Rendering in Crossways, a free hand on the finish
No conservation area and nothing listed in the village, so the system, the texture and the colour really are your decision.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
This is one of the few villages on our patch with no conservation area over it and no listed buildings in it. That means no appearance controls, so on an ordinary house here the render system, the texture and the colour are genuinely a choice rather than a negotiation.
Most of the housing went up between the seventies and the early two thousands, so the calls are what you would expect from walls of that age. Sand and cement that has cracked and gone hollow, a Tyrolean finish nobody likes any more, and cold gable walls on houses that are expensive to heat.
All of those are straightforward here, because nothing stands between you and the finish you want. The survey is done with a hammer: we tap the elevation, tell you how much of the old coat has parted from the wall, and put the hack off, the system, the beads, the scaffold and the waste in writing on separate lines.
The work
Choosing a finish when nothing is stopping you
Silicone thin coat. The most common choice on a modern wall and the one we fit most. Primer, a mesh and scrim reinforced basecoat, then a thin through-coloured silicone topcoat, scraped or floated to the texture you choose. It sheds water, it stays cleaner than an older acrylic or polymer rich finish, and because the colour goes through the coat a chip does not show a white scar.
Monocouche. A through-coloured coat applied in one pass and scraped back to an even texture. It is tougher than a thin coat, it suits a long plain elevation or a big gable, and it wants a very sound background because it goes on thick. Colours are a fixed range rather than anything you like, which is the main trade off against silicone.
Sand and cement, and dash. Traditional render still earns its keep on garages, stores and plinths, and pebbledash or Tyrolean can be thrown back over a fresh backing where that is what you want. Both hide cracking, which is why a dashed wall gets tapped rather than looked at. The exception to all of this is a period cottage built pre-1919 on the edge of the parish: those walls are solid and breathable, a plastic rich coat leaves moisture trapped in them, and lime is the only sensible answer.
Colour and texture, decided properly. Every system comes with a sample board and we would rather you saw one on the wall in daylight than picked from a brochure. Texture changes how a colour reads: the same grey looks lighter scraped and heavier floated. A pale colour on a big south facing elevation will show every shadow. This is the part of the job people regret rushing, and it costs nothing to take a week over.
Insulated render. On a cold cavity wall EWI is worth pricing alongside a plain re-render: external wall insulation board fixed and dowelled on, a render carrier and mesh, then the same topcoat, with Part L setting the thermal standard and building control usually involved. It thickens the wall, so sills, reveals, eaves, gutters and pipework all move out with it.
Preparation, beads and the base. Whatever goes on top, the wall under it decides how long it lasts. Blown areas are hacked off to a firm background, then we clean down, prepare, stabilise anything dusty with a primer and cut a key where the block face is too smooth. A bellcast bead at the base throws water clear of the plinth, stop beads finish the render at reveals and verges, and stainless goes anywhere the wall gets wet. Cracks that take a coin get cut out rather than filled, because a coat that has begun to delaminate keeps going. Brick that has spalled at the arris is made good first, and green algae or staining on a shaded gable is a cleaning job unless the wall behind is wet.
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.
There is no conservation area over the village and no listed entries in it, which is unusual around here and genuinely useful. rendering an external wall on an ordinary house is permitted development where the new finish is similar in appearance to the old, and with no area designation there is nothing else layered on top. Dorset Council is the authority if you need to check. The one thing that does bring building control in is insulated render, because it changes the thermal performance of the wall, and we say so on the quote rather than leaving you to discover it.
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 detached bungalow comes off a tower on level ground, a two storey house with a garage attached wants a bridged lift, and a rear elevation behind a conservatory needs the scaffold designed around the glass. 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. A cracked elevation on a seventies wall is worth ringing about before the winter rather than after, because water behind a coat plus a frost turns a panel repair into a full face. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
No designation on the village, and what that is worth
Almost every village we work in carries something: a conservation area boundary, a landscape designation, a list of protected buildings, or all three. This one does not, which puts you in a position most of our customers are not in. Nobody has a view on your colour, nobody will ask whether the texture matches the neighbours, and there is no consent step to wait on.
What that is worth is time and choice. A render job elsewhere often starts with a question to the council and a fortnight of waiting, and sometimes ends in a compromise on the finish. Here you can decide what you want on a Saturday and have it priced the following week. It also means the real constraints are technical: what the wall behind is made of, how exposed the elevation is, and whether insulation is worth putting under the coat while the scaffold is up. Those are better questions, and they are the ones we will steer you towards.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Crossways, Woodsford, Moreton, Warmwell and the villages east of Dorchester, broadly DT2, with Dorset Council for planning and building control. 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
Crossways questions we get asked
Can we choose any colour we like?
On an ordinary house here, yes. There is no conservation area and nothing listed in the village, so nobody controls the appearance. We would still ask you to look at a sample board on your own wall in daylight before committing, because colour reads differently at scale and in a texture.
Which lasts longer, silicone or monocouche?
Both last well on a sound wall. Monocouche is thicker and tougher against knocks, silicone is better at staying clean and comes in a wider colour range. The bigger difference is the background: neither survives being put over render that was already hollow.
Our house has Tyrolean. Can it just be covered over?
Only if it is genuinely sound, and most of it is not by this age. Rendering over a finish that is already parting from the wall buys you a few years and then fails as one. We tap it and tell you honestly which case yours is.
Do we need permission for insulated render?
Not planning permission on an unlisted house here, but it normally engages building control because it changes the thermal element of the wall. That is a straightforward notice, and it goes on the quote as a line rather than turning up later.
How long does a full house take?
For a typical detached house, two to three weeks on site including the scaffold going up and coming down, with drying time between coats. An insulated system adds several days. Wet or freezing weather stops the coats going on, so we would rather start in spring than promise a February finish.
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Pick the finish you actually want
Thomas comes out, taps the wall, brings sample boards and prices the systems side by side so you can compare like for like. The site visit and the written itemised quote are free.