Rendering in Alderholt, where the choice is yours

Tapping the wall. Nothing gets priced until the elevation has been sounded out. Render that is still bonded rings hard; render that has parted from the background sounds hollow and drummy. The hollow area is nearly always wider than the crack that prompted the call.

Hacking off and rebuilding. Blown render comes off back to a clean sound background. Loose joints behind it are repaired, a stabilising primer goes on where the surface is dusty, then a mesh reinforced basecoat and the finish. Rendering over a hollow wall is the single most common thing we are asked to put right.

Silicone thin coat. The right answer on the 1980s cavity walled houses here. Through coloured so a chip does not show white, applied thin over a reinforced basecoat, flexible enough to take small movement, and it washes down. On a cavity wall the breathability question does not bite the way it does on solid masonry.

Monocouche. A single through coloured coat applied thick, ruled off and scraped back to a fine even texture. Hard wearing and needs no painting. It wants a stable background and planned day joints, so we decide where each day's work stops before the first mix is made.

Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Traditional scratch and float coats, and dash repairs where the elevation still carries it. Much of the dash here is forty years old and shedding, and the honest choice is between patching the worst of it and taking the wall back to brick.

Older solid walls. A fifth of the housing predates 1919. Those are solid walls, built breathable, designed to take moisture in and let it dry back out through the face. Wrap one in a plastic rich modern render and the moisture is trapped, so it comes out on the inside instead. Those walls get lime, which stays open and moves with the period fabric.

Extensions and making good. Joining a rear extension to an existing rendered house is fussier than rendering either alone. The two backgrounds move at different rates, so a movement joint goes in at the junction and mesh is carried across the change of material.

External wall insulation. Board fixed to the outside and rendered over, on a render carrier where the background will not take a direct fix. It thickens the wall, so sills, reveals, eaves, vents and downpipes are all reworked as part of the job.

Cracking, delamination and staining. Straight hairline cracks are usually shrinkage in the render. Stepped or widening cracks are movement behind it and want investigating first. Green on a shaded elevation is a wash and a treatment; a topcoat that comes off on your hand is a recoat.

No rate per square metre, because the square metres are the easy part; what is already on the wall decides the price.

Getting to it. A 1980s detached house with clear ground round it, a semi with a narrow side passage, and an older cottage tight to a lane are three different platforms before a bag of render is opened. A bungalow gable comes off a tower, a three storey elevation wants a scaffold, and the platform has to stand for the whole system rather than a day. The work at height rules are why it is a priced line rather than something folded into a rate.

What is already on the wall. Rendering over sound brick is one job. Hacking off blown sand and cement, or a pebbledash that has parted from the background, is another, and it is the part nobody can see from the road. We tap the whole elevation before quoting, because the hollow areas set the hours.

The system, and what the wall behind it needs. Silicone thin coat over insulation, monocouche through-coloured, or traditional sand and cement all price differently and behave differently. On a solid wall that has to breathe, a plastic-rich modern system traps moisture and moves the problem inside, so the right system is a wall decision rather than a colour decision.

Comparing quotes? Ask which system is being quoted and how many coats, whether the old render is being hacked off or overlaid, whether beads, bellcast and stop ends are included, whether the scaffold is in the price, and what happens to the existing sills and pipework. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.

On most of the villages around here the planning position does some of the thinking for you. A conservation area or a listing forces a conversation about materials before anything comes off the wall, and that conversation catches a lot of bad specifications by accident. Here there is neither. No conservation area, nothing listed, and for the great majority of addresses a free choice of finish.

That is good news if you want a modern through coloured render on a 1980s house, and a trap on an older one. The wall does not care about the planning position. A solid pre-1919 wall behaves the same here as it would inside a conservation area: it needs to breathe, and a plastic rich system traps moisture and moves the damp indoors. So the question to ask whoever quotes is not whether you are allowed. It is what the wall is made of and why their system suits that background.

We cover the village, Sandleheath, Cranborne and the lanes towards Fordingbridge, broadly SP6, under Dorset Council. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of 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.