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.
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Rendering in Broadstone usually comes down to one choice: hack the old render off, or cover it. Where a tap test finds it still bonded, it can be meshed and overlaid in a silicone thin coat or a monocouche. Where it drums hollow or has cracked open, patching only buys a winter, and the elevation comes back to the block or brick before new render goes on. Inside walls are covered by our Broadstone plastering page.
Nearly two thirds of the homes in Broadstone 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 Broadstone 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 has to be done properly. A mallet goes over the whole of a Broadstone wall, 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 on a Broadstone house 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 in Broadstone 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
Re-rendering a chalet gable or bungalow elevation
A lot of rendering in Broadstone is on chalets and bungalows, with a gable, a dormer cheek or a whole elevation in painted render or pebbledash. Thomas taps across the whole wall before he prices it, marks the hollow areas and checks the sills, the bellcast at the bottom and where the pipework runs.
The quote itemises access and scaffold, protection, preparation of the existing wall, the system and number of coats, beads and stop ends, and making good. Thomas is your one contact from hacking off to finish. Windows, doors and the drive are sheeted before anything comes off. Nothing is left half hacked off overnight, and the rubble goes in bags on our trailer each evening. If the brickwork behind the old render has cracked, Thomas photographs it and prices the repair before the new coats go on.
Re-rendering an elevation as it was before is maintenance, so an ordinary house needs no application. Close to the centre of Broadstone are two conservation areas, and inside them a new finish or colour should be checked before we start. BCP Council publishes their boundaries. Once insulation goes on behind the render it becomes building control work, and Approved Document L sets the Part L standard a renovated wall has to reach.
Cost
Hack off or overlay, the question behind every render quote
Rendering in Broadstone has no rate per square metre. What is already on the wall decides the job. What is there now. Rendering over sound brick is one job. Hacking off blown sand and cement, or pebbledash that has parted from the background, is another, and nobody can see it from the road. Thomas taps the whole elevation before quoting, because the hollow areas set the hours.
The system. Silicone thin coat over insulation, monocouche through-coloured, and traditional sand and cement all price and behave differently. Most walls in Broadstone are post-war cavity brick, which takes a modern system well. On the few solid older walls near the centre, the wall has to breathe, and a plastic-rich finish would trap moisture.
Access. A Broadstone bungalow elevation comes off a tower. A chalet with a dormer gable, or a two storey detached with a garage built onto the side, needs a scaffold that stands for the whole system rather than a day. The work at height rules are why that is its own line.
The details. Beads, bellcast and stop ends round every window and under the eaves, and sills and pipework to lift and refit.
Ask anyone else which system and how many coats, whether the old render is being hacked off or overlaid, and whether the scaffold is included.
If it has started to come away
Render that has cracked open or come away
Tap round the damaged area first. If it sounds hollow, or a crack is wide enough to take a coin, water is getting behind the render and the next frost will push more of it off. If a piece has already fallen, keep people away from underneath.
Ring us. The first visit takes off anything loose, sheets the wall if the weather is against us, and we price the elevation once we can see how far the blown area runs. Scheduled work is Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For render coming away, ring instead of filling in the form, and we return missed calls as soon as we can.
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 in Broadstone. 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 in Broadstone 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
Rendering across BH18, from the people who do it
Our base is at 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe, and it is 7.3 miles to Broadstone. We render houses in Broadstone, Corfe Mullen, Merley, Canford Heath and Upton. The council for every one of them is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.
You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. The owner, Thomas Hannen, taps the wall and works out the price himself. We have one Checkatrade rating from a verified customer: 10 out of 10. It costs nothing to have us come out, and the quote in writing, with each item on its own line, is free. Before you book a visit in Broadstone, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Broadstone?
Most repairs in Broadstone 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.
| Question | In Broadstone |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Broadstone. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Ridgeway and Broadstone Park Conservation Area and Tudor Road and Golf Links Road Conservation Area. They cover parts of Broadstone, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Broadstone. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Broadstone. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in Broadstone
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.
Nearby, and next door
Rendering near Broadstone
Nearby places we also cover for rendering, with straight-line distances from Broadstone, and the other trades we offer in Broadstone itself.
Rendering nearby
Our other trades in Broadstone
Rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in Broadstone Rendering, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
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.