Rendering in Lymington, painted render and stucco

Tapping the wall. Sound render rings hard, blown render sounds hollow and has parted from the background. On an old painted frontage the hollow areas sit under a sill, beside a downpipe or along the base, wherever water has been running for years.

Repairing painted lime render. Cutting the failed area out, squaring the edges, dampening the background and rebuilding in matching lime coats, then finishing to the same texture and colour. Done properly a patch on a painted frontage disappears. Done in cement it stands proud, stays a different colour and pulls the surrounding render off within a few winters.

What the frontage gets painted with. This is where most of the harm is done. A modern plastic masonry paint puts a film over a breathable wall, so the moisture that used to leave through the face is trapped and the paint blisters and takes the render with it. Limewash or a mineral based breathable paint keeps the wall working.

Getting old cement off. Where a period wall has been wrapped in a hard cement render, it cracks, lets water behind and will not let it out. We hack it off by hand rather than with a breaker, clean down and stabilise the background, and let the wall dry before anything new goes on.

Silicone thin coat. On the modern cavity walled housing this is what we fit most. A stabilising primer where the background is dusty, a mesh reinforced basecoat, then a through coloured silicone topcoat that sheds rain, cleans down easily and never needs painting.

Monocouche. One thick through coloured coat, ruled off and scraped back to an even texture. Hard wearing on a plain elevation, and it wants a stable background and planned day joints so no seam shows across a front wall.

Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Still ordinary work on the interwar and post-war houses. Scratch coat, float coat, and dash or Tyrolean matched by sample panel where the aggregate can still be got.

Beads, bellcast and stop ends. Bellcast at the base so water is thrown clear, stop beads at reveals and eaves, angle beads on corners. Close to the water we use stainless rather than galvanised, because a galvanised bead in salt air rusts and bleeds a brown line through the finish.

External wall insulation. Board fixed outside and rendered over, on a render carrier where the background will not take a direct fix, lifting the thermal performance without losing a room. It changes the wall thickness and every reveal, so it belongs on modern housing rather than a listed frontage.

Cracks, delamination and staining. A straight hairline crack across a panel is shrinkage. One that steps or widens is movement behind the render, and frost then opens it further. Spalled brick behind an old cement skin gets cut out. Algae and green on a shaded elevation lift with a gentle clean down and a treatment rather than a pressure washer.

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 terraced frontage straight onto the pavement, a semi with a side gate and a drive, and a detached house with a conservatory across the back elevation are three different platforms before any render is mixed. 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 think of paint as decoration and render as the real job. On a period wall it is the other way round. A traditional painted render lets moisture pass through it, and the limewash or breathable paint on top was chosen to do the same. The system works as a whole: water gets in, water gets back out, the wall stays sound.

Put a modern plastic masonry coating over that and you have sealed the face. The moisture that used to leave through the render is trapped behind a film and comes out where it can: blistering paint, a dark patch inside, or render coming off in sheets. We see it on frontages that stood for a hundred and fifty years and failed within a decade of being repainted. So ask what is going on the wall as well as what is going under it, and if a quote never mentions breathability, that tells you something.

We cover the town, Pennington, Woodside, Buckland and the lanes towards the marshes, broadly SO41, under New Forest District 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.