Morning All!

Our new gaff in Charente is a traditional stone-built farmhouse. At some point in the fairly distant past, it has been externally rendered. This has weathered down and is quite easy on the eye, however we have been toying with the idea of getting it off and letting the stone see the light of day. Does anyone have any idea if this is a) a very bad idea, b) wholly uneccessary or c) pretty much compulsory?

I am tempted to leave well alone but will take any advice very seriously. Many thanks in advance! R

We are in the same position. Back of house rendered, front of house original stonework. Not sure what to do either :-)

We have had the crepi - which had completely deteriorated - removed, and have had probably about half the house repointed - looks really nice.
But we are thinking of re crepi-ing the rest. We are beginning to find the concept of ALL the house repointed a but overpowering. But that is just us.

Personally, I think it is just a matter of taste, but am happy to be advised of more rational arguments

We hear different stories as to the purpose of the crepi. But what I believe is the case is that the mix that was traditionally used for the walls of a house uses a very large (sometimes total) amount of clay. As such, crepi was applied to keep the walls weatherproof.

Personally I think the lime render looks nicer than crepi, it weathers down in a nicer fashion and comes in quite a few shades.

we have crepi on our house and were thinking of removing it until we found out it is not all stone but half was a barn made of brieze blocks! We will now be updating and improving.... we have heard that for the stones crepi is really bad: the acidity of it ruins the stonework so taking it off would be a good idea; even if you replace it with lime mortar

we were told that about the crepi too, but when we took it off on the newer side (dated 1680), there was no damage that I could see.
Mind you, he did charge us a fortune for removing it, so maybe thst was the motive?

Indeed! although we can see some damage to corner stones by the door

Evening!

Now... this is all fascinating, however, now I don't know the difference between render and crepi. Help!

We have damage to the cornerstones too but believe (hope) it is simply weather as they were exposed for much longer.
Denned,yum - thanks for the spelling. I always thought it was breezeblocks, which scared the living day.ights out of me!

you could be the one who is correct; not at all sure I am; us mere women dont have a good handle (or real interest) on these things!!

render and crepi the same thing; just those of us who have been in France too long have forgotten the English word for it!

Traditionally houses were rendered in lime, on a old stone house you would have too re point then render. In France houses were typically pointed and rendered as a show of wealth. It's easy to confuse the term crepi with the crepi in tubs in bricospirt shops, they are different things in that the bricospirt stuff is just a final coat of paint really. Our neighbour had his house stripped then pointed to look rustic and it set him back 12k I'm materials and labour. Floating it to smooth would of seriously impacted on the price.

Thanks Ka Ora... I had started to suspect that what some people were calling crepi was, in fact , Artex! I quite like the renering, I must say, but if I were thinking of tarting it up, I imagine masonry paint would do the job?