Repointing indian sandstone

[ShaunR]

Hi all,

Last September i had a new patio laid (at the same time as my Tegula drive which i had some great help from people on this forum) and at the time i had concerns with the pointing that was done. The mix was very dry and stayed like a dust for a long time afterwards. I complained to the contractor who had his apprentice re patch problem areas. Over the Winter, alot of this has come away and in an attempt to see how bad things were before the Summer i've given it a light clean using a Karcher patio cleaner today.

Needless to say, it's as bad as i expected and large parts of the pointing have been removed. The joints must've had some fairly big voids and the mortar looks like it wasn't compacted enough.

So now i need to fix this to a high standard but would like some advice please... I've read the guide on pointing but wondered if i should remove all of the original pointing and redo completely or just take out what i think is sub standard. The concern i have is that it will not match. I think it was a 4:1 mix that was used but i'm not sure if anything else was added...should there be?

If i were to take it all out, it may be easier to use Romex Easy to rejoint it all...but this may be overkill / expensive.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,

Shaun

[lutonlagerlout]

if its failed after less than 1 year, surely the contractor should come back and do it?
personally i would hook the lot out and do it with romex patio or use easipoint depending on your preference
both a bit more expensive than sand and cement but you get what you pay for
LLL

[ShaunR]

Thanks for the reply.

I could get him to come back i guess, but on the other hand (considering i'd raised this with him previously) he doesn't exactly fill me with confidence it'll be done right.

Is Easipoint similar to the Romex product?

Cheers,

Shaun

[lutonlagerlout]

easipoint is a special sand/cement that you inject in with a mastic gun type of thing
webby
romex patio is one you knock up with a mixer ,but its stronger than the easy variety
LLL

[ShaunR]

Cheers LLL, much appreciated:)

[Tony McC]

Whichever replacement material you choose, whether it's a resin-based product such as Romex, a cement-based mortar such as Easipoint or simple sand+cement mortar, you need to get shut of the old stuff. It's more than a matter of colour-matching: you just don't lay good stuff over rubbish!

One advantage of the resin materials is that they only need 25-30mm depth to be effective whereas cement mortars need all the old stuff clearing out.