I’ve got a 300 year old spring house that I’m converting to a studio. The bottom floor [2 floor spring house!] has a cementicious wall on top of the 24″ thick stone walls that may or may not be plaster – it’s rough in much of the room. There has been a moisture problem [ imagine that in a spring house!] that I believe will be much remediated by the 5″ concrete slab I just had poured over 2 heavy plastic barriers. Any suggestions as to what I should coat the walls with ? I’d like a smooth plaster finish but don’t know if plaster would “grab” without fastening wire to the walls and if it would hold up. It looks as if the old finish may have been plaster or a very smooth coat of some cement product. Any suggestions?
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Shriv,
Sorry, I can't help you with your walls, but I have a question. What is a "spring" house?
Tim
Oh boy you are a city boy! Then again I am a city girl living in the country. I know my mother inlaw has one. What I found in there were canned foods, garden tools, etc. She also has a potato house. That is where she keeps the potatoes that come from the garden. Matter of fact Lars has but something like this in our garage. It is great!Tamara
Its true. I grew up in a suburb of Dallas, and now live in the country in northern IL. Is this a regional thang, or just country? Heck,I thought it had something to do with the season.
Hey, this could be interesting as I'm in northern Illinois also. If you feel like, tell me the nearest town and then I'll know if you're pounding the keyboard nearby.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
I work in Rockford, live between Pecatonica and Durand, abour 5 miles south of the cheese line.
Yep, you're a neighbor. About 30 minutes away. I live a few miles south of Freeport. Like you, I suspect, things are pretty quiet out this way. When I read these posts about getting held up at knife point in the gas station, I'm glad I don't have to deal with that sh*t anymore.
When the shop was in DeKalb and most of our work for clients in Chicago, we frequently carried a sawed-off under the seat. Had to "show it off" a few times, too.
As I grew older and wiser, I realized it was time to return to the home turf that I couldn't wait to get away from when I was a young man.........big city, bright lights........all that.
Shop is on the family farm now about ten minutes away. There's folks here with money, too and we've managed to find each other, so things have worked out fine.
When you think "spring house", think no electricity and no refrigerators. Ah yes, pioneer/homesteader survival ingenuity at it's best. Ya gotta admire those folks. How many of us have what it takes to survive that way day in and day out? The vast majority of us are techno weenies despite all of our imagined bravado.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
In Illinois, I lived in a suburb of Chicago (Libertyville) for a year. I lived in the city of Chicago for a year. I lived just north of downtown Rockford for 2 years.
My doors don't have locks, my truck sits in the driveway with the keys in it, the tractors and the ATV have the keys in them, never lost athing. About the most noise I've hear since planting season was when the geese started flying over last week. Yea, I really miss traffic lights and loooong narrow parking lots and road rage and zero lot lines. You couldn't pay me to move back to town, any town.
The spring house was like a refrigerator, not only could you haul water from there, but they usually had a pool constricted there where you could store goods that you could submerse, such as canned goods. Root vegetables could be stored in the surrounding room as the spring water kept the temperature cool all year long, and kept the contents from freezing in the winter as well since the constantly flowing water always had the temperature of groundwater. I don't know if meats were stored in springhouses as well, but might have been.
As to parging the walls, I expect that most setting plaster systems would adhere to the stone and what is left of the original plaster.