Stone wall question

[huntgl]

Hello all :-)

We have a house in central Bordeaux that was built in 2 stages. 1920s ground floor of stone, with a first floor added in the 1950s which is made of wood. The plan is to remove the render from the entire house, leaving the interior walls exposed and insulating and weatherboarding the exterior walls. I've begun removing the rendering from the interior walls, but an electrician friend has got me panicking a bit as he has mentioned what is called a 'concrete belt'. The walls are rendered in cement until about 2 metres, and after that it is just plaster. The cement render is about 1 cm thick at the front of the house where the stone is 25cm thick, and 2 cm thick at the rear where the stone is 20cm thick. I think that this is the same rendering both inside and out. Is it possible that this render is actually some sort of stabiliser for the stone which was added when the 1st floor was installed in the 50s, or that it is just simply a 1950s style damp proofing? I don't know what the foundations of the house are; I imagine they are stone.

Many thanks for your help,

Gary.

[Chancer]

Une ceinture en bêton is a concrete ring beam which will have been cast on top of the stone walls to stabilise them and to provide a footplate for the upper storey timber frame. Your friends concern is probably aesthetic, he either thinks that you will be leaving the external stone exposed in which case there will be ugly concrete exposed or maybe it will be visible at ceiling height on the ground floor walls if they raised the ceilings at the same time.

[huntgl]

Thanks for that, Chancer. I was pretty sure that it was nothing more than a 1950s style render, as it would have been all the rage then in terms of dampproofing (I think). The only thing that was concerning me was the fact that it is only rendered in cement/concrete up to 2m high. I find that a bit starnge and wonder why they didn't just do the whole wall.

Thanks again  :-)

[Chancer]

Rising damp will only rise 1.5m maximum.