Rendering in Broadstone, hack off or overlay
The render on most houses here is at the age where it decides, and only a mallet over the whole elevation tells you which way it has gone.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
The decision on most Broadstone walls is not which colour to have. It is whether the render that is on there now comes off or gets covered over, and only a tap test answers that.
Nearly two thirds of the homes here went up between the war and the early eighties, most of them around the late fifties and early sixties. The sand and cement coats put on then have now done sixty years or more, and sixty years is roughly where that build starts to let go of its background.
Covering a sound old render with a modern system is a good, tidy job that saves a great deal of mess. Covering a hollow one is money thrown away, because the new coat comes off with the old one the first time the frost gets behind it. So we tap the whole elevation before we quote a single square metre, chalk what is loose, and let you see the evidence. The visit and the written itemised quote are free.
The work
Hack it off or overlay it, and everything after
The tap test, done properly. Over the whole wall with a mallet, not a couple of spots. Sound render rings. Blown render gives a dull knock and sometimes shifts under your palm. We chalk the hollow areas so the extent is visible from the pavement rather than a number in a quote.
Overlaying a sound existing coat. Where the old render is still bonded it is cleaned down, cracks are cut out and made good, the face is stabilised with a primer and a mesh reinforced basecoat goes straight over it. No breaker, no skip, and the job takes days rather than weeks.
Hacking off where it has gone. Where the coat has parted from the wall it comes off to a firm edge. The brick or block behind gets made good, old chases and patched openings are filled and a key is formed. Anything friable is brushed down and sealed before the first coat.
Silicone thin coat and monocouche. A basecoat with mesh through it, a primer, then a silicone topcoat scraped or floated to the texture you choose, or a through-coloured monocouche laid in one build. The colour runs through the material, so there is no repainting in five years.
Traditional sand and cement, dash and Tyrolean. Still the right answer where part of an elevation is being matched into an existing scratch and float build, and on garden walls and outbuildings. Dash and Tyrolean finishes can both be repaired, though a new patch reads lighter than sixty years of weathering for a good while. The few pre-1919 solid wall properties on the older roads want a lime render and a breathable finish instead, or the moisture stays trapped in the wall.
Cracking, delamination and spalled brickwork. Crazing across an old cement coat is cosmetic. A crack you can get a coin into is a route for water, and once the frost has been working behind a delaminated coat for a few winters the brick face underneath is often spalled as well, which has to be made good before anything new goes on.
Beads, bellcast and stop ends. Angle beads at the corners, stop beads at the reveals and a bellcast at the base so water drips clear of the wall below. Where an old coat is being overlaid the beads have to be reset to the new thickness, which is the detail that separates a proper overlay from a cheap one.
Render over external wall insulation. A wide single storey elevation gives a lot of wall for the floor area, so EWI pays back better here than on a tall narrow house. Insulation board or a render carrier is fixed to the face and takes the same basecoat and topcoat.
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.
Re-rendering an elevation the way it was rendered before is maintenance, so on an ordinary house here nothing needs applying for. Broadstone has no conservation area of its own and the few listed entries sit away from the estates, so the finish and the colour are yours to choose. the council keeps the list for the designated areas. Where insulation is going on behind the render it becomes building control work rather than planning, and Approved Document L sets the Part L standard a renovated wall has to reach.
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 wide bungalow you can reach off a tower, a chalet with a dormer gable, and a two storey detached with a garage built onto the side 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 six miles away, so a Broadstone address is normally looked at within a day or two. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Sixty year old render is at the age it decides
A traditional sand and cement render does not wear out evenly and then need replacing. It holds on for decades and then loses its grip, because a rigid coat and a wall that moves slightly have finally parted company, helped along by water getting in at a crack and freezing behind it. On the housing here that clock started in the late fifties, and a great deal of it is reaching that point together.
Which is why the overlay question is the important one on this patch. An overlay is genuinely the better job when the old coat is sound: it keeps the mess down, keeps the skip off the drive, and adds a mesh reinforced modern system over a background that has already proved it will stay put. But it inherits everything underneath it. If a quarter of the wall is hollow, the new render is only as good as the coat it is sitting on.
So the one thing worth insisting on before you accept any price here is that somebody has been over the whole elevation with a mallet and can tell you what percentage sounded hollow. A quote that offers an overlay without that is a guess, and it is a guess you pay for twice.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Broadstone, Corfe Mullen, Merley, Canford Heath and Upton, broadly BH18, 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
Broadstone questions we get asked
Can new render go straight over the old?
Only if the old coat is properly bonded. It is cleaned, cracks are cut out, the face is stabilised and a meshed basecoat goes over the top. It is a good job on a sound wall and a waste of money on a hollow one, which is why the tapping comes first.
What percentage hollow means it has to come off?
There is no fixed figure, but once scattered hollow areas start joining up across a face we would take it off rather than overlay. Isolated patches on an otherwise solid wall can be cut out and made good before an overlay goes on.
Does an overlay change the look of the reveals?
It adds thickness, so the beads at the reveals and the corners have to be reset and the window and door edges will sit slightly deeper. Done properly it looks deliberate. Done badly it looks like render pushed up against a frame.
Is there much mess with a full hack off?
There is on the day the coat comes off. The ground is sheeted, the debris is cleared as we go, the site is swept every evening and the waste leaves with us.
Will I lose the pebbledash look completely?
Only if you want to. A dash can be repaired and matched, or a modern system can be finished in a heavier grain that reads similarly from the road. What it cannot do is match new dash to sixty years of weathering on the same elevation.
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Find out whether your wall can take an overlay
Thomas comes out, taps the whole elevation, chalks the hollow areas and prices the overlay or the replacement in writing. The visit and the quote are free.