On Mon, 5 Jul 2010 11:36:33 -0700 (PDT), NT wrote:

So none of your exterior lime washed walls have been redone or
touched up at all in ten years?

its been maybe 7ish years, no touchups or degradation so far.

Hum...

er so why doesn't the rain wash it off the walls? *B-)

If it rains hard enough soon enough after its painted that would
happen, so just dont paint before its due to rain.

That might be a problem up here! Twice I've patched a bit of the
render only to have my patch washed out by the rain over night. We
had 4 or 5 mm of the stuff in an hour last night along with a F5/F6
wind, I wasn't really expecting any.

There are several lime paint formulations, and the naming isnt
entirely consistent. What I used is just diluted lime putty. Mix
builders lime with water to make putty, then dilute it 50/50. More
well known is whitewash, which is chalk & water soluble glue, that
doesnt last well.

Ah, prehaps it is whitewash that I'm thinking of rather than
limewash. Your builders lime and water actually absorbs CO2 from the
air and turns back into calcium carbonate, that obviously wouldn't
happen with chalk dust and glue...

--
Cheers
Dave.