PROFESSIONAL ALLIANCE SPOTLIGHT
LimeWorks.us
by Sydney Slotkin
Philadelphia is lined with buildings of grand
importance and family history, evoking the past for
those who walk among them. Keeping these buildings
from succumbing to their age is an endless job that
requires strategy and skill. Modern fixes can often
pose a danger of doing more harm than good to these
vintage, increasingly fragile structures.
For those serious about responsible preservation,
however – restoration that won’t crumble after a few
years and require more repairs – there is natural
hydraulic lime (NHL). Or rather, there is Andy
deGruchy, who founded his company, LimeWorks.us,
in 1999 to provide repair services and materials, such
as lime mortar, plaster, and whitewash, to restore and
preserve the buildings around him. LimeWorks.us
and deGruchy’s masonry company, deGruchy Masonry
Restoration, are based on one type of limestone that
deGruchy swears by: a specific, high-calcium NHL
called St. Astier lime, named for
the French town from which it is
imported.
Many restoration projects are
attempted with mortars that are
too dense and impermeable,
and deGruchy spends much of
his work undoing the ineffectual
restorations that came before
him. The St. Astier lime has
evenly interspersed reactive
silica, so that when water is added
and it sets, it doesn’t damage
building elements like typical
Portland cement might. The
difference between deGruchy’s
preferred lime and other NHLs is
that his is free of clay deposits and
other elements that cause the lime
to have an unpredictable makeup.
LimeWorks.us
P.O. Box 151
Milford Square, PA 18935
215.536.6706
www.limeworks.us
St. Astier’s purity ensures a uniform appearance with
no damage to the structure – a sure thing for deGruchy.
LimeWorks.us is located in Milford Square, 30 miles
north of Philadelphia. deGruchy is proud to say that
LimeWorks.us provided their signature lime for
construction of the sea-bearing wall around the Statue
of Liberty and that he was entrusted to restore the
University of Virginia’s famous rotunda dome. He’s
proud of the big names his expertise allows him to cite,
but he is proudest of the quality of his restoration work,
and caring for structures that need his help.
“Being an artisan is probably the one thing that makes
me different from other vendors of the materials,” said
Andy DeGruchy, founder of LimeWorks, on a job site. His goal isn’t to leave his legacy on
old buildings, but to help them maintain theirs. Photo: LimeWorks.us.
Sacred Places • Fall 2013 • 20