Working on Cardiff's older buildings
Cardiff's expansion under the Bute estate in the nineteenth century produced the streets people picture when they think of the city: bay-fronted terraces in Pontcanna, Roath, Cathays, Canton and Grangetown, built of solid brickwork, often with stone dressings, and finished throughout in lime. The same period gave the city its grander fabric — the Bute family's rebuilding of Cardiff Castle, the commercial buildings around the old docks, and the warehouses of Butetown, many of which now live on as conversions around Cardiff Bay.
Because these are solid-wall buildings, they behave differently from anything built after the 1930s. A Pontcanna bay repointed in cement, or a Roath chimney breast skimmed in gypsum, holds moisture the original lime would have released. We see the results constantly: damp patches beside bay windows, blown skim on party walls, salt staining where flues have been sealed up. Warehouse conversions bring their own version of the problem — thick industrial brickwork wrapped internally in impermeable modern systems, with condensation and trapped damp following on. In every case the honest repair is the breathable one.
What we do in Cardiff
- Lime plastering — flat work, lath-and-plaster repairs and full re-plastering of terraced houses
- Lime rendering — external renders and repairs to rendered bays, gables and boundary walls
- Lime pointing — removing hard cement pointing and rebedding joints in lime mortar
- Limecrete floors — insulated, vapour-open replacement floors for damp ground-floor rooms
- Full renovation of period and listed buildings, from single rooms to whole-house projects
Listed buildings and conservation areas in Cardiff
Cardiff has dozens of conservation areas covering much of its Victorian and Edwardian suburbs as well as the civic centre and the Bay, and a substantial list of protected buildings ranging from Cardiff Castle downwards. Within a conservation area, external work such as re-rendering can be more tightly controlled than owners expect, and on listed buildings consent from Cardiff Council is normally required before altering historic fabric. Repairs specified in lime, matching what was originally there, tend to move through that process far more smoothly than modern substitutes — and they are what we would recommend on technical grounds anyway.
Nearby areas we also cover
Alongside the city itself we work in Penarth, Barry, Dinas Powys, Radyr, Caerphilly and out through Cowbridge and the villages of the Vale of Glamorgan, where stone farmhouses and cottages make up much of the older stock.