Repointing flagstones

Gone to remove the old grout this afternoon and its done my head right in. Presumed blasting it out with a pressure washer would be the easiest and quickest way, but all this has done is create a shit-load of mess and resulted in my having a tantrum and telling her to expect the garden to look like a shit-hole this summer because I can't be arsed! Now i've cooled off and my tantrum is history, I want to know any other, less-messy ways I can remove the grout. I am ready to put the new stuff in and can see that being quite a relaxing process, but getting this old stuff out is going to cause a rift between me and the garden or me and the world....
 
Pigeonho said:
Gone to remove the old grout this afternoon and its done my head right in. Presumed blasting it out with a pressure washer would be the easiest and quickest way, but all this has done is create a shit-load of mess and resulted in my having a tantrum and telling her to expect the garden to look like a shit-hole this summer because I can't be arsed! Now i've cooled off and my tantrum is history, I want to know any other, less-messy ways I can remove the grout. I am ready to put the new stuff in and can see that being quite a relaxing process, but getting this old stuff out is going to cause a rift between me and the garden or me and the world....
Click to expand...

When you say 'grout' do you mean a cement pointing?

If so you have a job of work on.

Depending on the thickness and width of the joints you can either use a short handled ( roofers) pick or a lump hammer and chisel. If the joints are quite thinn you could try an angle grinder, but in my experience it doesn't make it that much easier anyway.

Hope you don't have a bad back, mate. Because it is not the easiest of jobs.

Make sure you wear eye protection, because you don't want to end up blind as well as crippled ;-)
 
Don't use an angle grinder if you can help it mate, spend a couple of hours either smacking the old joints down at least half an inch, or completely remove.

Then brush sharp sand in all the joints leaving half an inch for your BUILDING sand and cement pointing, using a dryish 3/1 mix
 
mancitygaz said:
Don't use an angle grinder if you can help it mate, spend a couple of hours either smacking the old joints down at least half an inch, or completely remove.

Then brush sharp sand in all the joints leaving half an inch for your BUILDING sand and cement pointing, using a dryish 3/1 mix
Click to expand...
Hmmm, pushing the old stuff into the ground. Like the sound of that. Nice one mate.
 
When you jetwash the mortar out of the current flags, it will make a mess. But it's not that hard to clean up.

One you've blasted out the current mortar, it'll be all over the place, just use the power of the jetwash to blast it into a corner. There will be muck everywhere, but just make sure you carefully, from a distance, using the jetwash clear up after yourself.

You do wanna be careful though. If you've already blasted some of it out, then it will exposed the soil at the bottom of the joints, or soil/general dirt will start getting in the gaps between the flags. Soon you'll have weeds growing. If they do, or you don't get round to doing the mortar/cement/pointing until the summer, spray some weedkiller (B&Q's own 3 or 5 litre ones will do) in the cracks to kill the weeds before pointing.
 
Made some real progress last night. Got this afternoon off too, hopefully, to finish it off. One thing i've noticed is a few of the flags are uneven, is this a problem? They're only slightly uneven, not dangerous. Is it worth me fucking about levelling them or would I be able to get away with it by fudging, (excuse the term of phrase!), more mixture into those ones?
 
If some of them are uneven and you start trying to level them you will end up having to redo the whole area. When you leval one the one next to it will become out of plumb and on it goes.

If you have got by in the past without any mishaps, ie tripping, then just try to repoint them as this will make them "look" leval.

This advise is given without actually looking at your patio/flags. :-)
 
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