Rendering in Poole
Ninety years of dash on the inter-war houses here, and the coat behind it has usually let go of the brick long before the surface starts to look tired.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Rendering in Poole is often 1930s pebbledash that has run out of road: parted from the brick in patches, cracked by frost, and past patching. Where a tap test finds it mostly sound, the hollow areas are cut out and re-dashed to match. Where it has let go widely, the elevation comes back to the brick and is re-rendered in a silicone thin coat, monocouche or fresh dash. For inside walls, see plastering in Poole.
Poole render lets go behind the surface, cracks at the window corners and greens over on the shaded side. A hollow area turns up when you lean on the wall. A crack from the corner of a window keeps coming back after filler. And the shaded elevation no longer washes clean.
On a Poole house none of those are decorating problems. Render is the coat that keeps driven rain out of the wall behind it, and once it has parted from the background it holds water against the brick rather than off it. We come out, tap the whole elevation, tell you how much of it is actually loose, and put it in a written itemised quote line by line. The site visit and the quote are free.
The work
Pebbledash, sand and cement, and what replaces them
Finding out what you have. Every Poole quote starts with a rubber mallet. A sound render rings and a blown one gives a dull knock, and we chalk the hollow areas up so you can see them from the pavement. Forty per cent hollow and ninety per cent hollow are two different jobs.
Hacking off and preparing the background. Loose render on a Poole wall comes off with a breaker and a bolster, back to a firm edge rather than to the edge of the stain. Underneath is usually inter-war brick with old chases and patched openings in it. That gets made good and given a key, and anything friable is brushed down and stabilised with a primer.
Traditional sand and cement. Still the right answer on plenty of walls in Poole, especially where an elevation is patched into existing work. A scratch coat, a floating coat ruled off and left to cure, then a float finish or the dash. Slower than a thin coat system, but it takes a knock and it matches what is already on the building.
Pebbledash and Tyrolean. Both can still be repaired. Pebbledash is a wet coat with the aggregate thrown on; Tyrolean is flicked on with a hand machine and gives a finer texture. The honest warning is colour: new dash next to eighty years of weathering will not match, so where a patch would show from the road we would rather do the whole elevation.
Silicone thin coat and monocouche. A mesh reinforced basecoat over a prepared background, a primer, then a silicone or acrylic topcoat in a scraped or float texture, or a through-coloured monocouche scraped back. The colour is in the material rather than on it. We put a sample board on the wall first, because render colour reads differently on a north elevation to how it reads on a chart.
Render over external wall insulation. Where a solid wall is coming back to brick anyway, EWI is worth pricing at the same time. Insulation board or a render carrier is fixed to the wall and takes the same basecoat and topcoat, so the thermal gain costs you one scaffold rather than two.
Beads, bellcast and the edges. Where the render stops is where it gets judged and where it fails first. Stop beads at the reveals, angle beads on the corners, a bellcast bead so water drips clear instead of running back under, and a movement bead on a long elevation. Stainless or PVC rather than galvanised, because a rusting bead stains a new wall.
Cracking, delamination and staining. Hairline crazing in old sand and cement is usually cosmetic. A crack you can get a coin into is letting water behind. Algae and green staining on a shaded elevation are not a fault in the render, and a clean down and a breathable coating deal with them far more cheaply than a new system.
How it runs
Hacking off and re-rendering an elevation
Thomas taps the whole wall before he prices it, because hollow render sounds different, and he checks what is underneath where it has come away. The quote is itemised: access and scaffold, protection of windows and paths, preparation of the existing wall, the render system and number of coats, beads and stop ends, and making good. Thomas is your one contact from start to finish.
A lot of the render in Poole is on inter-war and post-war houses, often pebbledash on a semi. A two storey elevation needs a scaffold that stays up for the whole system, because each coat needs time to cure. On a terrace that fronts the footway the scaffold needs a council licence. On a block of flats the freeholder agrees first. Windows, doors and plants are covered, the site is cleared daily, and the waste goes with us. If the brick behind the old render is cracked or soft, we show you a photo and a written price before patching it.
Re-rendering a Poole house the way it was before is maintenance, and a listed building needs consent for any change. Changing the finish, such as smooth render in place of pebbledash, can be a planning question if your street is inside a conservation area, which BCP Council lists online. Adding insulation under render is building control work, and Approved Document L sets the Part L standard it has to meet.
Cost
Choosing a render system, and what it does to the price
Render is not priced per square metre. What is already on the wall, and the system that suits it, decide the cost.
What is on the wall now. Rendering over sound brick is one job. Hacking off blown sand and cement, or pebbledash that has parted from the brick, is another, and it is hidden until the wall is tapped. The hollow areas set the hours.
The system. Traditional sand and cement, monocouche through-coloured render and silicone thin coat over insulation all cost different amounts. On a solid Poole wall that needs to breathe, a plastic-rich system traps moisture. Near the quay, where walls take driven rain and salt, the choice matters more.
Access. A semi in Parkstone with a side path, a terrace over a public footway and a three storey house near the quay need different platforms. A bungalow gable comes off a tower. The work at height rules make the scaffold a priced line.
The details. Beads, a bellcast over the damp course, stop ends, and taking off and refitting sills and pipework all take time.
Ask other quotes which system and how many coats, whether the old render is coming off or being covered, whether beads and bellcast are included, and whether the scaffold is in the price.
If it has started to come away
Render that sounds hollow or has cracked open
If render sounds hollow when you tap it, or a crack is wide enough to take a coin, water is getting behind it and the frost will push it off. If a piece has already fallen, keep people from standing underneath and give us a call.
First we take off what is loose on a Poole wall so nothing else can drop, sheet the open wall if rain is on the way, and tap the rest of the elevation to see how far it goes before we price it. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For something urgent, phone the number and skip the form; if we cannot answer, expect a call back as soon as we are free.
Worth knowing
The 1930s dash is reaching the end of its life
More of Poole went up in the 1930s than in any other decade, and a great deal of it was rendered and dashed. That work has now done ninety years on walls a few miles from open water. Those elevations nearly always tell the same story: the dash itself looks respectable from the pavement, but the coat behind it has lost its grip on the brick, so whole panels ring hollow.
That matters for one reason. A blown render is not a tired finish, it is a reservoir. Water gets in at a crack, finds the void behind the render and stays trapped there. In a cold snap it freezes and pushes another few square feet off the wall.
So on a dashed inter-war house in Poole, get it tapped before you get it painted. Painting a hollow render seals moisture in and buys you a season. If most of it is sound, isolated patches and a breathable coating are the sensible spend. If it is hollow across an elevation, take it off and put a modern system on with the beads, the bellcast and the mesh in the basecoat that the original never had.
Who you are dealing with
Your renderer, from Boscombe to Poole
Our base is in Boscombe, 6.7 miles from Poole town. We render houses in Parkstone and Oakdale, along the Quay and round the Old Town, Longfleet and Hamworthy, and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council deals with planning and building control. Thomas Hannen owns the firm.
He comes out, taps the walls and writes the price himself. Our full name is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, with the company number 15471719. We have a 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade from a verified customer. The visit is free, as is the written quote, which breaks down each item. Before you book a visit in Poole, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Poole?
Most repairs in Poole 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 Poole |
|---|---|
| Who decides | BCP Council is the planning authority for Poole. BCP Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Town Centre Heritage Conservation Area, Poole Park Conservation Area and Heckford Park Conservation Area, among others. They cover parts of Poole, so check whether your street is inside one. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Poole. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Poole. |
Questions
Questions about rendering in Poole
How do I tell whether my render needs replacing or just repairing?
Tapping a Poole render tells you. A sound render gives a sharp note and a blown one sounds hollow. Isolated hollow areas get cut out and patched. If a whole elevation gives that dull knock, patching is money spent twice.
Can you match a patch into existing pebbledash?
We can match the aggregate and the mix, but not eighty years of weathering, so a new patch reads lighter for a long while. Fine on a side elevation, less so on a frontage.
Is silicone render suitable for an older solid wall?
Not always. A pre-1919 solid wall has to let moisture out through its face. A plastic rich topcoat leaves it trapped and pushes the damp inside instead, so a period wall of that sort wants a lime based system. On an inter-war cavity wall a silicone thin coat is fine.
How many days does a full elevation take?
A patch repair is a day or two. A full elevation hacked off and rendered in a thin coat system usually runs to a working week once the scaffold is up, because each coat needs its drying time.
Do you render through the winter?
We work all year, but render will not go on into a frost or onto a wet wall. In a cold spell we sheet the scaffold and work with the weather, and we would sooner move a start date than put a coat on that will craze.
Nearby, and next door
Rendering near Poole
Nearby places we also cover for rendering, with straight-line distances from Poole, and the other trades we offer in Poole itself.
Rendering nearby
Our other trades in Poole
Rendering guides
Silicone, cement or lime: which render? Cracked render: which cracks matter Listed building consent for repointing and re-renderingBuilders in Poole: all our building work Everything we do in Poole Rendering, all areas Every area we cover
Free quote
Find out how much of your render is still stuck on
Thomas comes out, taps the whole elevation, marks the hollow areas up and prices the repair or the new system in writing. The visit and the quote are free.