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.
Most of the render we are asked to look at in Corfe Mullen went on within a few years of the same decade, and it lets go in the same three places: the bottom edge where there is no bellcast, the corners of the openings, and under the sills.
Three things bring people to the phone. A patch of wall that sounds hollow and has started to bulge. A crack running out at an angle from a window corner, a little wider every winter. Or a green, streaked elevation that 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 is free: we tap the whole elevation and tell you which you have before anything goes in writing.
The work
Render that all went on in the same decade
Around three in five houses here 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 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 it is what we put forward most often here: 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 this side of the village 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
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 a wall that is already rendered is maintenance. Rendering one that never was, or changing the finish, is a different question and the Planning Portal sets out where the line falls. There is no conservation area here and one listed entry, so on an ordinary house the finish is your decision. Renewing a whole elevation does bring Part L and building control in, because the wall counts as a thermal element.
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 village bungalow gable, a semi with a conservatory under the back wall and a detached house behind a mature hedge are three different set ups. 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. It is a short run out here, so a bulging area over a doorway or a path gets looked at quickly. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
A village rendered in one decade fails in one decade
Housing built mostly between the late 1960s and the early 1980s has 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 a modern polymer system fits here, and the period rules do not apply to you.
The catch is that the render went on all over the village in the same few years, to the same detail, and it is reaching the end of its life together. 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
A local firm you can check
We cover Corfe Mullen, Lake, Henbury and the BH21 addresses around them, out through Broadstone, Upton and Wimborne, under Dorset 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
Corfe Mullen questions we get asked
How do I know if my render has blown?
Tap it. 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.
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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.