The advantages and disadvantages of decorating with lime wash.

As most people are watching the pennies, this may be useful.

Limewash was used in England for inside and outside decorating before the advent of modern paints.  As this is a ´wash´it is much thinner than modern paint...so it goes on much faster, but takes more coats to cover. 

With each coat, a layer of lime is added to the wall.  The water evaporates off and the lime reacts with the air to harden on the wall.  The look and feel works well here in Catalunya, as there is plenty of limestone around anyway.

The end result is a chalky matt finish that lets walls breathe...great for older casas with damp problems.

Odour free and very easy on the lungs..so good for people with allegies or those striving for a toxin free environment.

Costs less than half the cost of conventional paint...less if you have the time and inclanation to mature your own lime putty.

Now the disadvantages....

You have to wear gloves to paint it on.  Lime is highly caustic..it dries your skin..believe me, I´ve decorated a few rooms with it.
Once it´s dry it´s fine.

It will take 4-5 coats-maybe even more.  But each coat is very fast.

The chalky matt finish does not give a diamond hard finish like modern paints.

You´re wasting your time trying to cover new conventional plaster with it.

In summary....great for those people striving for an eco-finish or for covering a damp wall in your old casa.


Best wishes,
gavin   





   

I think that watching 5 coats of paint dry would just about suit me.
But actually painting something 5 times wouldnt
But as for all that hard work messing about with water and fillers
Just use Yeso on the inside,it dries to an almost white finish  
And use whatever colour monocapa on the outside and never paint again
Hey its called PARADISE
As for limewash, I wouldnt even put a lime in a drink, yucky stuff

Lime paint and Lime mortar are not really about ECO solutions, it is just straight old vs new building technlogy.

Modern concrete built houses are designed 'not to breathe' and are happy painted with plastic paint, or Lime.

If you have an old house built from Lime and painted with Lime, you are going to cause serious problems if you use nice-n-easy plastic paint as you are adding a new impermeable layer, to a house designed to be wholly permeable, paint, walls, the lot.

Feel free to ignore this and keep on splashing the emulsion, my stepdad made a very good living for many years putting buildings right after exactly this. Plastic paint and Concrete do not mix well with Lime buildings.

Hi Gavin

Good job re converting me to lime plaster as I am 14 stone and you wouldn't get me over the cross bar

Re your lime solution I agree its Horses for courses, we have concreted all our floors with a rebar mesh strengthener, visqueen waterproof membrane and 2" of polystyrene insulation so we don't expect damp  , all the outer walls are painted and roof waterproofed, we have removed our underground cisterna and all the pipework so not expecting our walls to need to breath as much as a traditional castita, we have also been through 2 years since the renovation work and no paint has lifted so fingers crossed

Regards G.O.M.

Cactus Jack,

What´s Yeso?

Gavin

Quote:


..be careful - there are several types..

If you ask for Yeso - that's what you'll get - it goes off in about 30 seconds and is mainly used as a 'glue' for sticking in pipes, blocks and so on.. it's a nightmare trying to use it as regular plaster.

If you want to do plastering then you want to ask for Yeso para maquina - machine yeso - this you can work for ages and is more what you would expect if you asked for plaster.


I'm sure there are many others but I'm not a builder so I can't advise.

Hi everyone, could anyone please give me some advice while we are on the subject of paints
 our little casa suffers from its fair share of damp and we were planning on giving it a paint up inside and out next time we are over it was built probably sometime in the early 1970s it is renderd outside but not sure with what sort of render how could we find out and if not can anyone recomend what paint to use and what we need to ask for in leroys
thanks J