Stone building with copper green windows and a dome with a statue of people holding a globe.

Historic and listed buildings are charming, beautiful, and often hold decades of history behind their walls. That’s why maintaining the external fabric of a listed or historic building is extremely important. Taking care of these buildings is part and parcel of a contribution to the preservation of their history, as well as maintaining a safe building for people to occupy. As most of these buildings have been around for decades without any maintenance, the building’s materials are often in need of some restoration.

For this reason, we have provided you with a list of common issues to look out for, as a sign that your building need’s some TLC. So, you can tell if your historic or listed building’s stone or brick façade is showing signs of weakness, failure, or requires some repair, restoration, and maintenance. 

Cracks 

Inspecting your building for any cracks is an excellent place to start. By doing this, you can detect whether there may be an indication of more serious, underlying problems such as structural damage or leaks.

Keep an eye out for any unusually large cracks, wide cracks, or in some cases, vertical cracks. Vertical cracks, most often caused by thermal expansion, are rather serious. This may require some repointing of your stone or brick façade.  

Leaks 

Leaks can cause several potential problems, the biggest of which is water ingress. They can be caused by failing material such as gutters, roofs, and cladding or previous poor maintenance and repairs. 

Check for any visible leaks both internally and externally. This includes leaking gutters, or signs of damp, discolouration, and organic matter in areas where water collects often. Detailed leak investigations should always be carried out by a trained professional, especially when it is being carried out at height.

Staining

Efflorescence, put simply, is the rise of salts through brick stonework, left behind by water. Over time, this common issue can cause deep stains and further damage through erosion. Problems like this are extremely common in environments with higher levels of rainfall, and in areas that are subject to colder temperatures. So, it’s best to keep an out for this in the autumn and winter months in the UK.  

Stains can be caused by many other factors such as carbon, traffic film, leached salts, organic matter, environmental pollution, and paint. If they continue to build-up on and sink into your stone or brick building, they can erode and degrade. 

Displacement

All buildings move and they often do this in response to external temperature changes causing materials to expand and contract. Over a long period, this can cause the materials of your building to become displaced. Displacement can be a very serious issue and can create potential hazards for members of the public. 

To correctly identify displacement, you would need to speak to a professional for confirmation, but you may notice cracks or pieces of stone or brickwork that are displaced in relation to the rest of your building’s façade.

Experiencing problems with your stone or brick building? Stone Cleaning Experts can help you get it looking at it’s best again. With our sensitive solutions we restore, preserve, and maintain building façades and exteriors on old, modern, and new buildings. Contact us today for expert façade and roof restoration for stone and brick buildings.



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Building Transformation’s unquestionable honesty and enthusiasm for ensuring the client receives the correct whole-life solution (rather than a quick fix) resulted in us being able to ensure the building was not only returned to its former glory, but will stay that way for years to come. I would recommend them to anyone.

Kenny Gash - Carillion Amey

The work provided by Building Transformation was excellent. Their product and building exteriors knowledge is detailed, comprehensive and practically applied to the client’s needs. They offer a professional, detailed, high-quality and customer- focused service which meets the short, medium and long-term needs of the client, and provides practical, cost-realistic advice.

Kerry Quinn - Echo Arena

Customer service is paramount to Building Transformation and they invested vast amounts of time in providing me with a programme to facilitate what was a very complex and time-specific programme of work for the site. The quality and level of support provided by Building Transformation is priceless to any client/contractor.

Marc Blow MCIOB MBIFM - Carillion Amey

The approach and advice on setting up the works at the Wolverhampton Civic Centre were first-class. Building Transformation’s attention to detail was excellent and the RAMS were followed meticulously to every detail. We were delighted with the works and service, and would not hesitate to use them again, nor hesitate to recommend them to any organisation.

Kevin Egginton - Wolverhampton Council

A 200,000 sq. ft., four-storey leisure venue in the heart of Nottingham city centre surrounded by major traffic routes needed work to be done overnight to deal with the traffic issues, while the site remained open throughout. The project took around three weeks to complete and went exceptionally well; the Building Transformation staff were flexible and able to work round dynamic operational issues. The clean was of a high standard and has made a significant different to the image of the building. A very difficult job done well.

Suzanne Green - Land Securities

May & Co have worked with Building Transformation on a number of projects which have included external building cleaning and refurbishment. They provided a great service, supported by the high level of documentation from the initial quotation to books and industry-related guidance, all relevant to our project.

Anton Theobald - May & Co

I am very satisfied in the manner the job was conducted. Also the level of cleaning provided and attention to detail is much appreciated.

Waqas Bin Tahir - Ibis Southampton

I am using Building Transformation’s work to help justify façade restoration works around our business. They have produced excellent presentations on what can be achieved and is a brilliant piece of informed marketing that is helping slowly win people over in our business to take façade cleaning and restoration more seriously.

Needless to say Building Transformation is a name that is now becoming known and respected.

Simon Attwood - Broadgate Estates Ltd.

Building Transformation gave great communication throughout our projects.
It will be my pleasure to recommend Building Transformation.

Sarah Cameron - My Hotels Group

Just signed off the job with Richard. Myself, the bosses and the tenant all are very pleased with the work. It definitely looks rejuvenated just a case of painting the concrete window surrounds in the new year to finish it off. Have found your company and staff very professional and helpful which has facilitated a project with minimal inconvenience and disruption to our in situ tenants.

Mark Hollinshead - Headruddy Property Development

I had a walk around today with Dave and am impressed with the work so far. Dave and the team have done a great job.

I’d certainly love to work with you in the future so perhaps before the job is completed we could look at what opportunities there are for the future.

Marie Green - Novotel Sheffield

At this stage, from my point of view your team has been extremely professional, informing us of what was happening at all times and most importantly no disruption whatsoever to our guests and business.

Ludovic Verzi - Novotel Leeds

We are very satisfied in the manner the job was conducted. The operatives on site were very professional and communicated to us at all times.

Maria Pinana Mateu - Science Museum

The team at Building Transformation understood our challenge of finding a facade cleaning solution that would initially restore the glazing to its original state, protecting our building for years to come. Through intelligent and thorough testing right through to the full restoration of Block D, we have been very satisfied with the project management and delivery of the cleaning programme.

Colin Pilkington - Renaker Build Limited

Thank you for all the work that you carried out in cleaning the outside of our school. We are delighted with the results. You have managed to completely remove heavy staining from many areas around the building.

We found you extremely easy to work with: your quote was reasonable, you carried out the work quickly and you were very flexible in terms of timings.

Tamsin Griffith - Courtney Road Primary School, Bristol

have worked with Building Transformation on several projects within the hospitality industry and have found
them to provide high levels of professionalism and workmanship.

Stephanie LE COUTEUR - ARTELIA UK

e will definitely be working with you again! Your engineers were very polite and accommodating every time they visited site and have done a first class job. I will be recommending Building Transformation to everyone!

Mark Healy - One Facility

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