It\u2019s the time of year my customers are calling me regarding frost-blown bricks and masonry, blown mortar, and exploding planters & urns.\u00a0 Good old English Jack Frost doing his bit.<\/p>\n
Any architectural salvage dealer with good sense knows which items to protect in winter, but few do.\u00a0 Some stored items of mine have suffered badly this year, so let\u2019s just say I talk a good game.\u00a0 However, the top course of a pallet of bricks blown by frost will cost the dealer a minimum \u00a350, and up to \u00a3100 off his margin. Per pallet, on a wrong Winter\u2019s night?\u00a0 Ooh!<\/p>\n
If not covered, brick should at least be stacked weathered face down, not on the flat where the brick is most absorbent.\u00a0 Stone should be stacked with the stone as if laid \u201cto bed\u201d i.e. with the wearing face in it\u2019s natural position.\u00a0 Stone faces on their backs will only catch the frost and blow spectacularly.<\/p>\n
I was once asked to make an offer on some local Blue Lias flagstones.\u00a0 The seller, a builder, knew their retail value and declined my offer, as usual accusing me of daylight robbery. It was Autumn.\u00a0 When we left it that he should call me, I gave him the good advice to re-stack them from against the wall, and cover for the Winter.\u00a0\u00a0 They were absolutely mint, of huge sizes, and a workable 3 inches thick.\u00a0 Worth top retail, a small batch of 15 sq metres.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t call.\u00a0\u00a0 Come Spring, I had a firm requirement for some quality Lias flags from a discerning customer.\u00a0 I rang the builder.\u00a0 His reply \u201cThey\u2019re going to cost me the price of a skip.\u00a0 The whole lot disintegrated and collapsed.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019d lost the \u00a3450 I offered, which included the labour to shift, and now had a \u00a3200 disposal problem.\u00a0 I lost potentially the same.\u00a0 More to the point: precious rarities lost to Mother Nature.<\/p>\n
Reparations are necessary for materials in situ.\u00a0 Along with my stored materials, I\u2019ve got blown mortar on a run of wall-copings and a couple of flights of steps, laid only last year.<\/p>\n
Every year we used to greet Giorgio, the son of a reclamation yard-owner in Italy. Here for three months to improve his English and learn the architectural salvage trade.\u00a0 He was fascinated by frost:\u00a0 Italy is blessed with not only beaches and vast olive-groves, but also the mountains and ski-slopes.\u00a0 But he\u2019d never had to clear the screen with a CD cover! Bear in mind some of the Continent\u2019s limestones are not accustomed, or suited to a British Winter.<\/p>\n
An interesting story about frost:\u00a0 For a time, there were very few dealers out there prepared to buy reclaimed parquet flooring.\u00a0 It has to be bone dry, for a start.\u00a0 I had built up a good relationship with a company in Atherstone, operating out of a scruffy unit.\u00a0 They sold a wide range of new hardwood flooring, but found a ready market for reclaimed antique parquet, restored & ready to lay.\u00a0 This required melt-stripping the bitumen off with a flame-gun, and they would plane the faces.\u00a0 All in all, a shitty job.<\/p>\n
On one occasion, in freezing January, I had to drop off a sample of some oak parquet flooring due to be lifted from a school hall.\u00a0\u00a0 When I got there, early evening, all was shut up for the night, so as had become usual, I propped them up against the door-step.\u00a0 At least I would get a price in the morning.<\/p>\n
The following day, Patrick called me and yes, we had a deal.\u00a0 But he was excited, and explained that he had retrieved the samples first thing, covered in a heavy frost.\u00a0 To shake the ice off, he had clapped them together\u2026 and all the bitumen fell off like black glass.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve gone through the local ads and bought some second-hand chest freezers,\u201d he enthused. \u201cwe\u2019ll give them a trial with this coming lot!\u201d<\/p>\n
I have no idea whether the practice continued.\u00a0 Nowadays, they leave the bitumen on, and stick \u2018em back down!<\/p>\n
Ice is powerful stuff, when expanding!<\/p>\n
Come Spring, we can look at remedial works such as repointing.\u00a0 One common mistake in repointing is regularly exposed in Winter when bricks \u201cspall\u201d.\u00a0 This is when the face of the brick blows.\u00a0 Repointing lime or a sandy mortar-mix with 3:1 or 5:1 cement renders the joint waterproof. Rainwater can then only escape via the (softer than the mix) brick or stone.\u00a0 Once frozen, the fissures in the brick swell, and you will see your garden path strewn with brick shrapnel.<\/p>\n
The use of clay roofing-tiles on a shallow pitch roof, i.e. less than 35%, will inevitably cause \u201cshaling\u201d of the backs of the tiles, and ultimately disintegration.\u00a0 With such a shallow pitch, rainwater can creep up the backs of the tiles via capillary action. One good freeze can then destroy large areas of roof overnight.<\/p>\n
Beware the \u201cperfect storm.\u201d\u00a0 A good soaking, or thaw in sunshine, followed by a fast and hard sub-zero overnight.\u00a0 We can\u2019t wrap our statues & sundials in hessian for months on end, but I am continually surprised to see hundred-year-old items that have survived for a lifetime suddenly lose chunks, leaving an unsightly fresh scar.\u00a0 Usually it is an old knock, such as a wheelbarrow, exposed by the ice.\u00a0 Or it may be the item has been moved to a more exposed spot.<\/p>\n
On ornamental stone, moss may look harmless, some may even say attractive, but those green blisters are in fact sponges ready to absorb, freeze, expand and remove the surface of their anchorage.\u00a0 Scrape off with a scraper.\u00a0\u00a0 Moss on a pantile roof can have the same effect, leaving large areas porous to the elements.<\/p>\n
It’s no different than your arthritis throbbing in Winter!\u00a0 Who needs a thermometer?\u00a0 Old sports injuries, and the wear & tear of life\u2019s labours, are all made apparent in the cold. Most roofing tiles will not last forever, and may limp on year after year, but in their old age, nothing will bring their demise closer than a hard cold snap.\u00a0 Likewise, for terracotta of an age, whether it be a flower-pot or chimney-pot, their old injuries will finally succumb when Jack Frost has his day.<\/p>\n
\u201cwhen milk comes frozen in the pail, and Dick the Shepherd blows his nail\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Busby<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s the time of year my customers are calling me regarding frost-blown bricks and masonry, blown mortar, and exploding planters & urns.\u00a0 Good old English Jack Frost doing his bit. Any architectural salvage dealer with good sense knows which items to protect in winter, but few do.\u00a0 Some stored items of mine have suffered badly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-listed-building"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}