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Ian Jackson[_2_] Ian Jackson[_2_] is offline
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Default External filler for render and window sill

In message ,
Martin Pentreath writes
Hi,

I'm planning to do a bit of exterior redecoration. We have a bay window
which is a triumph of the victorian cowboys who built this place. Its
foundations are (I think) two courses of bricks sitting on nice London
clay. Consequently it's not very stable. The last time it cracked up it
was shored up using helical bars. They're better than nothing, but
there is still some movement, and things have cracked up a bit since
the last repaint (about six years ago).

Anyway, as the options seem to be either underpinning it, or just
filling the cracks every few years, I'm opting for the second. So the
question is what's the best thing/technique to use to fill it. Here are
two photos:
http://imageshack.us/g/254/imag0181g.jpg/
One shows the cracked rendered plinth. The other one shows a crack in
the sill - it sounds pretty hollow underneath and I suspect when I
give it a whack a large chunk of it will fall away leaving a big hole.

How old is the house? If it's been there a long time, and there's no
sign that anything will collapse, I would be tempted to repair things
with something flexible, so at least the cracks won't reappear (or at
least so they will only appear at the junction of the flexible and
non-flexible parts - so you will know where they are).
--
Ian