Rendering in Ferndown, colour and texture

Tapping comes first, choosing second. No colour conversation about a Ferndown house is worth having until somebody has been over the wall with a mallet. Sound render can be prepared and overlaid; hollow render has to come off. That answer changes the price far more than any product decision does.

Silicone thin coat. A mesh reinforced basecoat, a primer and a silicone topcoat, scraped or floated to the grain you pick. It is through-coloured, flexible, sheds water and resists algae. On the post-war housing here it is the system we would fit.

Monocouche. A through-coloured render applied in one build and scraped back the next day. Heavier in grain and more traditional in look than a thin coat topcoat, and in Ferndown it suits the wide flat elevations on the bungalows. It is less forgiving of a wall that moves, so the background matters.

Traditional sand and cement, dash and Tyrolean. Still right where an elevation is being matched into an existing scratch and float build, and on garages, outbuildings and boundary walls. Dashed and Tyrolean panels can be cut out and repaired, though new aggregate reads lighter than weathered aggregate for a season or two.

Colour, texture and the sample board. Render colour behaves differently from paint. A shade that looks warm on a chart can read cold on a north elevation, and a deep scraped texture throws shadows that darken a colour by a noticeable amount. So we put a sample up on the wall, in the texture you have chosen, and leave it there through a wet day and a bright one.

Hacking off and preparing the background. Where the coat on a Ferndown house has parted from the wall it comes off to a firm edge. The brick or block behind is made good and given a key and any friable face is stabilised with a primer before the basecoat goes on.

Beads, bellcast and stop ends. Angle beads at the corners, stop beads at the reveals, a bellcast at the base so water drips clear, and a movement bead where an elevation runs long. Stainless or PVC rather than galvanised, because a rusting bead will stain a colour you have just chosen.

Cracking, delamination and staining. Crazing in an old cement coat is cosmetic. A crack you can get a coin into is letting water behind and gets cut out and meshed. Green algae on a shaded elevation is surface growth and a wash with a treatment and a breathable coating clears it.

Render over external wall insulation. With this much single storey housing in Ferndown there is a lot of wall for each floor area, so EWI is worth a price alongside the render. Insulation board or a render carrier takes the same basecoat and topcoat, and the thermal improvement uses the scaffold you are already paying for.

Render is priced on the wall it goes on, not by the square metre. Reach. A bungalow is tower work. A two storey house with a conservatory beneath the back wall needs a platform built over it, and a block of flats round a parking court needs full scaffold for the whole time the system is going on. The work at height rules govern that, and it is a line of its own.

The old coat. Sound blockwork can be rendered straight away. Render that has blown, or dash that has let go of the wall, has to be hacked off first, and tapping every elevation before quoting shows how much.

Choosing the finish. With the choice in Ferndown left to you, choose on performance. Silicone thin coat over insulation and monocouche through-coloured both hold colour and shrug off dirt; traditional sand and cement is cheaper to lay but wants painting. The cavity walls built here after the war will take any of them.

Trims. Beads, bellcast and stop ends at the windows and base, plus taking down and refitting downpipes and sills, are priced as lines.

Blocks. Leaseholders usually share the cost of a block's render through the service charge, and a big job may need a section 20 consultation.

Ask each renderer to name the system and the coats, say whether the old render is stripped or covered, and confirm whether beads, bellcast and scaffold are in.

We render in Ferndown, Stapehill, West Moors, Longham and Wimborne, across BH22. It is 5.9 miles from our Boscombe base to Ferndown, and Dorset Council covers planning and building control. The business behind the work is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, a limited company registered in England and Wales, number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Ferndown, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Its owner, Thomas Hannen, taps every elevation and works out the price in person rather than sending someone else. One customer, verified by Checkatrade, marked the firm 10 out of 10. You will not be charged for the site visit or for his itemised written quote.

Most repairs in Ferndown 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.