Rendering in Fordingbridge, working over a footway

Tapping the elevation comes first. On a Fordingbridge wall, render still bonded rings hard, render that has blown sounds hollow and drummy. We sound the whole wall and chalk the edges of the hollow areas, because on an old frontage they are usually far wider than the crack you can see from across the street.

Hacking off and rebuilding. Blown render on a Fordingbridge wall comes off back to sound masonry. Open joints are repointed, the background cleaned down and stabilised where it is dusty, then the new work goes on in coats: a mesh reinforced basecoat and a finish, or lime coats where the wall is period fabric.

Lime on solid walls. A fifth of the housing in Fordingbridge predates 1919. Those walls have no cavity and were built breathable, so moisture soaks in and dries back out through the face. Lime keeps that route open, moves with the wall and patches invisibly. A plastic rich system leaves the moisture trapped and pushes it to the inside plaster.

Taking old cement off. The usual fault on an older Fordingbridge frontage is a hard cement render applied decades ago. It cracks, water gets behind it and cannot get back out, so the wall stays wet and frost does the rest. It comes off by hand, not with a breaker, and the wall dries before anything replaces it.

Silicone thin coat. The usual choice on the post-war cavity walled housing in Fordingbridge. A stabilising primer where the background is dusty, a mesh reinforced basecoat that bridges old hairline cracking, then a through coloured silicone topcoat that sheds rain, washes down and never needs painting.

Monocouche. One thick through coloured coat, ruled and scraped back to an even texture. Hard wearing on a plain elevation. It wants a stable background and planned day joints, and on a town frontage that also means planning around the hours a footway can be occupied.

Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Scratch coat, float coat and dash where the elevation already carries it, matched to a sample panel where the aggregate can still be got. On a terrace the match against next door matters more than the match against a colour card.

Beads, bellcast and stop ends. Bellcast at the base above the damp proof course, stop beads at reveals and eaves, angle beads on corners, and a movement joint where an elevation is long or two buildings meet. On soft old walls we hand form the arris rather than bed a hard bead into it.

Cracks, delamination and staining. Straight hairline cracks are shrinkage. Stepped cracks are movement behind the render, and frost opens them further each winter. Spalled brick under an old cement skin gets cut out, and algae on a shaded wall lifts with a clean down and a treatment.

External wall insulation. Board fixed outside and rendered over, on a render carrier where the background will not take a direct fix. It lifts the thermal performance without losing a room, though on a frontage that meets the pavement the extra thickness is often what rules it out.

Render is not priced by the square metre, because the state of the wall decides the work. What has to come off. On many houses the old sand and cement, or a pebbledash, is blown and has parted from the background. Tapping the whole elevation finds the hollow patches, and hacking those back is the hidden part of the job.

The wall behind. A Fordingbridge estate house of cavity brick can take a modern system, silicone thin coat, monocouche through-coloured, or render over insulation, while traditional sand and cement still suits many. An older solid wall near the centre needs a lime render that lets it breathe, because a hard coat full of plastic holds moisture and pushes the damp inside.

Access and the footway. A Fordingbridge bungalow gable is done from a tower. A two storey face needs scaffold, and a town centre front over the pavement needs a licensed one with a walkway. A back wall above a flat roof means protecting that roof first. Under the work at height rules the scaffold is costed separately.

Details. Beads, a bellcast above the damp course, stop ends at windows, and taking pipework and sills off and back on all add time.

Before you decide, ask the other firms what system and how many coats they mean, whether blown render is taken off or covered over, and whether beads and scaffold are included.

Once a building fronts the highway the access stops being a detail. The platform has to let pedestrians pass, which usually means a covered walkway through it, not a diversion into the road. It has to be lit and marked at night. It needs a licence from the highway authority, which takes time and has to be paid for and displayed. And the rules on scaffolding mean it is inspected and signed off, not simply put up.

None of that is a reason to avoid rendering a Fordingbridge frontage. It is a reason to ask what is in a quote. Where two prices for the same elevation are far apart, the gap is usually the access rather than the render, because one has assumed a ladder and a friendly attitude to the footway. Ask whether the licence is included, how long the platform is priced to stand, and who is responsible for the walkway under it.

From our Boscombe base, Fordingbridge is 14.1 miles away. We render in the town and in Sandleheath, Godshill and the lanes along the Avon, broadly SP6, and the council you would deal with over a change of finish is New Forest District Council.

Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd carries the company number 15471719, registered in England and Wales. Thomas Hannen owns the firm, and he comes out to tap the walls and price the render himself. On Checkatrade a verified customer rated us 10 out of 10. We do the site visit for free and write the itemised quote for free. Before you book a visit in Fordingbridge, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Fordingbridge 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.