Rendering in Bere Regis, listed and unlisted

Tapping the elevation comes first. On a Bere Regis wall, render still bonded to the wall rings hard. Render that has blown and parted from the background sounds hollow. We sound every elevation, not just the one you rang about, and chalk the edges of the hollow areas so the size of the job is visible.

Hacking off and rebuilding. Blown render on a Bere Regis wall comes off back to sound masonry. Open joints are repointed, the background prepared, cleaned down and stabilised where it is dusty, then the new system goes on in coats: a mesh reinforced basecoat and a finish, or lime coats where the wall is period fabric.

Lime on solid walls. A pre-1919 wall has no cavity and was built breathable, taking moisture in and drying it back out through the face. Lime render keeps that route open, moves with the wall and can be patched invisibly. A plastic rich modern system on the same wall leaves the moisture trapped, and it comes out on the inside instead.

Taking old cement off. The common fault on the older Bere Regis cottages is a hard cement render put on decades ago. It cracks, water gets behind, and the cement will not let it out, so the wall stays wet and frost does the damage. It comes off by hand rather than with a breaker, and the wall is left to dry.

Silicone thin coat. The usual answer on the post-war cavity walled houses. A stabilising primer where the background is dusty, a mesh reinforced basecoat, then a through coloured silicone topcoat that sheds rain, cleans down and never needs painting.

Monocouche. A single thick through coloured coat, ruled off and scraped back to an even texture. Hard wearing, no painting, and it wants a stable background and planned day joints so no seam lands in the middle of a front wall.

Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Scratch coat, float coat and dash where the elevation already carries it, matched to a sample panel where the aggregate can still be had. Where it cannot, we say the patch will read differently rather than promise a match we cannot make.

Beads, bellcast and stop ends. Bellcast at the base to throw water clear above the damp proof course, stop beads at reveals and eaves, angle beads on corners, and a movement joint on a long elevation. On older fabric we hand form the arris, because a hard bead in a soft wall gives the render an edge to crack against.

Cracks, delamination and staining. Straight hairline cracking is shrinkage. A crack that steps or widens is movement behind it, and frost opens it further each winter. Spalled brick under an old cement skin gets cut out, and algae on a shaded wall lifts with a clean down and a treatment.

External wall insulation. Board fixed outside and rendered over, on a render carrier where the background will not take a direct fix. It lifts the thermal performance without losing a room, and it belongs on the modern housing rather than a listed frontage.

The area of wall is the easy part to measure. The price depends on what is on it now and what the wall behind needs.

Hacking off. Old sand and cement or pebbledash that has let go of the wall must all come off. Tapping the whole wall shows how much, and the hollow areas set the hours.

The right system. A solid older wall in Bere Regis needs to breathe, so lime render is usually right. A cavity wall can take sand and cement, a monocouche through-coloured finish, or a silicone thin coat, each priced differently. Putting a hard or plastic-rich render on a soft solid wall traps moisture and moves the damp indoors.

Exposure. The most exposed walls in Bere Regis face south west, into the driven rain. Those need a well formed bellcast over the damp course, stop ends and sills that throw water clear, and beads at every edge, because render fails first at its edges and openings.

Scaffold time. Each coat needs curing, so the scaffold stands longer than on much building work, and under the work at height rules it is a priced line.

Of any rival quote, ask what system it is and how many coats, whether they hack off the old render or go over it, whether the bellcast, beads and stop ends are priced, and what they plan for the sills and pipes.

A conservation area draws a line on a map and everything inside it is treated the same way. Listing does not work like that. It attaches to individual buildings, and it can attach to one half of a pair, to a farmhouse but not its modern extension, or to a barn behind a house that is not itself listed. With 43 entries in a parish this size and a conservation area over the core only, the pattern here is patchy by nature.

Listing therefore works address by address, and you cannot judge your own position by what a neighbour has been allowed to do: a modern render going up two doors along tells you nothing about your address. And listing covers more than the front elevation. It applies to the whole building, including the back and the outbuildings inside its curtilage, and the render on all of them. The check takes a minute, and the difference between a lime repair with consent and a modern system without it is the difference between a job that stands and one that comes off again.

Bere Regis is 17 miles from our Boscombe base. We render in the village, Wool, Winterborne Kingston and along the lanes towards Wareham, all BH20, with Dorset Council for planning, listed building consent and building control. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Bere Regis, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

The business is Thomas Hannen's, and Thomas taps your wall, decides on the system and prices it himself. A verified customer's rating of us on Checkatrade is 10 out of 10. You are not charged for the visit, and the written quote, set out item by item, is free as well.

Most repairs in Bere Regis need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.