Rendering in Breamore

Lime render. A solid wall with no cavity soaks up rain and gives it back, so the coat over it has to be soft and breathable. Lime in two or three coats, hair gauged in the base, worked into the background and kept damp and covered while it cures. Finished with a float and limewash rather than a modern paint, which would seal the face and undo the whole point of it.

Taking off hard render. Cement on an old wall comes off by hand, in sections, never with a breaker, because the wall behind it is softer than the coat. Tapping first tells us how much is already loose. On these cottages an open wall never gets left overnight without protection.

Cracking, delamination and where the water is getting in. On a cement coat a crack is an entry point and the bond fails outwards from it. On a lime coat fine crazing is normal and largely self healing. Knowing which you have changes whether a crack is urgent or cosmetic.

Silicone thin coat and monocouche. The modern systems belong on the later houses, the extensions and the blockwork outbuildings, not on the old cottages. Primer, a polymer basecoat with mesh, then a through-coloured silicone topcoat or a single monocouche coat scraped back, with beads, stop ends and a bellcast at the base.

Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Where a wall already carries one of these on a suitable background, a scratch and float coat with a dry dash or a Tyrolean finish is a straightforward repair. We match aggregate and colour and hang a sample panel before the main wall.

Algae, green growth and staining. Deep eaves and tree cover keep the top of a wall shaded and damp, so that is where the green appears. A soft wash lifts it. Pressure does not go near a lime coat, and it does not go near thatch at all.

Render over external wall insulation. Board fixed as a render carrier, then mesh, basecoat and topcoat over the top, with Approved Document L setting what a renovated wall should reach. On modern construction it is a good job. Under thatch it also thickens the wall out towards the eaves line, so on an old cottage it is usually the wrong answer twice over.

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 thatched cottage with deep overhanging eaves, a brick farm building in a yard and a modern house on the edge of the village need three different platforms and three different approaches. 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.

A thatched roof throws water a long way clear of the wall, which is why these cottages have survived with soft renders on them for centuries. That overhang is a genuine advantage and it is worth protecting. It also has two consequences for the render. The first is shade: the top of the wall sits in permanent shadow, so it dries far more slowly than the rest of the elevation and it is where green growth and soft, eroded patches usually appear. The second is the junction. Render has to be finished into a soft, uneven, living edge rather than run up to a neat verge, which means hand work and a willingness to stop the coat short and detail it properly rather than tucking it in tight.

Then there is the access, which is the part that most affects a quote. A scaffold on a thatched cottage cannot bear on the roof and cannot be tied into it, so it stands independently and is usually built out further from the wall than it would be on a tiled house. Boards and materials have to be kept off the thatch, and anything that could spark near it is out of the question. None of that is difficult, but it is slower and it is a separate priced line rather than something absorbed into a rate. If a quote for a thatched cottage does not mention the access arrangements at all, ask why not.

We cover Breamore, Woodgreen, Hale, Rockbourne and the villages along the Avon towards Fordingbridge, broadly SP6, with New Forest District Council for planning and building control. 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.