Rendering in Fordingbridge, working over a footway

Tapping the elevation. 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 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 here 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 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 rather than with a breaker, and the wall dries before anything replaces it.

Silicone thin coat. The usual choice on the post-war cavity walled housing. 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.

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 frontage straight onto the footway needs a licensed pavement scaffold with a walkway through it, a house set back behind a garden takes a standard platform, and a rear elevation over a flat roof needs the roof below protecting first. 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.

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 rather than 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 rather than simply erected.

None of that is a reason to avoid rendering a town 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.

We cover the town, Sandleheath, Godshill and the lanes along the Avon, broadly SP6, under New Forest District Council. 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.