deleting the middle one?

 

[danlightbulb]

Just dropping my finished job pics here. Pretty pleased with it, never going to look perfect being so deteriorated to start with but I think it's much improved. The existing mortar was like powder, just fell out, I used so much new mortar packing it into gaps and voids.

Had to leave the middle airbrick for now as it's got a central heating drain through it which I need to get under the floor to relocate. Seems a good idea to keep it so will have to move it over to the left side as I want to build a step under that door.