Rendering in Cranborne, inside the conservation area

Tapping the wall comes first. A hammer handle run over a Cranborne elevation separates render that is still bonded from render that has blown and parted from the background. The hollow patch is nearly always bigger than the crack, and on an old wall it follows the line of a previous cement repair.

Taking cement off period fabric. The commonest problem in Cranborne is a solid wall wrapped in a hard cement render at some point in the last sixty years. The wall was built to take moisture in and dry back out through its face. The cement stops that, so the moisture is trapped and finds the softest route, usually the inside plaster or the brick just above ground.

Lime render. Put on in coats, hair reinforced where the background needs it: a coarse scratch coat left with a key, then a finer float and a finish over it. It is softer than the masonry on purpose, so it takes the movement and the weathering rather than the wall doing it, and it stays breathable.

Like for like repair. On a Cranborne wall, hack off the failed area, square the edges, prepare and clean down the background, then rebuild in matching coats to the same texture. On a conservation area frontage this is usually both the right answer and the quickest route.

Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. On the twentieth century Cranborne houses away from the older core these are ordinary work. Scratch coat, float coat and dash where it matches, patched to a sample panel where the aggregate is still obtainable and replaced wholesale where it is not.

Silicone thin coat and monocouche. Good on a modern cavity wall, wrong on a solid one. Where we fit them in Cranborne it is on a post-war house or an extension: a stabilising primer on a dusty background, a mesh reinforced basecoat, then a through coloured topcoat. Colour and texture still get checked against the conservation area position first.

Beads, bellcast and stop ends. A bellcast bead throws water clear at the base, stop beads finish an edge at a reveal, angle beads keep a corner straight. On older Cranborne fabric we hand form the arris instead, because a machine straight corner on a wall that never had one looks wrong.

Cracking, delamination and staining. Straight hairline cracking is shrinkage. A crack that steps down through the joints is movement, and rendering over it hides it for a season. Algae on a shaded elevation lifts with a soft clean down and a treatment, never a pressure washer, which on lime does real damage.

External wall insulation. A solid wall has no cavity to fill, so insulation board fixed outside and rendered over is the only way to lift the thermal performance without losing a room. It is rarely right on a protected frontage, since it thickens the wall and changes every reveal, but on a rear elevation it works, with the render on a render carrier where the background will not hold a direct fix.

Measuring the wall is simple. What is on it now sets the price. Access. A cottage on the street needs a scaffold that keeps the footway open. A bungalow gable can come off a tower. A farmhouse with open ground round it takes a simple scaffold, and a tall barn gable needs one that reaches the apex. It stands for the whole job, and the work at height rules say what it must be, so it is listed separately.

The old coat. A sound, clean background just needs preparing. Blown sand and cement, or pebbledash that has parted company with the wall, has to be hacked off first, and none of that can be judged from the lane. Thomas taps every elevation before he prices.

The right system. Lime, silicone thin coat over insulation, monocouche and sand and cement each cost and behave differently. On flint, solid brick or cob that must breathe, a plastic rich modern render holds the damp in and pushes it indoors, so the wall chooses the system.

Trims. Beads, the bellcast, stop ends, sills, and pipework that must come off and go back all add time.

With another quote in hand, check the system and coats, whether the old render is hacked off or covered, and whether scaffold is included.

Conservation area status does not freeze a building. It controls how it looks, and for render that means the material, the texture and the colour, because those are what a passer by sees. A wall repaired in the same finish, texture and colour changes nothing anyone can see and counts as maintenance.

A wall taken from a soft brush finished lime to a hard scraped through coloured render has changed appearance even at a similar colour, because the texture reads differently in low sun.

In Cranborne the practical route is short. Decide the finish before the scaffold is booked. Get a sample panel on the wall and look at it morning and evening. If the proposal is a change, not a repair, ask the conservation officer first, because a wall that has to come off again is the most expensive render job there is. And on a listed building do not let anyone start on the basis that render is only a surface. It is listed fabric, and consent covers taking it off as much as putting it back.

We are 13.9 miles from Cranborne at our base in Boscombe. Our rendering work takes in the village, Alderholt and Wimborne St Giles, and Dorset Council is the planning authority for all of them.

The company you would contract with is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales with the company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns and runs it, and he is the one who taps the walls and works out your quote. A verified customer on Checkatrade gave us 10 out of 10 for their job. It costs nothing to have us visit, and the written quote with each line itemised is also free. Before you book a visit in Cranborne, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Cranborne 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.