Rendering in Bournemouth, salt and shaded walls
Three kilometres of open ground from the sea changes what should go on the wall, from the topcoat you choose right down to what the beads are made of.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Three miles of open ground from the sea is close enough to change what should go on a rendered wall here. Salt keeps the surface damp between showers, so the elevation that faces the weather greens over faster, and the metal in the render fails before the render does.
Most calls start with something small. A grey and green stain spreading down from a windowsill. A rust line bleeding out of a corner where a bead sits under the coat. A patch by the back door that has begun to sound hollow.
Those are three problems with three different answers, and only one of them is a new render. We tap the whole wall, look at what the beads and the base detail are doing, and tell you honestly whether you need a clean and a coating, a panel repair, or a new system. It goes in a written itemised quote. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
What we get called out to on walls around here
Tapping the elevation first. Nothing is quoted from the ground. We go over the wall with a mallet, chalk the hollow areas and work out how much of the coat is still stuck to its background. That hour decides whether the job is a repair or a replacement.
Algae, green staining and clean downs. The commonest job on this patch. A north facing elevation that never dries properly grows a film, and painted render holds it worse than a modern topcoat. Where the coat underneath is sound, a soft wash, a treatment and a breathable coating put it right for a fraction of a new system.
Hacking off blown render. Where the coat has parted from the brick it comes off with a breaker back to a firm edge, the background is made good and given a key, and anything friable is stabilised with a primer before the first coat goes on.
Silicone thin coat. A mesh reinforced basecoat, a primer and a silicone topcoat scraped or floated to the texture you choose. It moves with the wall, sheds water and stays cleaner than paint on masonry. On the flats and the 1980s houses around here it is usually the sensible answer.
Monocouche and acrylic. Monocouche is a through-coloured polymer modified render put on in one build and scraped back, so the colour runs through the coat. Acrylic topcoats are tougher but less breathable. Which suits you depends on the wall behind, not on the colour card.
Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Plenty of the older houses here are still in a traditional scratch and float build with a dash or a Tyrolean finish over it. All of it can be repaired, with the caveat that new dash will not match the weathered wall around it for years. On the few pre-1919 solid wall houses in the older streets the repair goes back in lime, because a period wall of that sort has to breathe through its face.
Beads, bellcast and the base of the wall. Stop beads at the reveals, angle beads on the corners and a bellcast bead at the bottom so water drips clear of the brickwork below. We fit stainless or PVC, never galvanised, and we keep the render clear of the ground so it cannot wick moisture up behind itself.
Render over external wall insulation. Where a wall is coming back to brick anyway, EWI is worth pricing at the same time. Insulation board or a render carrier is fixed to the face and takes the same basecoat and topcoat, so the thermal gain costs one scaffold rather than two.
Cracking and delamination. Crazing across an old sand and cement coat is usually cosmetic. A crack that steps down from a window corner is a route for water, and it wants cutting out, meshing and making good before the frost widens it.
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.
Rendering a wall that was already rendered is maintenance, so on an ordinary house here there is nothing to apply for. This part of town is not in a conservation area and the listed entries close by are churches rather than housing, but the boundaries do not follow the streets you would expect, so we check the address before quoting a change of finish and the council keeps the list. Insulation behind a render is building control work rather than planning, and Approved Document L sets the Part L standard.
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 Winton terrace whose front elevation stands over the pavement, a 1930s semi with a side path, and a three storey block of flats 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. We are under two miles away, so a Bournemouth address is usually looked at the same day. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
What salt air does to a rendered wall
The sea is under three kilometres from here, and that is close enough for salt to reach the walls on a strong south westerly. Salt does two things to render, and neither is obvious from the pavement. It is hygroscopic, so a thin film of it keeps the face of a wall damp long after the rain has stopped. That is why a seaward elevation greens over so much faster than a sheltered one and why algae come back within a couple of years of a clean.
The second thing is worse. Salt in solution travels into a porous coat, and as the wall dries the crystals form under the surface and push it apart. On any render it also eats galvanised beads from inside the coat, which is why so many walls here carry a rust line down from a corner years before anything else has gone wrong.
So on the elevation that faces the weather, three things are worth insisting on. Stainless or PVC beads rather than galvanised. A breathable topcoat that lets the wall dry, rather than a sealed film that leaves moisture trapped behind it. And a rinse down of that elevation now and then, which costs almost nothing and does more for the render than any coating on the market.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Winton, Moordown, Charminster, Springbourne and Queens Park, broadly BH8 and BH9, under Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 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
Bournemouth questions we get asked
Why does the same wall go green again so quickly here?
Because salt in the air holds moisture on the surface between showers, and algae only need a damp face to grow on. A treatment and a breathable topcoat slow it down. A sealed paint film usually speeds it up.
What is the rust coloured line running down my render?
Almost always a galvanised bead corroding inside the coat. The zinc goes, the steel behind it swells and the stain bleeds out. The bead has to come out and be replaced with stainless or PVC before the wall is made good.
Can render be applied over painted masonry?
Only after the paint comes off or is proved sound and keyed. A modern basecoat needs a background it can grip, and old masonry paint is often the weakest thing on the wall. We test an area before we quote it either way.
Is it worth cleaning the render instead of replacing it?
Often, yes. If the coat still rings solid the staining is on the surface, and a soft wash, a treatment and a coating cost a great deal less than a system. We only recommend replacing when the tapping says the render has let go.
How long before a new render can be painted?
A through-coloured or silicone system never needs painting, which is most of the point of it. A traditional sand and cement coat wants several weeks to dry out first, and then a mineral paint rather than a plastic one.
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Thomas comes out, taps the elevation, looks at the beads and the base detail and prices it in writing. The visit and the quote are free.