Rendering in Merley, panels and dashed gables

Tapping the panel and the wall around it. A mallet over the rendered area and the brickwork either side. Panels are usually thin, so they let go earlier than a full elevation would, and the hollow areas are normally at the edges where the coat meets a bead or a brick return.

Repairing a dashed or Tyrolean panel. The failed area of a Merley panel is cut back to a firm edge, the background made good and keyed, floated out to the same thickness and re-dashed with matched aggregate. It is the cheap answer and it works, with the one honest caveat that new dash reads lighter than fifty years of weathering for a while.

Taking a panel back and bringing it up flush. The alternative. The old coat comes off, and the panel is rebuilt in a mesh reinforced basecoat and a silicone topcoat so it finishes level and reads as a deliberate part of the elevation rather than a patch. Beads are reset at every junction with the brickwork.

Rendering a full elevation. Where a gable and a panel have both gone, doing the whole face in one system often costs little more than two repairs and looks a great deal better. A silicone thin coat over a meshed basecoat, or a through-coloured monocouche laid in one build and scraped back the next day.

Hacking off and preparing blockwork. Seventies panels in Merley are usually on blockwork rather than brick. It comes off easily, but the background is often patchy where mortar, block and old repairs meet, so it gets stabilised with a primer and given an even key before any basecoat.

Beads, bellcast and the junctions. This is where a panel job is won or lost. Stop beads where the render meets brick, angle beads on the returns, a bellcast at the base so water leaves the face, and a clean vertical line at each edge. Stainless or PVC, never galvanised, so nothing rusts a stain down a new wall.

Cracking, delamination and staining. A hairline crack along the edge of a panel is usually a bead junction rather than movement. A crack you can get a coin into is water. Green algae staining under a sill is a surface problem and washes down, and a breathable coating keeps it off longer than paint does.

Render over external wall insulation. Where a full elevation is coming off anyway, insulation board or a render carrier fixed to the face and rendered over adds the thermal improvement while the scaffold is already standing.

We don't quote render at a rate per square metre. What is already on the wall matters more than the area.

What comes off. Sound render can often be patched and re-coated. Where it sounds hollow or the pebbledash has parted from the blockwork, it has to be hacked off, and that is heavy, slow and dusty work.

The system. Traditional sand and cement, through-coloured monocouche, or a thin coat silicone finish over insulation all price differently. On a Merley cavity wall of this age any of them can work; the choice is about finish, upkeep and whether you want to add insulation.

The detailing. Beads at every corner and reveal, a bellcast bead above the damp proof course, stop ends against brickwork, and taking off and refitting downpipes and satellite dishes all take time.

Scaffold. It has to stay up for every coat and the drying between them. The work at height rules are why it is a priced line. A bungalow wall off a tower is a much smaller line than a two storey gable.

Weather. Render can't go on in frost or heavy rain, so a winter job allows for lost days.

Put these to any other renderer: which system, how many coats, is the old render coming off or being overlaid, are beads and a bellcast included, and is the scaffold in the price.

Merley is 6.6 miles out from Boscombe, where we are based. We render here and in Canford Magna, Bearwood and Broadstone, which fall to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, and across the river in Wimborne, which is Dorset Council.

The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales with company number 15471719. It is owned by Thomas Hannen, who goes round your walls with a hammer handle and puts the price together himself. A verified customer's score on Checkatrade is 10 out of 10. We charge nothing for the visit, and nothing for the written quote, which lists each item. Before you book a visit in Merley, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Merley 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.