Rendering in Hyde, inside the national park

Tapping first. Sound render rings hard, blown render sounds hollow and drummy. We go over every elevation and mark the edges of the hollow areas, because they are always larger than the crack that prompted the call and they decide the price.

Hacking off and rebuilding. Where the render has parted from the background it has to come off, back to clean sound masonry. Loose joints are repointed, the background is prepared and stabilised where it is dusty, then the new system goes on in coats.

Lime render on solid walls. A pre-1919 wall has no cavity and was built to take moisture in and dry it back out through the face. Lime keeps that route open. It goes on as a hair reinforced scratch coat with a good key, a float coat, then a finish or a limewash, and it is kept damp and sheeted while it carbonates.

Getting an old cement render off. The commonest fault on the older cottages is a hard cement skin put on decades ago. It cracks, water gets behind, and the cement will not let it back out, so the wall stays wet and the salts and frost do the damage. It comes off by hand, patiently, rather than with a breaker.

The bottom metre of the wall. Surface water sits about here after heavy rain and the ground stays soft, so splash back keeps the base of an elevation wet long after the rest has dried. That is where the blown areas start. A bellcast bead above the damp proof course with a clear gap under it, and ground kept low, does more for a render than any topcoat.

Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Ordinary work on the twentieth century houses out here. Scratch coat, float coat, dash or Tyrolean where the elevation already carries it, matched to a sample panel where the aggregate is still available.

Silicone thin coat and monocouche. Both are good on a modern cavity wall: a stabilising primer, a mesh reinforced basecoat, then a through coloured topcoat with no painting afterwards. Both are wrong on a breathable solid wall, and in a conservation area the texture and colour have to be agreed before they are ordered.

Beads and stop ends. Bellcast at the base, stop beads at reveals and eaves, angle beads on corners, and a movement joint where an elevation is long or two structures meet. On older fabric we hand form the arris instead, because a hard bead in a soft wall gives the render an edge to crack against.

External wall insulation. Board fixed outside and rendered over, on a render carrier where the background will not take a direct fix. It raises the thermal performance without losing a room, but it thickens the wall and changes every reveal, so on a designated frontage it is rarely the answer.

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 cottage on a soft verge needs the platform footings thought about, a farmhouse with open ground takes a straightforward scaffold, and a two storey elevation with a lean-to against it wants 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.

Most people assume the district council handles their planning. Inside the national park boundary it does not. The National Park Authority is the planning authority, it has its own policies, and it takes a closer interest in how buildings look than a district authority would on an ordinary estate. On top of that the Western Escarpment conservation area covers this side of the forest, which controls external appearance in its own right.

What that means for a render job is straightforward. Check the boundary before you choose anything, because the Park publishes an interactive property map that shows what applies to a given address. Expect the material, the texture and the colour all to be relevant rather than just the colour. Allow time in the programme for a decision if the finish is a change rather than a repair. And where the wall only needs its existing finish repaired, say so clearly, because a like for like repair is maintenance and does not need any of this.

We cover the hamlets around here, Frogham, Godshill and the lanes towards Fordingbridge, broadly SP6, under the New Forest National Park Authority. 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.