Repairing Crepi

[Rob Roy]

Unfortunately our present house is covered with an unattractive grey crepi and this summer we would like to re-paint it. There are some cracks in the crepi that need filling before we can paint; has anyone experience of having done this and, if so, what did you use? (I'm guessing Polyfilla wouldn't work![;-)])

Taking the crepi off is not an option as one side wall and gable end are stone and the others are columbage, with the bottom half of the columbage gable end rebuilt in block work, so a real mish mash!

[Quillan]

Crepi is not just for looks it actually seals the exterior from the elements. Cracks are nasty things in Crepi because water gets in, freezes in winter and 'blows' the Crepi. You need to go round the cracks first, tapping them, to see if the Crepi has blown. If it has you need to hack back to where it is still firmly attached to the house walls.

Depending on how much needs removing you can either get a hand driven Crepi applicator or if it is a larger area rent a compressor with a Crepi sprayer. Links to the type of things I am talking about are at the end of this post.

If its just small cracks you can get a filler in a tube that goes in a gun (like silicon) from your local Brico.

Having painted Crepi on the inside of my house (it was a fad on new builds back in the 80's just like Artex was in the UK) I can tell you it is very hard work if you use a roller and will need two or three coats to get a half decent finish. The first coat will be just sucked up by the Crepi. For the outside I would strongly recommend you consider spraying. You can rent a machine to do this. The one I have seen used was like a sack barrow in that you tilt it backward and push it over the paint container, bring it upright and a solid pipes goes in to the paint container. There were two pipes feeding the sprayer from the compressor, one feeds paint and the other compressed air so you don't actually have a paint container mounted on the sprayer.

When I have seen houses that have been painted they don't seem to worry about gutter pipes, they spray them as well. So basically you need to spend many hours masking up windows and doors plus the guttering.

They power wash the whole outside with an antifungal mixture (usually bleach based) and allow it to dry right out then start spraying a day or two later. They also take the opportunity to power wash the roof at the same time.

This is a summer project really.

Manual Crepi Applicator.

http://www.bricodepot.fr/carcassonne/machine-a-crepir/prod404/

Spray type Crepi applicator

http://www.bricodepot.fr/carcassonne/pistolet-a-crepir-alu/prod206/

Paint Sprayer (rent don't buy, its called a Pistolet peinture)

http://www.leroymerlin.fr/v3/p/produits/pistolet-a-peinture-haute-pression-graco-magnum-a45-e163258#&xtmc=pistolet_peinture&xtcr=6

Hope that helps. I am sure others will come along with more suggestions.

[Rob Roy]

Thanks for your very helpful reply Quillan. Being married to a retired panel beater I hope when he starts spraying he doesn't get tempted to do a two pack metallic finish![:-))][:D]