We carried out the full removal and restoration of the external plasterwork on this row of grand Victorian terraces in Liverpool.

Windemere terrace L8

The exterior of this row of grand terraces was in a very poor condition with a number of problems and building defects leading to the loss of many of the window mouldings and large portions of water damaged rendering.

Many attempts had been made over time to partially repair or cover up the damage and the use of cement and many layers of impervious paints caused further problems.

This is a large building, Brick built with Sandstone copings, balustrade’s, window cills and other details.

The window architraves, arches and decorative elements are solid plasterwork with the addition of fibrous cast elements over the 2nd floor windows.

The walls are finished with plain faced Ashlar render, cut to mimic large blockwork

The main problem with this building was caused by water penetration starting from the stone copings and some issues with rainwater outlets and flashings. There are no visible gutters on this design of building, box gutters are built behind the top parapet wall and the outlets run through the loftspace and internally, discharging in various places to hide them from sight.

There were many elements to this project, high pressure steam paint removal, stone repairs, GRP and lead flashings, lintel replacements, window repairs.

We removed the top two levels back to brick, the building was saturated and repairs had been carried out to these areas 30 years prior using sand and cement. The top row of window mouldings had also been replaced with reinforced cement casts, screwed into the modern cement and these were failing due to water penetration and impervious coatings.

We worked our way down from the top, removing defective materials, remedying building defects and prepared for our application of traditional roman cement stucco and in situ mouldings

Read more: Natural roman cement, stucco facade