Rendering in Holt

Sounding it comes first. A light hammer goes over every rendered elevation in Holt. A sound coat rings hard against the background. A blown one answers hollow, has already delaminated, and no coating applied over the top will hold it on. We mark the hollow areas, photograph them and measure them, because that area rather than the state of the surface is what decides the price.

When it is only growth. Green and black staining is algae, and it lives on the surface. A soft wash, a treatment and the shade dealt with where it can be, and the wall looks like itself again. Where the growth is heavy it will come back sooner on a shaded elevation, which is a maintenance rhythm rather than a fault in the render. Cutting a hedge back off a wall does more for it than most coatings do.

When it is the render. Hollow areas, a crack you can get a coin into, dash shedding in plates, a coat that has parted along the bottom edge. That is a job. The coat comes off back to the background, the wall is cleaned down, loose and spalled material is cut out and it is left to dry.

What goes back on. Beads first: angle beads on the corners, stop beads at reveals and against frames, a bellcast at the base so water leaves the wall rather than tracking back under it. Then a primer or a slurry key on dense block, a mesh reinforced polymer basecoat, and a topcoat. Silicone thin coat, through-coloured and scraped to a fine texture, is our preferred answer on cavity blockwork.

Monocouche, sand and cement and dash. Monocouche is one thick through-coloured coat for new blockwork and extensions. Traditional two coat sand and cement, scratched and floated, still belongs on plinths, garages, outbuildings and boundary walls and takes paint, dry dash or a Tyrolean finish. Existing pebbledash with a sound backing can be stabilised, patched and re-dashed to match.

The older cottages. The solid walled buildings out in Holt have no cavity and dry through their own face, so they take lime render and a breathable mineral finish rather than a plastic-rich modern system. On those walls a heavy coat of masonry paint applied to hide algae does real harm, because it seals the surface the wall was drying through.

Render over external wall insulation. Where EWI board goes on, the render becomes the weather skin over a render carrier or a mesh basecoat, and the thermal benefit rests on the sill, eaves and base detailing.

Render is priced after a tap test, never by the metre, because the old coat decides the job. The old coat. Rendering over sound brick is one job. Where the old coat is hollow, whether plain sand and cement or pebbledash that has let go of the background, it all has to be knocked off first, and none of that shows from the lane.

The wall behind. If the wall is older solid brick or stone, it needs to let moisture out. Put a plastic-rich system over it and the damp is held in and driven indoors, so a lime render may be right. A cavity wall, or one with external insulation, is happy with silicone thin coat or a monocouche that carries its colour through, and a traditional sand and cement render suits plenty of walls. Each prices differently.

Cracking from below. Holt is on clay that shrinks and swells. A crack running up from the base of the wall may be movement, and the cause should be found before new render goes over it. A bellcast bead at the base keeps water off the ground-level join.

Details. Stop ends, corner beads, sills, and taking pipework and lights off and back all add hours.

Getting to it. A Holt house behind trees, a cottage with no standing on the lane and a run of outbuildings each need a different platform, from a tower to a full scaffold, costed separately under the work at height rules.

Get any other quote to spell out the system and the coats, whether the old render is being hacked off or overlaid, and whether scaffold is included.

The two jobs get confused constantly, and both directions cost money. Rendering a wall that only needed washing is the expensive mistake. Washing a wall that is actually blown is the one that comes back, because you have made a failing coat look presentable for a season while water carries on getting behind it.

There is a further trap on the older buildings in Holt. A shaded solid wall that has gone green tempts people towards a thick masonry paint, and that is the worst answer available. It seals the face the wall dries through, so the moisture goes inwards, and within a few winters the paint film is lifting in patches with damp behind it. If an old wall is discoloured, the answer is a gentle wash and a breathable mineral finish, not a coating that promises to solve it permanently.

So the sequence we would suggest in Holt is boring and it works. Tap it first. If it is sound, wash it and cut back whatever is shading it, and see how it looks after a summer. If it is hollow, get the hollow areas measured and priced properly, and do the render for the right reason. Anyone who quotes to re-render an elevation without having sounded it has told you they have not looked at your wall.

Render on houses and outbuildings in Holt, Furzehill, Broad Oak and round Wimborne, in BH21, comes under Dorset Council. Wolverton Road in Boscombe, where our base is, is 8.6 miles from Holt. The owner, Thomas Hannen, taps each elevation and prices it.

On Checkatrade a verified customer has given us 10 out of 10, and it is there to read. We charge nothing for the visit or for the written quote, which lists each line. Registered as Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. Before you book a visit in Holt, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Holt 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.