Rendering in Furzehill

The survey, and the walk round the plot. We sound every elevation with a light hammer, and we also walk the access: gate widths, the state of the ground, where a lorry can stand, what has to be lifted over a hedge. Hollow render has parted from the background and cannot be saved by a coat over the top, so the blown areas are marked, photographed and measured.

Hacking off and preparation. Where a coat on a Furzehill house has failed we hack off to the background, clean down, cut out anything loose or spalled, and let the wall dry out. A primer or a slurry key goes on a dense or dusty background. Beads next: angle beads on the corners, stop beads at reveals and against frames, and a bellcast at the base so water drips clear rather than tracking back under the render.

Silicone thin coat. A polymer basecoat with alkali resistant mesh in it, then a flexible through-coloured topcoat scraped to a fine texture. On the post-war Furzehill cavity blockwork that makes up most of the housing here it is the system we would recommend, because it moves a little with the wall, sheds driven rain and stays breathable.

Monocouche and traditional render. Monocouche is one thick through-coloured coat, ruled and scraped the next day, and it suits new blockwork and extensions. Traditional sand and cement, scratched and floated, still belongs on plinths, garages, chimneys, outbuildings and boundary walls, and takes paint, dry dash or a Tyrolean finish.

The older cottages. There are listed farmhouses and cottages around Furzehill, Wilksworth Farmhouse among them, and plenty of unlisted solid walled buildings too. Those want lime render and a mineral finish, because a solid wall dries through its own face and a plastic-rich system traps the moisture and pushes it inside.

Pebbledash, cracking and staining. Where a dashed Furzehill elevation still has a sound backing we stabilise it, patch the bald areas and re-dash to match. Fine crazing is shrinkage in the coat. A crack out of a window corner is movement. Green and black streaking on a shaded wall is algae and only wants washing.

Render over external wall insulation. On a detached house with a lot of external wall, EWI board with a render carrier or a mesh basecoat is worth pricing, and the thermal benefit stands or falls on the detailing at the sills, the eaves and the base.

Render is not priced per square metre by us. Measuring a wall is quick; what is already on it decides the price.

Getting a scaffold in. Some Furzehill houses sit behind a hedge at the end of a single track drive, some older cottages front a lane with no standing, and the post-war detached houses usually have a side gate wide enough for tube and boards. Each is a different scaffold, standing for weeks while every coat goes on and cures, and the work at height rules govern it throughout.

What is on the wall now. On a Furzehill house, new render on sound brick or block is the simplest case. Sand and cement that has blown, or pebbledash coming away from the wall behind, has to be hacked off first. We tap every elevation before quoting and mark where it sounds hollow, since those areas set the hours.

Which system. Thin coat silicone over insulation board, a through-coloured monocouche, and a traditional sand and cement render each cost and perform differently. The solid walls of the older cottages need to breathe, and a plastic-rich finish would trap damp in them, so the wall picks the system.

Movement. On this shrink-swell ground, old cracks in render can be movement rather than weather, and the beads and joints should allow for it.

Ask anyone else quoting how many coats they apply, whether the old render comes off or is covered over, whether beads, bellcast and stop ends are included, whether scaffold is in, and what they will do about the sills and pipework.

People are often surprised that the platform is the biggest single variable on a render quote out in Furzehill. It is not the height. It is how long it has to stand and how hard it is to get up.

A rendering job is a sequence with waiting built into it: hack off, let it dry, prepare and bead, basecoat, let that cure, mesh and float, then topcoat. Every one of those stages happens off the same platform, so the scaffold is hired for the length of the job rather than for a day.

Add to that a Furzehill plot with a soft verge, a narrow side access or a mature hedge along the boundary, and the scaffold takes longer to put up, sometimes needs hand balling in section by section, and occasionally needs a different design altogether. None of that is padding. It is the reason two quotes for the same elevation can look nothing like each other, and it is why the access is always its own line on ours.

The second half of a Furzehill programme is weather. Render will not go on into frost, and it should not go on into hard sun or drying wind either, because a coat that goes off too fast cracks. In practice that means we would rather start a full elevation in the settled part of the year, and it means a firm promising you a house rendered in three days in January is either overlaying something they have not tapped or planning to skip the drying time. Ask any quote how long the scaffold is priced for, and how many days each coat is being given.

Furzehill sits about eight miles out from Boscombe. We render across Holt, Colehill, Wimborne and the BH21 addresses around them. Dorset Council covers planning and building control here. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is the company behind the work, number 15471719 on the register for England and Wales. Before you book a visit in Furzehill, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Thomas Hannen, whose business it is, taps the wall, looks at the render and prices the job himself. A verified customer rated us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Neither the site visit nor the written, itemised quote costs you anything.

Most repairs in Furzehill 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.