Rendering in Matchams, exposure and weather
On an open plot the forecast is part of the specification, and the fortnight you wait for settled weather is the cheapest thing you will buy.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Rendering is the one outside trade that is genuinely beaten by the weather. On an open plot out here that matters more than it does in a sheltered street, so the honest answer to when we can start is often a fortnight later than you would like, and it is the right answer.
Render is a wet material that has to lose its water at a controlled rate. Too cold and it will not set. Too wet and it will not dry. Too much wind or sun on a fresh coat and the water leaves the surface faster than the body of it, and the face crazes.
None of that stops us working, and we render all year round. What it means is that on an exposed site the scaffold gets sheeted, the coats get planned around a forecast rather than a diary, and we will tell you plainly when waiting a fortnight buys you a better wall. Everything else goes in a written itemised quote with the access, the preparation, each coat and the beads on their own lines. The visit and the quote are free.
The work
Render work on an open plot, and when it can be done
Tapping and quoting the elevation. A mallet over the whole wall with the hollow areas chalked. On an unsheltered building the failures cluster at the corners, reveals and the bottom of the wall, because that is where wind driven water works its way in.
Hacking off and preparing the background. Blown render comes off to a firm edge, the brick or block behind is made good and given a key, and any friable face is brushed down and stabilised with a primer before a basecoat goes near it.
Silicone thin coat. A mesh reinforced basecoat, a primer and a silicone topcoat, scraped or floated. It is through-coloured, it stays breathable and it sheds water, which is what an exposed elevation needs. Full mesh across the face rather than only at the openings on a wall that takes the weather.
Monocouche and traditional sand and cement. Monocouche goes on in one build and is scraped back the following day. Traditional scratch and floating coats still suit outbuildings, stores and boundary walls out here and take a knock better than anything modern. Both want settled weather more than a thin coat system does.
Pebbledash and Tyrolean repairs. Cut back to a firm edge, floated out to thickness and re-dashed with matched aggregate. Worth knowing that a heavy dash on an exposed face holds dirt and growth, so on a wall with nothing in front of it a finer float finish stays presentable for longer.
Beads, bellcast and stop ends. Angle beads at every corner, stop beads at the reveals and a bellcast bead well clear of the ground. Corners and openings are exactly where an exposed elevation fails, so the beads are not a detail here, they are the job.
Cracking, delamination and staining. A crack at a reveal is a route for driven rain and gets cut out, meshed and made good. Where a coat has delaminated it comes off, because frost behind a parted render takes it off in sheets rather than in patches. Green algae on the shaded side is surface growth and washes down.
Render over external wall insulation. If a wall is coming back to the background anyway, insulation board or a render carrier fixed to the face and rendered over gives the thermal improvement in the same visit, which matters on a building that takes the wind from every side.
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 rendered before is maintenance and needs no application. There is no conservation area at Matchams and nothing listed, so the finish and the colour are your own choice. Green Belt makes no difference to a repair, only to a new building or an outbuilding, and listed building consent is only in play if a neighbouring property is listed. 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 single storey building on soft ground, a two storey house with a wide gable facing open country, and an outbuilding with no hard standing 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 about seven miles away, so a Matchams address is normally looked at 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 weather window is part of the specification
Every render system has conditions it has to go on in, and they are tighter than most people expect. Cement based materials effectively stop gaining strength as the temperature drops towards freezing, so a coat put on into a cold snap sets slowly and weakly and a frost overnight can ruin it outright. At the other end, strong sun or a drying wind pulls water out of the surface faster than out of the body of the coat, and that is what produces map cracking a few months later.
On an exposed plot both risks are bigger. There is nothing to slow the wind, nothing to shade the wall in the afternoon, and a wet week leaves the background saturated for longer than it would in a sheltered street. A basecoat that is still carrying water will not take a topcoat, and no amount of pressure from a diary changes that.
So the practical points are these. Expect the scaffold to be sheeted, which is a priced line rather than an optional extra. Expect drying times between coats to be given rather than promised away. And treat any quote that offers to start next week whatever the forecast says with a bit of caution, because the render will still be there long after the convenience has been forgotten.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Matchams, Hurn, St Leonards, Ashley Heath and the lanes towards Ringwood, broadly BH24, 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
Matchams questions we get asked
Can render be applied in winter?
Yes, with care. It will not go on into a frost or onto a saturated wall, and it needs the temperature to stay up overnight as well as during the day. A sheeted scaffold buys a lot of working days, and we will say honestly when waiting is better.
What happens if it rains just after a coat goes on?
A fresh coat can be washed or marked, which is why the scaffold is sheeted before the material arrives rather than after. If a downpour is coming we stop and cover rather than push on and hope, because a rain damaged face has to come off.
Why does render crack in hot weather?
Because the surface dries faster than the body of the coat and shrinks against it. On an exposed elevation in sun and wind that happens quickly, so the wall is shaded, sometimes dampened down, and the coat is worked at a pace that suits the day.
How long between coats?
It depends on the system and the weather, but it is days rather than hours for a basecoat before a topcoat, and longer again for a traditional build. Anyone offering to do the whole thing in two days is skipping something that matters.
Do you need hard standing for a scaffold out here?
Not necessarily, but soft ground has to be boarded out so the scaffold stands level and stays that way through a wet week. That shows on the access line rather than being absorbed into the price.
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Get the elevation priced and the timing done honestly
Thomas comes out, taps the wall, works out the access on your ground and prices it in writing. The visit and the quote are free.