Tadelakt Plaster
Moroccan lime plaster applied in thin coats, compressed with a hard stone and cured with olive-oil soap, which reacts with the lime to close the surface. Seamless, so it takes wet areas without a grout line.
Carbon and evidence
How This Is Made
An Environmental Product Declaration is issued by a manufacturer against a declared unit. This record has neither, so it states sourced facts about process and provenance instead of a carbon figure.
Marrakech hammam tradition; the burnishing and soap cure are the technique, not a coating
Process
Feedstock
Mineral
Lime from the Marrakech region traditionally; UK work often uses a European hydrated or hydraulic lime
Process heat
Calcined
Lime is calcined at roughly 900 C. It reabsorbs CO2 as it carbonates. Both are stated and neither is netted against the other; no figure is held for either.
Binder
Lime
Fabrication
Site-formed
Sourcing: national to North African, depending on the lime
Who Builds It
Specialist trade
Limited UK availability
The applicator governs the result almost entirely. Compression timing decides whether the surface closes, and a mis-timed panel cannot be corrected afterwards
End Of Life
Monolithic
Bonded to its substrate; removed by breaking out
Maintenance: Re-soaped periodically in wet areas; repairable in patches by the same applicator
Specification Risk
What a specifier has to resolve before this can be built.
- Certification
- No Agrement for the applied finish; bagged lime products carry their own declarations
- Fire
- Non-combustible
- Warranty
- Applicator workmanship warranty; the material supplier warrants the bagged product only
- Insurance
- Not normally an issue
- Supply
- Few UK applicators working to a consistent standard; see samples of their own work, not the supplier’s
Read This Honestly
- •Lime is calcined at high temperature. Being a traditional finish carries no carbon advantage, and none is claimed.
- •The bagged lime may itself hold an EPD (Clayworks sells a tadelakt product under its declared range). That declaration would cover the manufactured material, never the hand-applied surface, which is what is actually being specified.
- •Water resistance depends entirely on execution. A poorly compressed panel is not waterproof.
Design & Specification Notes
Moroccan lime plaster applied in thin coats, compressed with a hard stone and cured with olive-oil soap, which reacts with the lime to close the surface.
Typical Uses
- •Interior wall finish
- •Feature surfaces
- •General fit-out
Key Performance
High durability in wet exposure.
Specification Actions
- •Provide an EPD (EN 15804) or verified embodied carbon figure (A1–A3), and state the life-cycle stages covered.
- •Verify authentic lime composition
- •Request guidance on maintenance and repair
Indicative Health & Indoor Air
Natural lime-based material with excellent indoor air quality. Soap treatment is non-toxic.
Products in this category
3 products from 2 manufacturers. Ordered by the evidence each record holds, never by commercial standing.
Specification
- Finish
- Stone-polished lime plaster, soap-cured
- Service life
- 10 years