Over the past 10 years, our team have worked in all manner of different property types and styles around the country. This ranges from modern homes with new oak and commercial properties to cottages and listed buildings with older features.
In working across the UK we have found that each region has individualised ways of building using the materials available to them and have honed our skills to understand how to best treat different types of timber and stone accordingly, for example, you may find that sea side and northern locations have more prominent stone features to protect from the elements whereas in central areas or older cities timer frames are more popular.
Our aim is to remove surface coatings and discover any markings or history that can be found underneath, (witches marks and carpenters marks are the most common) because preservation is our goal, our process is much less aggressive than traditional sandblasting.
As we are a fully mobile team, we offer our services to clients across the UK and are based in the Midlands.
Any form of abrasion is going to create dust, even dustless blasting of the stained or painted beams will create dust from the surface coating it is removing. Rest assured, we always endevour to leave your property in the same codition we found it.
There are three parts to our process;
• Prep
• Blast
• Clean
We put sheets up to contain as much dust as possible, however the types of home we work within often have drafts and are airy due to the age of the property.
We do our best to sheet up door ways to encapsulate the room then use different methods to cover and sheet all the surrounding areas.
Clients will be made aware that emptier the room is, the easier it is for us to sheet up and clean when are finished blasting.
It is always best to remove as many items as possible from the room we will be working in.
Before we arrive at your property clients will be reminded to clear the room of any furniture. Other than that, there is no need to prep the beams, walls or any other part of the space we will be working in.
Depending upon the size of the room or areas we are in, it can be beneficial to get the rooms cleaned a couple of days after we have finished, as the light dust will re-settle.
We try and give you the room back as it was when we got there just with natural beams.
The colour of the beams is individual to the property and history too, if you find a corner of the room that is not eye catching you can scrape the beam with a scraper or blade to reveille the natural colour of the beams.
*Please note we do not paint, stain or add colour to beams in any way*
After blasting, we recommend that beams are left for 1-2 weeks to breathe and to give yourself time to make a decision on what you would like to do with them.
However, if it is a high traffic area that has been blasted (i.e stairs or flooring) a protective coatingwould need to be added immediately, as any dirt that tocuhes the surfaces has the potential to ruin your newly cleaned wood.
As an aggregate, the particals used with Soda blasting are extremely fine and in my experience it is too soft for effective paint removal.