Rendering in Christchurch, frontages and finishes
In the middle of town the texture and colour of a frontage are controlled, so the render decision starts with the address rather than the colour chart.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Rendering in Christchurch is repair and re-render on frontages, side walls and post-war houses: cracked or blown render cut out and made good, or whole elevations redone in silicone, monocouche or lime. In the centre, Christchurch Central is a conservation area, so a change of colour or texture on a frontage is controlled and matching the existing finish is often the brief. Close to the sea, beads go in stainless. Inside walls are covered by plastering in Christchurch.
That catches people out. A Christchurch homeowner gets three quotes for a smart white silicone finish, picks one, and only afterwards finds that the wall they are covering is a roughcast frontage in a controlled street. Nobody sets out to do the wrong thing; the question simply never comes up.
So we look the Christchurch address up before we price it. Then we tap the elevation, work out how much of the existing coat is still stuck on, and put the system, the coats, the beads and the access in a written itemised quote. If the finish has to match what is there, we say so at the visit, before any scaffold goes up. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Render work on the old streets and the newer estates
Tapping comes before anything else. A rubber mallet over a whole Christchurch elevation tells us what a photograph cannot: how much of the coat has parted from its background. Sound render rings, blown render knocks dull. We chalk the hollow areas so you can see the extent for yourself.
Traditional sand and cement and roughcast. Much of the older housing in Christchurch carries a scratch coat and floating coat with a roughcast or Tyrolean finish thrown over it. That build can be cut out and patched, floated back and re-dashed, which keeps a frontage looking like itself. It needs dry weather and it needs time between coats.
Lime render on solid walls. One home in five in Christchurch predates the First World War. A pre-1919 solid wall carries its moisture out through the face, so it wants a lime render and a breathable finish. Put a plastic rich system on a wall like that and the moisture is trapped, the damp shows on the inside, and the render blows off in the first hard frost.
Silicone thin coat and monocouche. On the post-war and 1980s houses in Christchurch a modern system is the sensible answer. A mesh reinforced basecoat, a primer and a silicone topcoat scraped or floated, or a through-coloured monocouche put on in one build. The colour is in the material, not painted over it.
Hacking off and preparing the background. Blown render comes off back to a firm edge, the brickwork is made good and given a key, and anything friable is brushed down and stabilised with a primer. On an older wall that stage is done by hand, never by breaker, because soft brick will not survive the quick way.
Beads, bellcast and stop ends. Angle beads on the corners, stop beads at the reveals and a bellcast at the base so water drips clear. Two kilometres from open water we fit stainless or PVC rather than galvanised, because salt finds galvanised beads and rusts them from inside the coat.
Cracking, delamination, algae and staining. A crack stepping down from a window head is letting water behind and wants cutting out and meshing. Green growth on a shaded elevation is a surface problem, and a soft wash with a treatment and a breathable coating deals with it far more cheaply than a new system does.
Render over external wall insulation. Where a solid wall is coming back to brick anyway, EWI is worth pricing alongside. Insulation board or a render carrier takes the same basecoat and topcoat, so the thermal gain needs one scaffold, not two.
How it runs
Rendering a front wall or a block: what happens and when
Thomas goes along each wall tapping the render to map where it has come away, and checks what it is stuck to and which way the wall faces. In Christchurch the south-west walls take the driven rain and the salt, and that is where render cracks and blows first.
A Christchurch town terrace often has its front wall right on the footway. A block of flats has big elevations, and the freeholder places the order. The written quote splits out scaffold, sheeting and protection, hacking off and preparing, the render system and its coats, beads and stop ends, and making good round windows and pipes.
Thomas is your contact on a Christchurch job through the hacking off, the beading and every coat. Windows, doors and the pavement are covered first. A scaffold on the footway needs a written licence, which we sort out. No wall is left half-coated overnight, the ground is cleared daily, and the debris goes with us. Should the blown area prove larger once the old coat is off, we price the extra, with photographs, before carrying on.
Re-rendering a Christchurch house to match what was there is maintenance and needs no permission. Changing the look can be different: the appearance of a frontage is controlled where a house is listed or stands inside a conservation area, so check the council's conservation area list before choosing a new texture. Insulation behind render is a building control matter, with the Part L standard set in Approved Document L.
Cost
Why rendering prices differ from wall to wall
A Christchurch render job is priced on the wall under the old coat, the weather it faces and the scaffold, more than on its area.
Hacking off. Going straight over sound brick is quick. Stripping sand and cement that has blown, or pebbledash that has parted from the brick, is slow, and none of it shows from the road. Thomas taps every elevation before he writes a figure.
The weather side. The south-west face in Christchurch takes rain driven in off the sea with salt in it. BS 8104 is used to judge that exposure, and it guides the system, the number of coats and the detailing at the bellcast and sills.
Which render. Silicone thin coat laid over insulation boards, monocouche that is through-coloured, and old-fashioned sand and cement each cost and behave differently. An old solid wall needs to breathe, and a plastic-rich coat on it traps moisture and sends the damp indoors, so lime may be the answer there.
Scaffold. A Christchurch terrace fronting the footway, a semi with a side gate and a tall block each need a different scaffold, while a bungalow gable can be done off a tower. It stays up for the whole system, as the work at height rules require.
Ask a rival firm: what render and how many coats, is the old one being removed, and are beads, stop ends, sills and pipework priced in?
If it has started to come away
Render that has blown, cracked or started to fall
Knock on the render with your knuckle. A hollow sound, or a crack you could slide a coin into, means water is behind it and the next frost will lift more. If a piece has come down near a pavement or a shared path, keep people away from that wall.
Phone us; skip the form. The first visit takes off anything loose so it cannot drop and covers the area if the weather is against us; the elevation is priced once the full extent of the blown render is clear. On a block, let the managing agent know too. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. With render falling off, phone, and if we are on a scaffold when you call, we ring back once we are down.
Worth knowing
What the conservation area actually controls
A conservation area does not stop you rendering a wall and it does not force you to use any particular product. What it protects is the character of the street, which in practice means the things a passer by can see: the texture of a frontage, its colour, and whether an elevation that has always been roughcast suddenly becomes flat and smooth.
So the line falls in a useful place. Repairing a rendered frontage in the same build, the same texture and the same colour is maintenance and nobody needs to be asked. Taking a roughcast front elevation back to brick, or replacing it with a scraped modern finish in a different shade, is a change of appearance and that is a planning question. Rear and side elevations that nobody sees from a public road are treated far more loosely than the front.
The practical advice is short. Check the address before you choose a colour, not afterwards. Ask any quote whether the finish is like for like or a change. And if the house is listed rather than simply in the area, the rules are stricter again and cover the whole building rather than the street view, so that conversation happens before a bead is ordered.
Who you are dealing with
The renderers behind the quote
We cover Christchurch town, Purewell, Somerford, Mudeford and Burton, broadly BH23, 2.7 miles from our base in Boscombe. The authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, which also licenses scaffold on the pavement. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Christchurch, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
It is owned by Thomas Hannen, who taps the walls and prices the rendering himself. A verified customer's score for us on Checkatrade is 10 out of 10. Looking and quoting are free: the visit and the itemised written quote cost nothing.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Christchurch?
Most repairs in Christchurch 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 Christchurch |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Christchurch. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Christchurch Central Conservation Area, Purewell Conservation Area and Avon Buildings Conservation Area, among others. They cover parts of Christchurch, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Christchurch. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Christchurch. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in Christchurch
Do I need permission to change the colour of my render in the conservation area?
On a frontage that is visible from the street, quite possibly. Colour and texture are part of what the designation protects. Like for like is maintenance. A different shade or a different finish is a change of appearance, so ask the council before you order.
Can a roughcast frontage be repaired rather than replaced?
Usually yes. The damaged area is cut back to sound render, floated out to the same thickness and re-dashed with matched aggregate. It will read newer than the wall around it for a couple of seasons, then settle down.
My house is Victorian. Why can I not have silicone render?
Because a solid wall of that age dries through its face. A plastic rich topcoat holds the moisture in, so the damp shows on the inside and the coat lets go outside. Lime is slower to apply and slower to cure, and it is the right answer on that wall.
Will you take the render off my chimney and gable at the same time?
If it needs it. Chimneys and gables take the worst of the weather and are usually the first part of an elevation to blow, and doing them while the scaffold is already standing is far cheaper than bringing it back.
How long does render take to dry before it is finished?
Each coat has its own waiting time and none of them can be hurried. A thin coat basecoat wants days, not hours before the topcoat, and a traditional build wants longer again. Rushing that is what produces crazing a year later.
Nearby, and next door
Rendering near Christchurch
Nearby places we also cover for rendering, with straight-line distances from Christchurch, and the other trades we offer in Christchurch itself.
Rendering nearby
Our other trades in Christchurch
Rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingBuilders in Christchurch: all our building work Everything we do in Christchurch Rendering, all areas Every area we cover
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Find out what your frontage is allowed to be finished in
Thomas checks the address, taps the elevation and prices the repair or the new system in writing. The visit and the quote are free.