Rendering in Longham, bungalow walls
On a low elevation the render fails from the ground up, so the detail at the bottom of the wall decides how long everything above it lasts.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On a bungalow the render finishes about knee height, and that bottom foot of wall does most of the failing. Rain bounces off a path straight back onto it, a border sits against it, and if the coat runs down past the damp proof course it wicks water up behind itself.
More than a third of the homes in Longham are bungalows, so this is the commonest render problem we look at here. The wall is fine at eye level and crumbling at the skirting of the house, and people assume the whole elevation has gone when it has not.
What we do is straightforward. We tap the elevation from the eaves down, look hardest at the base and the corners, check where the render stops against the ground, and then tell you what needs cutting out and what only needs cleaning. It goes in a written itemised quote with the access, the preparation, the coats and the beads listed separately. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
What a rendered bungalow actually needs
Tapping, and looking at the base. The mallet goes over the whole wall, but on a single storey house the interesting part is the last two courses. Render carried down to the ground, or a path laid up against it, will bridge the damp proof course and keep the bottom of the coat permanently wet.
Cutting back and rebuilding the base detail. Where that has happened the render is cut back to a clean horizontal line above the damp course and a bellcast bead is fitted so water throws clear of the wall instead of running back under. It is a small piece of work that decides how long the rest of the elevation lasts.
Hacking off blown render. Anywhere the coat has parted from the background it comes off with a breaker back to a firm edge. The brick or block behind is made good and given a key, and anything friable is brushed down and stabilised with a primer.
Silicone thin coat. The usual replacement here. A mesh reinforced basecoat over the prepared background, a primer, then a silicone topcoat scraped or floated. Through-coloured, so there is no painting to redo, and it copes well with the movement a long low elevation makes.
Monocouche and traditional sand and cement. Monocouche goes on in one build and is scraped back the next day for a heavier grain. Sand and cement is still right where an elevation is being patched into an existing scratch and float build, or where a dashed finish is being matched.
Pebbledash and Tyrolean repairs. A lot of these houses carry a dry dash or a Tyrolean coat. Damaged areas are cut out, floated back to thickness and re-dashed with matched aggregate. New dash reads lighter than weathered dash for a season or two, which is worth knowing before you choose where to stop.
Cracking, algae and green staining. A crack you can get a coin into is letting water behind and gets cut out, meshed and made good. Green growth low down on a shaded elevation is almost always splash back rather than a failure in the render, and a wash, a treatment and a breathable coating deal with it.
Render over external wall insulation. A wide single storey elevation is a good candidate for EWI, because there is a lot of wall for the floor area. Insulation board or a render carrier is fixed to the face and takes the same basecoat and topcoat, so the thermal work and the finish happen together.
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 an elevation the way it was done before is maintenance and needs no application. There is no conservation area in Longham, though there are listed entries around the older properties on the road, and a listed building needs listed building consent before any coat is disturbed. Green Belt makes no difference to a repair, only to a new outbuilding. Insulation behind a render is building control work rather than planning, and Approved Document L sets the Part L standard.
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 bungalow you can work off a tower, a chalet with a dormer in the roof, and a detached house with a garage joined onto the gable are three different platforms. 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. We are five miles away, so a Longham address is normally seen within a day or two. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
The bottom foot of a bungalow wall is the whole game
Bungalows are a third of the housing here, and they fail differently from two storey houses. Everything that damages a render is concentrated at the bottom. Rain hits a path or a drive and bounces back up the wall. A flower border holds wet soil against it. A patio gets relaid a little higher than the last one. On a two storey house that band is a small share of the wall; on a bungalow it is the part you look at every day.
The detail that matters is where the render stops. It should finish on a bellcast bead a good clear height above the damp proof course, so water runs off the face and drips away from the brickwork. What we find instead, on job after job, is render taken all the way down to the ground. That bridges the damp course, holds moisture in the base of the coat and lets frost take it apart from below.
So if your bungalow has a damp patch inside a low wall, look outside before you look for a damp proofing company. Check whether the render runs into the ground, whether a path has been laid over the old level, and whether there is a border banked against the house. Fixing that first is cheaper than any treatment, and it is what stops the same repair being needed again in five years.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Longham, Hampreston, Stapehill, Parley and the Ferndown side of the A348, broadly BH22, under Dorset 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.
Questions
Longham questions we get asked
My render is crumbling at the bottom of the wall only. Why?
Nearly always because it carries on down past the damp proof course, or a path or border sits against it. The base of the coat stays wet, the frost breaks it up and it goes chalky. Cutting it back to a bellcast bead above the damp course fixes the cause.
Should the render touch the ground?
No. It wants to stop clear above the damp proof course on a bead that throws water off the face. Render taken into the ground bridges the damp course and gives moisture a route straight into the wall behind it.
Do you need a full scaffold on a single storey house?
Often not. A single storey elevation can usually be reached from a tower or a light independent platform, which is quicker to put up and cheaper to leave standing. Anything with a dormer or a high gable still needs a proper scaffold.
Will new render make the house warmer?
Render on its own does very little for heat. If you want that, the insulation has to go on first and the render over the top of it, which is a bigger job on a wide bungalow but a good one, because there is a lot of wall for the floor area.
How long will the job take from start to finish?
A base repair on one elevation is a couple of days. A whole bungalow in a thin coat system usually runs to a week or so, because each coat needs its drying time and the topcoat cannot be rushed onto a green basecoat.
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Get the base of the wall looked at before it takes the rest
Thomas comes out, taps the elevation, checks where the render stops against the ground and prices it in writing. The visit and the quote are free.