Plastering and rendering in East Boldre
Render on the weather side, walls and ceilings put back inside, and boarding out across East Boldre and the SO42 lanes.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Two jobs make up most of our work in East Boldre: putting an internal wall or ceiling back after damp or a leak, and sorting out render on the weather side of a building. Both start the same way, by finding out whether what is on the wall now is sound or has let go, because that decides everything else.
The calls come in three shapes. Something is wrong inside: a ceiling has cracked, a wall sounds hollow, or a corner has gone soft where water has been getting in. Something is wrong outside: the render has crazed, a panel is drummy when you tap it, or there is a dark stripe down a gable after a wet week.
Or nothing is wrong at all and a room is being changed, so a chimney breast is coming out, a stud partition is going in, or an outbuilding is being lined and boarded to become a proper room. We come out, tap it over, and tell you which of those you have got before we talk about money.
The work
Open ground to windward, and one elevation pays for it
Render repairs on the weather side. Out here the wind and rain come across open ground with very little in the way, so render fails on one or two elevations long before the rest of the building looks tired. We tap the wall over and mark what is hollow. A cracked panel over a sound background is a patch: cut back to solid material, a scratch coat, then the render coats worked in to match what is beside it. Where the basecoat has parted from the blockwork over a whole elevation, patching is money wasted and we will say so. What goes back depends on the wall: a mesh-reinforced basecoat under a silicone thin coat where the elevation takes the weather, a K render or monocouche where you want a through colour, or lime where the wall underneath is solid and needs to breathe.
Plaster that has been wet goes powdery and blows away from the background. It comes off back to sound material, the wall is cleaned down and prepared, and a backing coat of bonding, browning or hardwall is floated on before the finish coat. We will not skim a wall that is still drying out, whatever the diary says, because it will only blow again. Boarding out an outbuilding, an annexe or a garage so it becomes a usable room is the other half of the year: boards on dot and dab where there is blockwork to fix to, finished in tape and joint for a paint finish or skimmed for a plaster one, and an angle bead on every external corner and reveal.
Working on a plot with no gate. Sand, boards and bagged plaster get covered and shut away here rather than left stacked in the open, because stock wanders in off the forest and a pony will have a bag of sand over in a minute. It sounds small and it is the difference between a tidy site and a wasted morning.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
The quote is itemised rather than one figure: preparation and dust sheets, hacking off, the backing coat, boards and beads, the skim and the making good on separate lines. Inside, plastering needs no planning permission at all, and building control only comes into it when insulation goes in behind a new lining, where an approved document sets the target. Outside is different here, because East Boldre sits inside the National Park and part of the village is in the Forest South East conservation area. On both, the permitted development right that normally lets you render or clad a wall is removed, so rendering a wall that was never rendered means an application to the Authority rather than the district council. National Park heritage and conservation guidance is the place to start, and Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out the general rule.
Cost
What decides the price of a plastering job
No rate per square metre. A cottage on the lane with the furniture still in it, an outbuilding being lined and boarded, and a rendered gable reachable only off a scaffold are three different jobs before a bag is mixed. A wall that only wants a skim is a fraction of one hacked off and brought back in a backing coat and a finish coat, and we find out which by tapping it over rather than guessing. Outside, render needs a tower or a scaffold priced on its own line, because the work at height rules decide the platform.
If it has come down
A ceiling that has blown, or water behind the render
Ring rather than use the form. If a ceiling is sagging or dropping bits of plaster, keep everybody out of that room and move what you can from under it. East Boldre is about forty minutes out for us and the lanes are slow late in the day, so we would rather come to you first thing than promise an evening.
Worth knowing
Which render actually survives on your south-west wall
Look at the building and you will usually find one elevation doing all the suffering. Around here it faces south-west, into the weather coming off the water a couple of miles away, and it is the wall where the render crazes, the paint blisters and a damp patch shows up inside a bedroom after a wet spell. The other three walls can be perfectly sound. That is worth knowing before you agree to have the whole house re-rendered, because quite often the honest answer is one elevation now and the others left alone.
What goes back on that wall matters more than what goes on the sheltered sides. A rigid sand and cement coat on a wall that is wetted through repeatedly will hairline crack, and once water is behind it the render holds it there.
A mesh-reinforced basecoat with a silicone topcoat moves a little, sheds water and lets the wall dry outwards, which is why it is what we put on the weather side. If the house is solid walled rather than cavity, the answer changes again and it wants lime. Ask any quote you get which coats are going on that particular wall, not the house.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover East Boldre, Norleywood, Bull Hill, Pilley, Boldre and the SO42 lanes down towards Beaulieu. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.
Questions
East Boldre questions we get asked
What is the Forest South East conservation area, and are we in it?
It is the conservation area covering this part of the Forest, East Boldre included, and it works on appearance rather than on what you do indoors. The New Forest National Park Authority administers it, so they are the ones to ask and not the district. Like for like repair to a render is maintenance. A change of material, texture or colour is a change of appearance and needs their view first.
We are four kilometres from the water. Does salt reach us?
Enough of it does to matter on the exposed face. East Boldre is 4.2km in from the coast with its weather side to the south west, so a wall gets salt laden rain rather than clean rain and it stays damp for longer between showers. Galvanised bead rusts and bleeds orange through a render before long. Stainless bead and a breathable silicone topcoat is what we specify on that elevation.
Would a silicone system last better than what is on there?
On a wall taking driven rain it generally will, because it goes on over a mesh in a bed that can flex, while sand and cement cannot. Cracks in a rigid render let water in and then hold it there. Inside the Forest South East conservation area the finish still has to look right, so the colour and the texture are chosen to suit the village rather than to suit the sprayer.
You are nineteen miles away. How does that work in practice?
We book East Boldre work in blocks rather than in half days, because the drive out here is not a five minute one and nobody wants to pay for a van sitting in lanes. That means starting a job and staying on it until it is finished. Thomas Hannen still comes out first to measure and price it, and that visit costs you nothing whether the work goes ahead or not.
When in the year should exterior render be booked here?
Spring through to early autumn for anything on the outside. Render has to be kept off frost while it is green and it wants a few settled days after it goes on, and on a south west facing wall at East Boldre the wind drives rain onto it before it has had the chance. We sheet the scaffold if the weather turns. Booking over winter usually means starting when the nights lift.
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Tell us the address and what you have noticed. We will come out, tap it over and put an itemised price in writing. No charge, and no obligation.