Rendering in Freshwater and Totland
Bungalows that suit a modern thin coat and old solid walled cottages that do not, often in the same street.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
There are two entirely different sorts of wall out here and they want opposite things. The bungalows and post-war houses take a modern thin coat happily. The old cottages behind the bay are solid walled and want lime, and a plastic rich system on one of those does real harm.
Most calls start the same way. A wall that has gone hollow in a patch, a crack that has opened at a window head, dash coming off in flakes on the weather side, or a finish that greens over faster every year. Underneath all four is usually water getting behind the coat and not getting back out.
So the first job is finding out what is behind the render. We tap the elevation from top to bottom, look at how the wall was built, and only then talk about systems. Twenty-nine listed entries sit in the two villages, and a fair share of everything else predates the First World War, so the wrong answer is easy to buy here. Site visit and written itemised quote both free.
The work
Two kinds of wall, two different answers
Silicone thin coat on the newer stock. Primer, a polymer basecoat with mesh bedded through it, then a through-coloured silicone topcoat scraped to an even texture. It flexes slightly, sheds driven rain and keeps its colour, which is what a 1960s or 1970s blockwork bungalow wants. Beads at every reveal, a bellcast at the bottom so the water leaves the wall instead of running down it.
Monocouche. One thick through-coloured coat, scraped back the following day. It works on a plain uninterrupted elevation and it needs a stable background and a settled spell of weather. On a wall that has been patched repeatedly it will show every one of them.
Lime on the solid walls. A cottage built before 1919 has no cavity. Rain soaks into the outer face and has to evaporate back out, so the render has to be softer and more breathable than the wall. Lime, two or three coats, hair gauged in the base, finished with a float or a limewash. Building lime is a specified material rather than a bag of anything, and we say which we are using.
Pebbledash and Tyrolean. The dashed elevations round here are usually a sand and cement scratch and float coat with aggregate thrown on while it is green, or a Tyrolean flicked on. Patching one is about matching aggregate size and colour, so we mix a sample before committing.
Tapping, and hacking off what has blown. Blown render has parted from its background and sounds hollow. We mark every hollow area before pricing, because that number decides whether you are cutting out panels or taking the whole elevation back and starting again.
Cracking, delamination, algae and staining. Fine crazing is shrinkage and cosmetic. An open crack is movement, a missing bead or a failed joint, and it needs opening and reinforcing. The green film on a shaded gable is algae and comes off with a soft wash rather than pressure.
Render over external wall insulation. Board fixed to the wall as a render carrier, then mesh, basecoat and topcoat over it. It is the only render that changes the thermal performance of the house, and where it forms part of a renovation Approved Document L sets the standard. On a solid breathable cottage wall it is the wrong house for it and we will say so.
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.
Re-rendering a wall that is already rendered is repair and needs no application. Changing the finish or the colour of a house that has never been rendered is a different thing: the Planning Portal sets out where external wall work needs permission, and on any of the 29 listed entries in the two villages it is consent before anything is mixed. Isle of Wight Council is the authority. We check the address before quoting.
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 single storey bungalow gable, a two storey semi off the main road and a tall cottage on a narrow lane are three different platforms before any material is ordered. 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. On the seaward side that matters more than it looks, because a wall that stays wet between showers never dries out enough to take a repair properly. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The system that suits the bungalow ruins the cottage
Nearly three in ten homes here are bungalows and a similar share predates 1919, which is unusual and it is the whole point. A 1960s bungalow is cavity blockwork. The inner leaf stays dry, the cavity does the work, and a modern silicone or acrylic topcoat is a good match for it: flexible, water shedding, easy to keep clean. A pre-1919 cottage has none of that. It is a solid wall, often rubble or soft brick, and it works by soaking up rain and drying back out through the same face.
Put the bungalow system on the cottage and you stop the drying. The moisture that gets in at a cill, a cracked bead or a chimney has nowhere to leave, so it moves inwards and shows up as damp plaster and peeling paint in rooms that were dry before. It usually takes a couple of winters to appear, which is why the connection gets missed. The test is simple enough to do yourself: if the house has no cavity and the mortar is soft and pale, ask the quote to say lime rather than silicone. If somebody quotes one system for the whole street, they have not looked at your wall.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Freshwater, Totland, Colwell, Norton and the lanes towards Yarmouth, broadly PO40, with Isle of Wight 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
Freshwater and Totland questions we get asked
Our cottage has no cavity. Can it still be rendered?
Yes, in lime. A solid wall relies on soaking up rain and drying out again through its own face, so the coat on it has to be softer and more breathable than the wall. Lime does that; a cement or acrylic topcoat does not. Two or three coats, hair gauged in the base, and the surface left able to breathe.
Which finish stands up best to the weather off the sea?
The build up matters more than the badge on the bag. A proper mesh reinforced basecoat, beads and stop ends at every opening, and a bellcast so water drips clear of the wall will outlast a better topcoat put on a thin base. Most failures we go back to start at an edge, not in the middle of the wall.
Can we render over the pebbledash instead of taking it off?
Only where the dash is properly stuck. We tap it first. Sound dash can be keyed and stabilised and taken as a background for a thin coat system. Anything hollow has to come off, because a new coat on a loose one just falls off with it, and it takes the new one with it when it goes.
How long before we can paint or decorate inside afterwards?
Nothing outside stops you decorating inside. What does take time is the render itself: each coat has to cure before the next, and a lime job is slower again. If a wall was soaked before we started, drying time gets added to the programme rather than skipped, and we tell you that up front.
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Free quote
A quote written for your wall, not the street
Thomas taps the elevation, works out what the wall is built of and prices the right system for it. The visit and the written quote are free.