Maintenance and durability of external mortars and renders applied to field conditions

This paper discusses the maintenance of external mortars and renders in current constructions in Portugal and the difficulties of implementing different maintenance strategies of a pro-active nature when applied to these traditional materials and building techniques. It considers the most important available methods of buildings maintenance and compares their applicability when it comes to practical methods of data collection and service life prediction and monitoring, outside the strict boundaries of state-of-the-art research. The aim is to produce a set of criteria that can be implemented in in-field conditions. These criteria can be expressed through a dynamic system that integrates durability of external mortars; cost, frequency and type of maintenance actions; and easy-to-implement grids of analyses (in inspections).