Rendering at Beacon Hill
No conservation area and nothing listed here, so the render is chosen for the wall and the weather rather than for a planning officer.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
There is no conservation area at Beacon Hill and nothing listed here at all, which is rarer on this patch than you might think. Nobody controls the colour, the texture or the finish of your render. The only thing that should decide it is the wall behind it.
That is worth saying plainly, because a good deal of render advice around Dorset is really planning advice in disguise. Here you can render a brick elevation, change a dashed wall to a smooth one, or pick a strong colour, and it is your call. What you cannot do is put a system on a wall that will not take it.
People ring about a hollow patch that has started to bulge, dash shedding off a gable, a crack widening at a window corner, or a wall that greens over every year. We come out, tap the whole elevation, and put what it needs in a free written itemised quote.
The work
Choosing a render on performance rather than permission
The survey. A light hammer over every elevation before anything is priced. Sound render rings hard, blown render answers hollow and has already delaminated from the background, and nothing applied on top will hold it there. Blown areas are marked, photographed and measured, and it is that area that sets the hours.
Hacking off and preparing the wall. Where the coat has gone we hack off to the blockwork or brick, clean down the background, cut out loose mortar and any spalled face, and let it dry. A primer or a slurry key on a dense or dusty background. Then the beads: angle beads on every corner, stop beads at reveals and against frames, and a bellcast at the base so water is thrown clear instead of tracking back under the render.
Silicone thin coat. An alkali resistant mesh worked into a polymer basecoat, then a flexible through-coloured topcoat scraped to a fine texture. On the cavity blockwork that makes up nearly all the housing here it is the system we recommend most: it accommodates a little movement, sheds driven rain, stays breathable and does not need repainting. Acrylic topcoats cost less and hold dirt sooner.
Monocouche. A single thick through-coloured coat, ruled flat and scraped the following day. It gives a harder, more mineral looking finish than a thin coat, suits new blockwork and extensions, and is unforgiving of a poor background.
Traditional sand and cement, dash and Tyrolean. Two coats, scratched and floated, then painted, dry dashed or given a Tyrolean finish. Still the right answer on plinths, garages, chimneys and boundary walls. It is rigid, so it wants movement beads on a long run and does not belong on a wall that is already moving.
Pebbledash repairs. Where a dashed elevation still has a sound backing coat we stabilise it, cut out and patch the bald areas and re-dash to match the aggregate that is there. Where the backing has parted, dashing over it hides the problem for a season and no longer.
Cracking and staining. Fine crazing across a panel is shrinkage in the coat. A single crack running out of a window corner is movement in the building. Green and black streaking below a gutter is algae and wants a wash, not a new elevation.
Render over external wall insulation. EWI board with a render carrier or a mesh basecoat is a real option here, since nothing stops you changing the outward appearance. The thermal gain depends entirely on the detailing at the sills, the eaves and the base.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, and no sub-contracting your work out to somebody you have never met. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: access and scaffold, protection, preparation of the existing wall, the system and number of coats, beads and stop ends, and making good on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.
Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Beacon Hill has no conservation area and no listed entries, so the permitted development right to clad or render a house is intact and re-rendering, or rendering a brick wall for the first time, is normally your decision. The Planning Portal sets out the exceptions worth checking. Renewing a whole elevation still brings Part L and building control in, because the wall is a thermal element.
Cost
What decides the price of a rendering job
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 detached house on an open plot, a semi with a garage between it and the boundary, and a bungalow with a conservatory under the back wall are three different platforms. 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.
If it has started to come away
Render that has blown or cracked open
Ring rather than use the form. A section that sounds hollow when you tap it, or a crack you can get a coin into, is letting water behind the render and the frost does the rest. We make the loose area safe, sheet it if the weather is against us, and price the elevation once we can see how far the blown area actually goes. Anything loose over a path or a doorway gets taken down and made safe on the first visit. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Nothing here stops you, so let the wall decide
Most of the render questions we answer within a few miles of here are really permission questions. Am I allowed a smooth finish. Can I go a different colour. Do I need consent to render the brick. At Beacon Hill the answer to all three is normally yes, because there is no conservation area, no listed building and no designation over the housing. That is genuinely unusual around Wimborne and Wareham and it is worth knowing before you start ringing the council.
Which puts the whole weight of the decision back on the wall. Nearly all the housing here is post-war and modern cavity blockwork, which is dry, does not have to breathe the way a solid pre-1919 wall does, and takes a modern system happily. So the choice between a silicone thin coat, a monocouche and a traditional painted render is a choice about durability, maintenance and looks rather than about fabric. Through-coloured systems do not want repainting. Painted render is cheaper to put on and comes back round as a job. Monocouche is harder and more mineral to look at. None of them is wrong on your wall.
The one thing we would still check is movement. Rigid renders crack where a building moves, and a long unbroken run on a gable or an extension junction wants beads to let it. Ask any quote where the movement joints and stop beads are going and whether the basecoat is mesh reinforced. That is the question that matters here, rather than whether you are allowed.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Beacon Hill, Sturminster Marshall, Lytchett Minster, Upton and the BH16 addresses around them, 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.
Questions
Beacon Hill questions we get asked
Do we need permission to render our brick house?
Here, normally not. The permitted development right to clad or render a dwelling is withdrawn in conservation areas, national parks and on listed buildings, and none of those applies at Beacon Hill. It is still worth a five minute check for an article 4 direction or a condition on a newer estate before you order a scaffold.
Which system lasts longest?
On modern blockwork, a mesh reinforced basecoat with a flexible through-coloured topcoat gives the least trouble, mainly because it moves a little and never needs repainting. Monocouche is harder wearing but less forgiving. Painted sand and cement is the cheapest to apply and the one that comes back round as a decorating job.
Can we change the colour completely?
Yes. With a through-coloured system the colour is in the topcoat, chosen from a standard range, and we will put a sample on your wall so you can see it against the roof and the brickwork in daylight. Strong colours read much darker on a big elevation than they do on a card.
What causes the fine cracks all over our render?
That pattern is shrinkage in the coat rather than movement in the building, and it usually comes from a mix that was too strong or dried too fast in sun or wind. It is not structural, but it lets water in, so it wants a mesh reinforced overlay rather than a coat of masonry paint.
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Get the render chosen for the wall, not the rule book
Thomas sounds the elevation, tells you what is blown and what is sound, and puts the system, the beads and the access in a free written itemised quote.