External rendering in Corfe Mullen
Silicone thin coat, monocouche and traditional render across Corfe Mullen, Lake and Henbury, with the beads and the bellcast on the quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Much of the render in Corfe Mullen is on houses built between 1945 and 1982, and it lets go at the bottom edge where there is no bellcast, at the corners of the openings, and under the sills. Those are cut back and repaired, or where a third or more is hollow the elevation is re-rendered in silicone thin coat, monocouche or traditional render. For inside walls, see plastering in Corfe Mullen.
Corfe Mullen render needs work when a patch sounds hollow and has started to bulge, when a crack runs out at an angle from a window corner and widens a little every winter, or when a green, streaked elevation has been washed twice and is back within the year.
They are different problems and they do not want the same answer. One is a coat that has delaminated, one is movement showing through something rigid, and one is only dirt. The site visit in Corfe Mullen is free: we tap the whole elevation and tell you which you have before anything goes in writing.
The work
Render on the post-war houses
Around three in five houses in Corfe Mullen were built between 1945 and 1982, so what is on the wall is usually the original sand and cement, or a coating somebody has rolled over the top of it since.
Tapping first, quoting second. Every survey starts with a light hammer and a slow walk round. Sound render rings hard. Blown render answers like a drum, and once a coat has parted from the background nothing you put on top will hold it there. We mark the hollow areas, photograph them and put the measured area on the quote.
Hacking off, and what goes back. Where more of a Corfe Mullen wall is hollow than sound we hack off back to the blockwork, clean down the background, cut out loose mortar and make good any spalled brick. Then the beads: a bellcast at the base so water drips clear instead of tracking back underneath, stop beads at the verges and reveals, an angle bead on every corner. A primer or a slurry key on dense block, a mesh reinforced basecoat, topcoat last.
Silicone thin coat. A flexible through-coloured topcoat over a polymer basecoat with alkali resistant mesh in it. On cavity blockwork in Corfe Mullen it is what we would put forward: it moves a little with the wall rather than cracking, sheds driven rain and stays breathable. The finish is scraped back to a fine grain with a plastic float and the colour goes right through the coat. Acrylic topcoats look similar and hold dirt more.
Monocouche. One through-coloured coat applied thick, ruled flat and scraped the next day. A hard finish on new blockwork and on an extension that has to match, unforgiving of a poor background, so it goes only where the wall deserves it.
Traditional sand and cement. Still right on a garage, a boundary wall, a chimney or a plinth. Two coats, scratched and floated, then painted or given a Tyrolean or dry dash finish. It is rigid, so it wants beads on a long run and does not belong on a wall that is already moving.
Pebbledash and Tyrolean. Plenty of the older houses on this side of Corfe Mullen carry dash. Where the backing coat is still stuck we stabilise it, repair the bald patches and re-dash to match. Where the backing has let go, dashing over it buys a year, and we will say so.
Cracks and staining. A fine map of hairline cracks is shrinkage in the coat. A single line out of a window corner means something moved. Green and black streaking is algae, and that wants a clean rather than a re-render.
Render on external wall insulation. Where EWI board goes on outside, the render is the weather skin over a render carrier or a mesh reinforced basecoat on the board. The sills, the eaves and the base are where a cheap thermal upgrade gives itself away.
How it runs
Re-rendering pebbledash and painted render on estate houses
Thomas taps the walls and prices the rendering himself. Many houses in Corfe Mullen were finished in pebbledash or painted sand and cement render when they were built, and after decades of weather some sections have blown or cracked.
On a Corfe Mullen quote you will see scaffolding, protecting windows and paths, getting the wall ready, which render and how many coats, the beads and stop ends, and the making good, each on its own line. Thomas is your one contact for every elevation.
Windows, doors, paths and any conservatory roof are covered before the hacking off starts, and the scaffold is sheeted to keep dust off the neighbours' cars. The old render goes away in bags with us. Damaged blockwork or a lintel found behind the render is photographed and priced, and you decide before we cover it up.
Renewing render where there was render already counts as maintenance. Rendering bare brick, or changing the finish, is a different question, and the Planning Portal sets out where the line falls. For most houses in Corfe Mullen the finish is your decision; anyone in the conservation area covering Brogg Street and Sleight Lane, or in a listed building, should ask Dorset Council first. Stripping and re-rendering a whole wall counts as renovating a thermal element, which brings Part L and building control into it.
Cost
Pebbledash off, or overlaid: what decides a render price
Rendering in Corfe Mullen has no rate per square metre. The condition of what is on the wall now sets the price. Platforms. A village bungalow gable can be reached from a tower.
Where a conservatory sits under the back wall of a Corfe Mullen semi, the scaffold is built over it, and a detached house behind a mature hedge needs room cut for the uprights. The scaffold stays up until the last coat is on, which is why the work at height rules make it a line of its own.
Keep or strip. Pebbledash on a Corfe Mullen house that is still stuck fast can sometimes take a base coat and mesh over the top. Where it has come away from the blockwork it all has to be knocked off, and that heavy, noisy work is where most of the hours go.
Which finish. A silicone thin coat, a through-coloured monocouche and a traditional sand and cement render each cost something different to apply. On cavity blockwork the modern systems work well and need no painting; on the older solid walls in Corfe Mullen a breathable system matters more.
Insulation. If a whole elevation comes off, external wall insulation under the new render may be worth adding, and Part L may ask for it.
When comparing, find out which system each firm is pricing and in how many coats, whether they strip or overlay, whether the beads, bellcast and stop ends are in, and who moves the sills, pipework and cables.
If it has started to come away
Render that sounds hollow or has cracked open
Phone rather than use the form. Render that rings hollow under a knuckle, or a crack wide enough to take a coin, is letting rain in behind it, and a frost will push it off. A bulge over a doorway or a path is a hazard, so keep people from under it.
The first visit takes down anything loose, covers the wall if more rain is due, and prices the elevation once we see how far the blown area goes. Rendering is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. We may be up a scaffold, so leave a message and one of us will return it as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Post-war render fails at the same few details
The 62% of homes here built between 1945 and 1982 have one advantage: the wall behind the render is a known quantity. It is cavity blockwork, it is dry, and it does not have to breathe the way a pre-1919 solid wall does, where trapped moisture pushes the problem inside. So on a wall like that a modern polymer system fits well.
The catch is that much of that render went on to the same detail, and on a lot of houses it is now reaching the end of its life. What we find is rarely a failed wall. It is three failed details. Render taken straight down to the path with no bellcast, so water runs off the face and back under the coat, and the frost lifts the bottom foot off in sheets. No stop bead where render meets a sill or a frame, so the joint has been filled with mastic four times and is now a wick. And a rigid coat run the whole length of a gable with nothing to let it move.
So price the edges, not the middle. Ask where the render stops at the bottom and whether a bellcast bead is going on. Ask if there is a stop bead at every opening or whether it is being butted and sealed. Ask if the basecoat is mesh reinforced across the openings, where the diagonal cracks start. Those three answers decide how long the elevation lasts.
Who you are dealing with
Who renders your walls, and where to check us
We render in Corfe Mullen, Henbury and the BH21 addresses around them, and out through Broadstone, Upton and Wimborne, around eight and a half miles from our base in Boscombe. Dorset Council is the planning authority there.
Thomas Hannen owns the firm and does the tapping and the pricing himself, so the person who quotes is the person answerable for it. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719. A verified Checkatrade customer gave us 10 out of 10. The survey visit and the written, itemised quote are free of charge. Before you book a visit in Corfe Mullen, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Corfe Mullen?
Most repairs in Corfe Mullen 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 Corfe Mullen |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Corfe Mullen. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Brogg Street / Sleight Lane Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Corfe Mullen. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Corfe Mullen. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in Corfe Mullen
How do I know if my render has blown?
Tapping the render on a Corfe Mullen house tells you. A sound coat rings hard, a blown one sounds like a drum and often shows a fine crack round the edge of the loose area. You can find it yourself with a knuckle at ground level. We do the whole elevation, including the parts you cannot reach, because a bulge at first floor is the one that drops.
Can you render straight over the old render?
Sometimes, and only after tapping the lot. If the existing coat is firmly stuck across the whole wall, a mesh reinforced basecoat and a thin coat topcoat over it is sound work. If a third of it is hollow, overlaying is money spent on a wall that is already letting go underneath.
What colour choice do we get?
With a through-coloured silicone or monocouche system the colour goes through the topcoat rather than sitting on it, so it does not want repainting the way a painted render does. We put a sample of the colour and the texture on the wall for you to look at in daylight first.
What sort of timescale are we looking at?
A single gable is a few days once the platform is up. A whole house with hacking off, a new basecoat and a topcoat runs into a couple of weeks, and the coats want real drying time between them. Render will not go on in frost or hard sun, so the weather sets the programme too.
Nearby, and next door
Rendering near Corfe Mullen
Nearby places we also cover for rendering, with straight-line distances from Corfe Mullen, and the other trades we offer in Corfe Mullen itself.
Rendering nearby
Our other trades in Corfe Mullen
Rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingEverything we do in Corfe Mullen Rendering, all areas Every area we cover
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Get the render tapped before anyone quotes for it
Thomas comes out, sounds the whole elevation, tells you what is blown and what is only dirty, and puts it in a free written itemised quote with the beads, the basecoat and the access on it.