Muddy Mortars

Page and his team did a great job on our internal wall: stripped the old plaster to reveal a beautiful stone wall. Repointed with lime mortar and now a real feature of the room. And the problem with flaky, damp paint is history. Great stuff, thx!

Page from Muddy Mortars was super helpful to us in our house buying process. He saved us from a house we loved, but sadly was a potential money pit with an incredibly thorough, detailed and easy to understand survey and report. He acted fast, kept in touch and was great to work with. I would highly recommend his services and will be asking him for another survey on our next purchase.

Page undertook a detailed survey of our house (inside and out) to help us pinpoint where exactly our issues with damp patches and water ingress were coming from. He provided us with a detailed and clear report, with impartial advice on which issues to prioritise. Page highlighted things that our RICS homebuyer report didn't, very helpful and absolutely worth it. Thank you!

The Muddy Mortars team were great, enthusiastic and hard working, I am already thinking about the next job. The biggest positive for me is the attention to detail and willingness to make changes to suit me. Even after finishing they are helping me with how to look after and make repairs for when knocks and scrapes inevitably happen in the future. Page is clearly passionate about and proud of his work.Update:Pleased with the work muddy mortars had done I had no hesitation inviting them back to do further work in my cottage. Page visited the site prior to starting work to guide me as I wanted to do some of the work myself. The team are friendly and clearly very skilled. They have just finished my dining room and it looks great. The job came in under the original quote and they left the work areas cleaner than when they arrived. Again I would recommend and will be using them next time too.

We had an extremely useful consultation with Page. He explained why we have problems with damp in our cottage and how to rectify it. He gave very thorough and clear explanations and did not try to sell us his services when he thought it unnecessary. Very impressed.

No hesitation in recommending. Page is a great communicator and has provided a thorough understanding of the multiple factors affecting damp in older properties as well as sound guidance on how to prioritise works in a practical and realistic way. His report was promptly produced, thorough and well written. A very worthwhile investment for anyone living in an older property needing sympathetic restoration or maintenance.

I call him our house guru! We are new to owing an extremely old and complicated house with many years of mistreatment and incorrect materials added to it. I have to admit it was overwhelming.Until we met our house guru! Polite, extremely knowledgeable, very patient and approachable. What he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing!!! Couldn’t recommend highly enough!

Muddy Mortars was really good at coming out and discussing our needs. Page offered some fantastic advice and showed an excellent understanding of the age of our property. He also listened to what we wanted. We ended up having the top half of the house lime rendered and the bottom half we had a thin lime render, as I wanted to maintain the definition of the stone. I'm thrilled with the result as the house has maintained it's character. When it rained water used to stream in from the window lintle in the living room like a tap. Since the render was applied we no longer have this issue and our house is much drier. Page and Isaac were extremely reliable. Page maintained excellent communication throughout and was extremely mindful of the fact we have an 8month old baby, working noisy work around nap time. He also thought outside the box and problem solved when we realised our door was not set back enough creating a potential water ingress issue, Page skillfully moulded a lintle over our door out of lime mortar which looks great.

Muddy Mortars did a fantastic job of renovating the lounge in my old farmhouse 3 years ago. Last week, part of the wall supporting the chimney stack in a different part of the building collapsed. Page was willing to re-schedule his other work and come straight around to make an excellent repair using traditional materials.

Muddy Mortars externally repointed my cottage and completed much of the renovation work to the granite barn adjoining my cottage. They’re reliable and made some good suggestions for improving the cottage’s external appearance.I was initially pleased with the external repointing work but there have since been problems. The pointing has failed on both faces of the barn in multiple places with rainwater ingress inside! I’ve had to have remedial work done. The plasterer who re-did Muddy Mortar’s lime pointing explained that they hadn’t gone over the pointing while it was still damp with a small brush/cloth and feathered in the edges to create a weathertight seal against the stone. He was also concerned that the pointing hadn’t been packed in as tightly as it should have been. He also pointed out that a DPM would have been good practice to install above the new window lintels Muddy Mortars installed.Additionally, the soil pipe Page installed failed to pass the Building Control inspection as he installed it without connecting it to the existing soil stack, so it was without ventilation. Less critically I’ve had to replace new drainpipe Muddy Mortars stained during exterior painting & had to cover the cost of accidental damage Muddy Mortars did to my neighbour’s oil pipe.On cost, Muddy Mortars charge high labour rates and in hindsight employing a 3-4 person team was a false economy. Page charged £25 an hour and £14 for his new apprentice (paid minimum wage), so £39 an hour. The second plasterer I used worked independently at £20 an hour and was a seasoned professional with a high standard of work. He was upset on my behalf at how much Muddy Mortars had charged for the work completed.Before hiring Muddy Mortars I visited a previous client of theirs, with Page attending, the client was happy with their work and I only read good reviews online, thought the website professional and found Page trustworthy. Now I would strongly recommend getting quotes from other plasterers/builders so you understand what is and isn’t a sensible price before approaching Muddy Mortars and I suggest educating yourself on the tell-tale signs of a quality lime pointing job.UPDATE: over winter rain has penetrated through Muddy Mortars pointing and blown the limewash internally on one bedroom wall and left large fluffy salt deposits on the internal wall. Additionally, both new window sills have blackened edges from the rain penetrating from outside. See photos attached. The problem with the external pointing outside the upstairs window sill is particularly evident.