Rendering in Downton, terraces and party lines
Downton has plenty of terraced housing, and on a terrace your render stops where somebody else's wall begins.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Rendering in Downton is often a terrace job. Cracked or blown render on your slice of the wall is cut out and patched, or the elevation is re-rendered: lime on the older solid walls, a silicone thin coat on newer ones. Where the new coat stops, how it meets the neighbour's finish and who is told first all matter as much as the system. Inside walls are covered by plastering in Downton.
The usual faults in Downton are a front elevation cracked along the line of a bay, a rear wall gone hollow after wet winters, and a mid terrace where one house has been rendered, the next has not, and the join is letting water in.
None of those are difficult jobs. What makes them different from a detached house is the boundary. The free site visit in Downton is a survey with a hammer: we tap the elevation, work out where the render can be stopped and what the wall behind is, then write it up with the hack off, the beads, each coat, the scaffold and the waste on separate lines.
The work
Rendering a house that is joined to two others
Where the render stops. On a mid terrace the coat has to finish somewhere, and the honest place is the party line with a proper stop bead and a sealed joint, not a feathered edge run onto next door's brickwork. A stop bead gives a clean line that can be maintained and a joint that can be resealed later. It is the detail that decides whether a terrace render job looks deliberate or looks like it ran out.
Tapping and hacking off. On a Downton wall, sound render rings, blown render sounds hollow, and only the hollow comes off. We clean down, prepare, stabilise a dusty background with a primer and cut a key where the face is too smooth. Spalled arrises are cut out and made good. Where a third of a face is loose the whole elevation comes off.
Lime on the older houses. The older houses in Downton are often pre-1919, and those are solid walls that stay dry by breathing. A plastic rich topcoat leaves moisture trapped and blows the coat off in sheets within a few winters. Those elevations get a haired lime basecoat, a soft topcoat and limewash or a breathable mineral paint. On a terrace this matters twice over, because a sealed coat on your wall can push damp sideways into the party wall.
Modern systems on the later stock. On a post-war Downton cavity wall a silicone thin coat is the usual answer: primer, a mesh and scrim reinforced basecoat, then a through-coloured topcoat scraped or floated to a texture off a sample board. Monocouche suits a long plain elevation, sand and cement still does for outbuildings, and older acrylic and polymer rich finishes are the crazed ones.
Insulation on a joined house. EWI is possible on a Downton terrace but it needs thinking about, because external wall insulation board and a render carrier make your wall thicker than the two beside it. The step at the party line has to be detailed, the reveals and sills extended and the eaves checked, with Part L setting the thermal standard. On an end terrace with a big blank gable it is often a straightforward and worthwhile job.
Cracking, dash and staining. A crack that takes a coin lets water behind and the coat delaminates around it over a winter. Pebbledash and Tyrolean hide cracking entirely, which is why a dashed terrace front gets tapped rather than looked at. Green algae and staining down a shaded flank is a cleaning job unless the wall behind is wet, and on a terrace that is often a shared downpipe rather than the render.
How it runs
Re-rendering a wall, from scaffold to stop ends
Thomas taps the whole elevation to find where the old render has come away, checks what is underneath, and writes a quote with access and scaffold, protection, preparation, the render system and number of coats, beads and stop ends, and making good, all listed separately. From hacking off to striking the scaffold, you deal with one company.
Windows, doors and paths are sheeted, and planting is covered. On Downton's older houses the walls are solid and need a render that lets them breathe, usually lime, because a cement or plastic-rich render on those walls traps water behind it. Post-war houses on block can take a modern system. A terrace on the street may need a scaffold over the footway. Work stops for frost and heavy rain. Waste is taken away and the site swept every day. If the wall behind the old render is worse than expected, you see a photograph and a price before we carry on.
Wiltshire Council is the planning authority. Rendering an external wall on an unlisted house is normally permitted development where the new finish looks similar to the old, but inside a conservation area, and Wiltshire Council can tell you whether your street falls in one, a change of appearance may need consent. On a listed building the render is protected in its own right. Work on a shared wall can also bring in the party wall rules, which means telling your neighbour in writing first.
Cost
What a render quote should cover
Measuring the wall is simple. The price depends on what is on it already. Stripping. Sand and cement that has blown, or pebbledash coming away from the brick, has to be taken back to the wall first. We tap across the elevation before pricing, since the hollow patches decide how long that takes.
Which render. Lime for the older solid walls, traditional sand and cement, a through-coloured monocouche, or a silicone thin coat over an insulation board: they differ in price and in how they behave. On a wall that needs to breathe, you pick the render for the wall and the colour second.
Staging. A Downton terraced front over the pavement means the footway has to be managed. An end gable needs full scaffold lifts, while a bungalow gable can come off a tower. It stands for the whole job, so the work at height rules give it a line of its own.
Trims. Corner and stop beads, a bellcast over the damp proof course, stop ends where your render meets next door's wall, and sills and pipework taken off and put back.
Ask anyone else quoting which system, how many coats, whether they will hack off the old render or go over it, and whether beads, bellcast and scaffold are in their figure.
If it has started to come away
Hollow, cracked or falling render on the house
Render that rings hollow when you knock on it, a crack wide enough to slip a coin in, or bits already falling away: call us instead of filling in the form. Keep people clear of the wall underneath.
Rain gets behind render through cracks, and then frost pushes it off in sheets. On the first visit anything loose is taken down and the wall is sheeted if the weather is turning, and once we can see how much has come away we price the elevation. On a terrace, a split at the party line can let water into both houses. Planned work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Call about anything urgent, and an unanswered call gets returned as soon as we are able to.
Worth knowing
Your render stops at somebody else's wall
Many of the houses in Downton are terraced, and that changes a render job in ways a detached house never has to think about. Your elevation is a slice of a longer wall built as one. The neighbours' finishes may be brick, painted brick, old cement or nothing. Whatever you put on has to stop cleanly against theirs, and that stop is a detail rather than an afterthought.
On a shared Downton elevation, tell the neighbours before the scaffold arrives, because the platform usually oversails a boundary and the courtesy costs nothing while the argument costs weeks. Check whether the work touches a shared wall, since anything cut into or fixed onto a party wall brings the procedure into it and that runs on notice periods. And think about the line: a render that stops halfway across a shared bay, or steps forward by the thickness of an insulation board without a detail, is what people mean when they say a rendered terrace looks wrong. Where two or three neighbours want the same work, one scaffold run is cheaper for everyone and it is the only way the elevation ends up looking like one building.
Who you are dealing with
Render work from a Boscombe firm you can check
We render houses in Downton, an 18.4 mile run from Boscombe where our base is, and in Charlton All Saints, Redlynch, Morgans Vale and the villages along the Avon south of Salisbury. Planning and building control for all of them is with Wiltshire Council.
The company is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen, the owner, taps the wall and prices your render himself. A verified customer rated us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. You pay nothing for us to come out, or for the itemised written quote. Before you book a visit in Downton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Downton?
Most repairs in Downton 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 Downton |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Wiltshire Council is the planning authority for Downton. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Downton Conservation Area. It covers part of Downton, so check whether your street is inside it. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Downton. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Downton. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in Downton
Can you render just our house in a terrace?
Yes. The coat is stopped at the party line on a stop bead with a sealed joint, giving a clean vertical edge that can be maintained. What we would not do is feather it across the boundary onto the neighbour's brickwork, because that cracks along the line within a couple of years.
Do we have to tell our neighbours?
You should, and sometimes you must. Scaffold usually oversails a boundary, and anything cut into or fixed onto a shared wall brings the party wall procedure in, which runs on written notice. Doing it early keeps the job on schedule.
Would it be cheaper to do several houses at once?
Almost always, because the scaffold and the setting up are the fixed part and get shared. It also settles the appearance question, since the whole run gets the same texture and colour. Ask how long it takes to arrange and the answer is weeks rather than days, so it needs organising ahead.
The house next door is rendered and ours is not. Should we match it?
Only if the walls are the same construction. A matched appearance on two different backgrounds is how a solid walled cottage ends up with a sealed modern coat on it. We look at both walls and tell you whether the same system is honestly right for yours.
Is a listing likely on a house like ours?
More likely here than in most villages, because there are 107 listed entries in Downton. It costs nothing to search the address on the national list before you plan the job, and it saves a great deal if the answer turns out to be yes.
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Get the elevation and the party line priced properly
Thomas comes out, taps the wall, works out where the render should stop and prices the hack off, the system and the scaffold line by line. The visit and the written quote are free.