Rendering in Milborne St Andrew, wall first
What sits behind the render decides the system, so the first visit is spent working out what the wall is made of rather than measuring it.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Rendering in Milborne St Andrew starts with what the wall is made of, because brick, flint and brick banding, cob and post-war cavity each want a different system. Cracked or blown render on an old wall is taken off and replaced in lime; a cavity house can be re-rendered in silicone thin coat or monocouche. The first visit is spent tapping and identifying the wall, not measuring it. Damp inside is a plastering repair.
A rendered wall in Milborne St Andrew shows its age as hollow patches after a wet winter, map cracking from corner to corner, or sand and cement put over something older and now coming away in slabs.
We come out to Milborne St Andrew, tap the elevation, and where the sound does not tell us enough we take a small section off in a quiet corner and look. That costs nothing, and it is the difference between a quote that holds and one that changes on day three. Then it goes in writing: the hack off, the beads, each coat, the scaffold and the waste on separate lines.
The work
Working out what the wall is, then rendering it
Tapping comes first, then a look. Every survey starts with a scutch hammer along the elevation. Sound render rings, blown render sounds hollow, and the hollow areas have parted from the background. Where the sound is not enough, a small square comes off low down where nobody looks. Old cottages in Milborne St Andrew hide all sorts under a smooth grey coat.
Hacking off and preparing. Loose render on a Milborne St Andrew wall comes off to something firm. We clean down, prepare the wall, stabilise a dusty background with a primer and cut a key where the face is too smooth to hold a coat. Anything spalled off a brick arris is cut out and made good before a basecoat goes near it.
Lime on a solid wall. A period Milborne St Andrew wall built pre-1919 has no cavity and no damp course to speak of. It copes by taking water in and letting it back out through the face. Put a plastic rich topcoat over that and the moisture is trapped, damp turns up inside, and in a few winters the render sheets off and brings the face of the wall with it. Those walls get a haired lime basecoat, a soft topcoat and a breathable limewash.
Silicone, monocouche and sand and cement. On a cavity wall in good order a silicone thin coat is the usual answer: primer, a mesh and scrim reinforced basecoat, then a through-coloured topcoat scraped or floated to a texture you pick off a sample board. Monocouche does it in one applied coat and is tougher on a large plain elevation. Older acrylic and polymer rich finishes craze. Traditional sand and cement still suits garages and plinths.
Render over external wall insulation. Where a wall is cold and already coming off, EWI is worth pricing alongside a plain re-render: insulation board fixed and dowelled on, a render carrier and mesh, then the same topcoat. Part L sets the thermal standard a renewed wall is expected to meet. It thickens the elevation, so sills, reveals, eaves and pipework all have to move out with it.
Cracks, dash and staining. Map cracking across a face is usually shrinkage in the coat rather than movement in the wall, and it stays cosmetic until it delaminates. A single crack that takes a coin is letting water in. Pebbledash and Tyrolean hide both, which is why a dashed elevation gets tapped rather than looked at. Green algae on a shaded face is a cleaning job unless the wall behind is wet.
How it runs
How a re-render is taken off and put back
Thomas taps the whole elevation himself before pricing, marking where the render sounds hollow, where cracks have opened and how it finishes at windows, sills and the ground. His quote splits it into scaffold and access, sheeting and protection, hacking off and preparing the wall, which render system and how many coats, the beads, bellcast and stop ends, and the making good afterwards. Thomas is your one contact through the hacking off, the rendering and the finishing.
Each coat is left to cure before the next goes on, so the scaffold stands for weeks rather than days, and render is not applied in frost or heavy rain. On a Milborne St Andrew house fronting the main road the scaffold is licensed on the footway and kept safe for people walking past. The old render goes into a skip or bags and leaves with us, and the site is swept daily. Rotten lintels or loose brickwork found behind the old render are shown to you in photographs and priced before we carry on.
Rendering a wall that has never been rendered, inside the Milborne St Andrew Conservation Area, needs planning permission. Renewing an existing render in a similar finish is repair, and the Planning Portal page on external walls explains the line. On a listed building the render is protected under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, so it needs listed building consent from Dorset Council before a hammer touches it.
Cost
What the render already on the wall does to the price
Rendering in Milborne St Andrew has no rate per square metre. What is on the wall now, and what the wall itself is built from, decide the price.
Scaffold time. Render goes on in coats with drying time between, so the scaffold stays up for weeks, not days. A bungalow gable can be done off a tower. A cottage on the main road needs a footway licence as well. If the roof is thatched, the scaffold is set back and boarded so nothing bears on the eaves. The work at height rules are why access is its own line.
Taking the old coat off. Sound brick in Milborne St Andrew can be rendered straight away. Old sand and cement that has blown, or pebbledash that has let go of the wall behind it, has to be hacked off first, and the size of the hollow patches sets the hours.
Which system. Lime, traditional sand and cement, a through-coloured monocouche and a silicone thin coat over insulation all cost and behave differently. An old solid Milborne St Andrew wall has to be able to breathe, and a plastic-rich finish on it holds moisture in and pushes the damp inside, so the choice follows the wall, not the colour chart.
The trim. Beads, a bellcast above the damp course, stop ends, and sills and pipework to take off and refit all take time.
Before you choose, ask each firm which system and how many coats, whether the old render is coming off or being covered, and whether the scaffold is in their figure.
If it has started to come away
Render coming away from the wall
Render that sounds hollow when tapped, bulges, or has a crack you can fit a coin into is letting water behind it, and frost then pushes it off. If a piece is loose above a door or a path, keep people clear and do not pull at it.
Ring the number below instead of sending the form. Rendering is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, but loose render over a path should not wait, and if we cannot pick up we ring back as soon as possible. Anything loose comes down on the first visit, the area is sheeted if weather is coming, and the elevation is priced once we know how far the blown area runs.
Worth knowing
Two layers of control: the conservation area and the listings
Milborne St Andrew has its own conservation area, designated by Dorset Council in 1995 over the older part of the village. Inside it, rendering a wall that has never been rendered, or changing how the front of a house looks, needs planning permission, while like-for-like repair of existing render is maintenance.
Outside the boundary, on an unlisted house, the colour, the texture and the system are your decision, and the only test is the permitted development one about the new finish being similar in appearance to the old.
Listing adds a second layer on top. There are nearly thirty listed entries in Milborne St Andrew, and a listing is not only the front wall of the house named on it. It can pull in outbuildings, garden walls and a rendered barn in the same curtilage, and the existing render counts as protected fabric even where it is later cement that is doing harm. So check the address on the list before you plan the job, not after the scaffold is up. Where a house is listed we will put the case for a lime render in writing for the conservation officer, because taking cement off a solid wall and going back in lime is usually the argument that wins consent.
Who you are dealing with
Checking the firm before you book a re-render
We are around 20 miles from the village and cover it together with Dewlish, Puddletown, Winterborne Whitechurch and the rest of the valley in DT11. Render on a listed wall, and any planning question, goes to Dorset Council.
You would be contracting with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719. The owner, Thomas Hannen, taps the wall and prices your render himself. A verified Checkatrade customer scored us 10 out of 10. We charge nothing for the visit, and the itemised written quote is free too. Before you book a visit in Milborne St Andrew, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Milborne St Andrew?
Most repairs in Milborne St Andrew 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.
| Question | In Milborne St Andrew |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Milborne St Andrew. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Milborne St Andrew Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Milborne St Andrew. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Milborne St Andrew. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in Milborne St Andrew
How do you find out what our wall is made of?
By tapping it, and if that is not conclusive, by taking a small square of render off somewhere out of sight. Fifteen minutes on the site visit tells us whether we are looking at brick, flint and brick, cob or a cavity, and the answer changes the system, the price and the programme.
The render on our cottage is cement. Should it come off?
If the wall behind is solid and the cement is blown or cracked, yes. It is holding water in a wall built to let it out. If it is still stuck fast everywhere and nothing is showing inside, there is a case for leaving it alone and watching it. We tell you which of the two you have.
How would we know if our house is listed?
Search the address on the national list, and if it is not clear, ask Dorset Council. Do it before you commit, because a listing can cover an outbuilding or a wall in the same curtilage, and consent is needed even when the change looks like an improvement.
Do you take the render right down to the ground?
No, it should stop clear of the ground on a bellcast bead, so water is thrown off the wall rather than wicked up behind the coat. Render taken down into the soil is a common cause of damp on an old house and one of the easiest things to put right.
What time of year is best for this?
Spring through to early autumn, which in Milborne St Andrew leaves a working window of roughly six months. Render needs to stay above freezing while it goes on and cures, and lime is fussier than cement. We will not coat a wall in a frost, so a winter enquiry usually means the survey, the quote and a start date in March.
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Rendering near Milborne St Andrew
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Find out what is behind the render first
Thomas comes out, taps the whole elevation, opens up a corner if he has to, and prices the hack off, the system and the scaffold line by line. The visit and the written quote are free.