Lime Clay
Overview
The benefits of using clay plaster are well-known:
It has health benefits, it’s breathable, and it can absorb and release indoor humidity faster than any other building material. Clay regulates relative interior humidity and protects the environment from infectious bacteria.
Our latest generation plaster goes beyond the limits of traditional clay plaster and improves the quality inherent in this natural plaster.
Details
What? Why? How?
This pale clay is low-fired and then pulverized and mixed with pure, powdered lime.
The advantage of using this plaster is that by combining the benefits of lime with those of clay, we avoid the problems which come from using raw clay.
Raw clay is the perfect habitat for a variety of insects. Without being baked, we could be putting into place the perfect environment for small bugs to thrive a house. By baking the clay, besides eliminating a potential bug problem, we also avoid problems associated with the possible presence of heavy metals.
Lime is very basic, so it offers much more protection from moulds and fungus than raw clay does.
Clay and lime keep the humidity of the house very balanced and that means it’s good for your well-being. A plaster made of clay alone is not as absorbent as that made of baked clay mixed with lime. Our Clay-Lime plaster is almost 20% more absorbent than normal plaster made of clay alone.
Hydrated lime is a more porous and elastic binder than hydraulic lime or cement (both with hydraulic property), but these are much more hard e resistant. This plaster gets its hydraulic property and therefore its durability and hardiness by mixing hydrated lime with clay. This because clay has got allumina and silicate which are the necessary elements to obtain this hydraulic property. Characteristic of the hydreted lime is of becoming hydraulic when mixed with clay without loosing its own peculiarity of beeing porous and breathable. Our plaster is made of about 24% hydrated lime and 10% natural white hydraulic lime.
As mentioned before, hydrated lime makes this plaster more durable and elastic. In ancient Roman times, lime was mixed with baked clay or terracotta to get the best and most durable plaster, examples of which can still be seen today.
