Rendering in Bransgore

The survey. A light hammer over every elevation, starting with the exposed one. Blown render sounds hollow and has already delaminated from the background, so no topcoat will rescue it. We mark it, photograph it, measure it and price it. It is common to find one elevation needing a full strip and the other three needing patching and a wash.

Hacking off and preparing the wall. Where the coat has gone we hack off to the background, clean down, cut out anything loose or spalled, and let it dry properly before anything new goes on. A primer or a slurry key on dense block. Then beads: angle beads on the corners, stop beads at reveals, and a bellcast at the base so water leaves the wall instead of running back under it.

Silicone thin coat, and why it suits an exposed wall. A polymer basecoat with alkali resistant mesh worked into it, then a flexible through-coloured topcoat scraped to a fine texture. The mesh spreads the stress so the coat does not crack at the corners of openings, the topcoat moves a little with the wall, and it stays breathable while shedding driven rain. On the modern blockwork here it is what we put forward most often.

Monocouche and traditional render. A single through-coloured coat ruled and scraped suits new blockwork and extensions. Traditional sand and cement, scratched and floated, still belongs on plinths, garages, chimneys and boundary walls, and it can be painted, dashed or given a Tyrolean finish. Both are rigid, which is why we do not put either on a sheltered guess: they want a background that is not moving.

Pebbledash on the older cottages. Getting on for one house in five here predates 1919. Dash on a solid wall can be sound for a century when the backing is lime and has stayed stuck. We tap it, repair and stabilise where the backing holds, and only take it off where it has parted.

Openings, drips and sills. Wind driven rain works at edges rather than the middle of a wall. Every head needs a drip or a bell so water is thrown clear of the reveal below, every sill needs a stop bead and a proper end, and the render must not bridge the damp proof course.

Render over external wall insulation. Where EWI board goes on, the render is the weather skin over a render carrier or a mesh basecoat on the board, and on an exposed elevation the reveals and the base detailing carry the whole thermal benefit.

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 cottage with a lane tight against the gable, and a bungalow behind a hedge each need a different platform. 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.

Exposure here runs from the south west, and the difference between that elevation and a sheltered one is not a matter of degree. A sheltered wall gets wet occasionally and dries between times. The weather wall is wetted repeatedly during a wet spell, so it never gets back to dry, and any water that has found its way behind the coat has nowhere to go. That is why the same render can last thirty years on the back of a house and fail in eight on the front.

What copes is not a thicker coat. It is a basecoat with mesh in it under a topcoat that can move, and it is drips at every head so the water is thrown off rather than run down the reveal. The assessment of how hard a wall is hit is a real piece of engineering, set out in the British Standard on wind driven rain, and it is why an exposed elevation is specified differently from the one behind it.

The practical upshot for you is simple. Do not let anyone quote one system for the whole house without saying which way it faces. Ask whether the basecoat on the weather elevation is mesh reinforced, whether a drip or bell is being formed over every window and door head, and whether the render is being stopped clear of the ground. Then ask whether the sheltered walls actually need doing at all, because quite often they do not, and that is money you can keep.

We cover Bransgore, Thorney Hill, Burley, Sopley and the BH23 addresses around them, under New Forest District 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.