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.
In the middle of Christchurch the finish on a frontage is not entirely your decision. Christchurch Central is a conservation area, and there the texture and colour of a rendered elevation are controlled in a way they are not two streets further out.
That catches people out. A 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 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 rather than after the scaffold is up. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Render work on the old streets and the newer estates
Tapping before anything else. A rubber mallet over the whole 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 here 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 here 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 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 rather than 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 rather than 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 uses one scaffold rather than two.
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 done before is maintenance and needs no permission. Changing the look of it can be different. Christchurch Central is a conservation area and the town carries a couple of dozen listed entries, and there the appearance of a frontage is controlled, so the council keeps the list and we check an address before quoting a change of texture. Insulation behind a render is building control rather than planning, and Approved Document L sets the Part L standard.
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 town terrace with the front wall on the back edge of the footway, a semi with a side gate, and a three storey block 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 four miles away, so a Christchurch address is normally seen within a day. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
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
A local firm you can check
We cover Christchurch town, Purewell, Somerford, Mudeford and Burton, broadly BH23, 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
Christchurch questions we get asked
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 rather than hours before the topcoat, and a traditional build wants longer again. Rushing that is what produces crazing a year later.
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Thomas checks the address, taps the elevation and prices the repair or the new system in writing. The visit and the quote are free.