StuccoHydraulic lime (NHL)
Tadelakt
The one lime finish that takes running water — and it is the soap, not the lime, that makes it waterproof. The floor of hammams for centuries, walls and floors alike.
Tadelakt being polished with a stone: it is this burnishing, pass after pass, that closes the lime and gives it its sheen.
Photo Eigenheym · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
At a glance
- Water
- Shower
- Outside
- Sheltered
- Floor
- Light floor
- Upkeep
- Regular care
- Vapour
- Vapour-open
What it is made of
Marrakech lime (feebly hydraulic, rich in silica), marble powder, pigments; compressed with a river stone then saponified with black soap.
Application
The support
Rigid, stable masonry: tadelakt cracks over anything that moves. In a shower, a hydraulic-lime base render; never straight onto plasterboard.
Tools
Float, trowel, polished river stones, soft brush, black soap.
Steps
- 1Lay the Marrakech lime in two close-following coats, 3–6 mm in all.
- 2Compress with the float, then the trowel, as the surface starts to firm.
- 3Polish with the stone, at length, in small circles — the stone is what closes the surface.
- 4Apply diluted black soap and stone it again: the soap reacting with the lime is what makes it waterproof.
Drying
Several weeks before the shower is used; the lime keeps hardening for months.
The trade’s general sequence, at about 20 °C. Where a producer publishes its own data sheet, that sheet wins.
Price
One product, from a single producer
Cheapest pot
87.00 €
5 kg
Per kilo, from
15.33 €
Per m², from
not published
| Product | From | €/kg · €/L | €/m² |
|---|---|---|---|
| TadelaktBiologement | 87.00 € | 15.33 €/kg | — |
Material prices incl. VAT as published by this catalogue’s producers, samples excluded. Labour is never included, and a price per m² only exists where the producer publishes a coverage.
Upkeep
The most demanding here: black soap once or twice a week in a bathroom, linseed oil or wax every one to two years.
- Demands · Regular care
- Vapour-open
On a real wall
A tadelakt washbasin: no tile, no joint, the same polished lime from the rim to the drain — which is the whole point of it.
Photo SpOne · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons