Repairing of Damaged Stone in Monuments and Stone Buildings

The main causes of rock degradation in stone buildings are discussed and the current methods of recovering damaged stones are summarized. The Alkaline Activation seems to present a great potential to deal with particular cases of damaged stones resulting mainly from fracture incidents provoked by physical actions, where the global substitution of the stone itself is not considered. A practical case of recovering granite on the windows frames of a beautiful chalet to be intended for the Municipal Archives at Vila Real is described, in what is considered to be the first experiment of this technique in recovering building stone.