Plastering and rendering in Ridge
Skimming, ceilings, lime repairs and external render for the houses along the lane between Stoborough and the water.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
If it is the outside of a house at Ridge, tap the render before you ring anybody. A hard, solid sound means the render is still bonded and a crack is a crack, which is a cut-out and patch. A hollow drumming over a whole panel means it has parted from the wall behind, and no filler, paint or coating over the top of that will hold. Inside it is the same test on the plaster.
Ridge is a short run of houses on the lane down to the water, and the jobs that come off it split fairly neatly. An elevation of painted render, cracked and holding damp, on the side that takes the weather. A room that has been decorated over tired plaster twice too often and now wants skimming flat. A ceiling with a textured coating on it that has started to crack along the board joints.
We do the inside and the outside, and the making good afterwards. The site visit is free and the written quote is itemised, and if patching is the honest answer we will say so rather than sell you an elevation.
The work
A crack out of a window corner is movement
A crack out of a window corner is movement. Painted render and pebbledash over brick or block are the common finishes along this lane, and the failures follow a pattern. Fine map cracking that lets water sit behind the paint. A straight crack running from a window corner, which is movement rather than weathering. Panels that sound hollow when you tap them. Local damage is cut out square, keyed and patched in a matching mix, then the elevation is brought back to one colour so the repair does not read as a scar. Where more than about a quarter has let go, taking it off beats chasing it round the wall, and what goes back is a scratch coat, a render coat and a silicone or monocouche thin coat, off a bell cast bead at the base. The exposed elevation faces south west, which is where the driven rain arrives from.
Scattered among the newer houses are older cottages and converted farm and yard buildings with a solid wall and no cavity. Those want a soft, breathable mix that can move, in lime rather than a hard sand and cement that cracks off and takes the face of the brick with it. The same thinking applies inside, where lime plaster on lath is what you find behind the paper and a gypsum skim over a wall still carrying moisture will simply blow again.
Room by room it is more ordinary: a sound background is prepared, sealed and given two coats of finish coat, and a blown wall comes off back to the brick with a backing coat first, browning or hardwall where the brick pulls the water out of the mix and bonding on a dense or painted face. The newer houses are dry lined instead, board on dot and dab or screwed to a stud, then tape and joint or a skim. A wall low down that is soft, salty and blowing the paint off is not a plastering fault, it is water arriving from somewhere, so we find where it is coming in before anything goes back on.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
We survey the wall in front of us rather than a photograph, because a render that sounds solid at eye level and hollow at head height is a different quote. Everything is itemised on its own line. Nothing done inside a house needs planning permission. Outside is where it changes. Ridge sits in Dorset Council's area and has no conservation area of its own, but Stoborough and Wareham next door both do, and there are listed buildings within a short walk. Renewing a render like for like is maintenance; changing the material, texture or colour is not, and on a listed building listed building consent reaches the inside as well. Planning Portal guidance on external walls sets out the general position.
Cost
What decides the price
No rate per square metre. Sound plaster still gripping the wall takes a skim; a blown wall has to come off, which brings a backing coat and a float back into the job. Outside, patching a few cracked areas and re-rendering a full elevation are days apart, and the honest line between them is how much of it sounds hollow. Most houses along the lane stand in their own plot with room to get round; anything hard against a boundary is the exception. A tower does for low work and a scaffold is a priced line under the work at height rules, and Approved Document L can ask for the insulation behind a renewed render to be improved.
If it has started to move
A ceiling sagging, or render blown off a wall
Ring rather than use the form. A ceiling that has begun to bow, a lath ceiling pulling off its joists, or a lump of render hanging over a path where people walk goes to the front of the queue. Keep out from under loose render above a doorway or a drive. Ridge is a short run for us on the Wareham side of the harbour, so tell us what has come away.
Worth knowing
The south-west elevation is the one that goes first
Ridge sits low and open on the edge of the harbour, and the weather here arrives from the south-west with nothing much in the way of it. Wind-driven rain does not fall on a wall, it is pushed at it, so one elevation of a house gets a great deal wetter than the other three and takes far longer to dry between showers.
That is why on a rendered house down this lane the same wall carries the map cracking, the green staining and the hollow panel while the sheltered side looks fine, and why a damp patch shows inside on that wall in a wet winter and vanishes in June. Do not judge the render by walking round the front. Look at the weather side, and tap it.
It changes the specification, not just the diagnosis. A rigid sand and cement render on an elevation that is repeatedly soaked and then dried will crack, and once water is behind it the cracks widen every winter. A mesh reinforced basecoat under a silicone topcoat stays flexible and sheds water rather than drinking it, which is why we put that on the exposed side even where the other elevations are left alone.
Timing matters here too. You cannot render into frost, and a stiff wind off the water dries a topcoat unevenly and leaves banding across the wall, so an elevation is worked in one go with the scaffold sheeted rather than started and left. If someone quotes you a render in a hard cold snap or on a blowing day, ask what they are doing about that.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Ridge, Stoborough, Arne, Sandford and Wareham across the BH20 postcode, and work right across Purbeck, Poole and east Dorset from a base near Bournemouth. 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
Ridge questions we get asked
Ridge is in a national landscape. Does render get scrutinised?
Anything visible does. Ridge falls inside the Dorset landscape designation, so where external work needs permission at all, the council looks harder at how it will read from the surrounding countryside than it would in a town. On an unlisted house a like for like re-render is still maintenance and needs nothing. It is a change of material, or a bright colour on an open elevation, that draws the attention.
Which wall should we do first if money is tight?
The south west facing one. That is the exposed elevation here, eight kilometres back from the coast but still taking the driven rain that comes in off the south west, and it fails years before the sheltered walls show anything at all. Wind and rain work at the edges, so look at corners, reveals and the run above lintels rather than the middle. Elevations are priced separately so one can be done now.
The listed buildings here are around Wareham. Are we affected?
Only where your own address is on the list. Twelve listed entries cover this area, including the Parish Church of Lady St Mary and its priory buildings, and being near one places no restriction on what you do to an ordinary house nearby. Where a property is physically attached to a listed building it can be caught, so check with Dorset Council if there is any doubt before old plaster starts coming off.
Can render go on in the winter months here?
Not on the weather side of the house. Render wants a dry background going on and several days without driven rain to cure properly, and the south west elevation at Ridge rarely offers that between November and February. Frost is the other limit, because a base coat that freezes before it sets never gets its strength back. So we work the sheltered faces and the interior through winter and hold the exposed wall for spring.
Damp shows inside on that same wall. Is it the render?
Often it is. Where a wall takes driven rain off the south west and the render has cracked, water gets in behind the coating and cannot get back out, so damp appears inside on the opposite face and nowhere else in the house. Replastering the inside of that wall without fixing the outside is money wasted. The elevation gets looked at first, and the internal making good is priced once the outside is sorted.
Nearby, and next door
Plastering and rendering near Ridge
Plastering and rendering nearby
Our other trades in Ridge
Everything we do in Wareham Plastering and rendering, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Get a price for your plastering in Ridge
Tell us which room, or send a photo of the render, and we will book a look. The visit and the written quote cost nothing.