Rendering in Ringwood
Nearly one home in five here was built before 1900, and on those walls the render was usually added later to cover something up.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
On an older Ringwood house the important question is what the render is hiding. A great deal of the render in the town went on in the twentieth century over brickwork that was already tired, and until a test panel comes off nobody honestly knows what is behind it.
That is not a reason to leave it, it is a reason to plan for it. We take a small area off somewhere it will not show before the quote is finalised, look at the brick and the joints, and price the job with that in front of us rather than guessing from the pavement.
On the newer estates the question is simpler and the answer is usually a thin coat over blockwork. Both jobs get the same free site visit and the same written itemised quote, with what comes off, what goes back and the beads on separate lines.
What we take on
Old brick under old render, and new work on block
Tapping, then a test panel. The elevation is sounded first, because sound render answers dead and blown render drums. On a pre-1900 wall we go one step further and take a small area off where it will not be seen, since what is underneath decides the whole job.
Hacking off old render. Coming off soft early brickwork is slow hand work. A breaker takes the face off the brick with the render, which turns a rendering job into a repointing job you did not want. It comes off in sections, the wall is cleaned down, friable areas stabilised, and left to dry.
Lime render on solid walls. A period pre-1919 wall in the town is solid, with no cavity, and it dries through its own face. It wants a breathable lime render: a scratch coat keyed and left, a straightening coat and a fine float. Put a hard modern system on that wall and the moisture is trapped and comes out inside.
Silicone thin coat. On modern blockwork, a polymer basecoat with a full mesh, a primer, then a through-coloured silicone topcoat scraped to a texture. Flexible, sheds water and needs no repainting.
Monocouche. One through-coloured material in two passes, scraped back the next day. Crisp on a sound even background and a poor choice over a wall that has been patched repeatedly.
Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. The traditional scratch and float, dashed aggregate and machine-flicked Tyrolean are all over the twentieth century stock here. All three are repairable and the texture is matched from a sample panel on your own wall.
Beads, bellcast and stop ends. A bellcast at the foot throws water clear of the plinth, stop beads finish the render at a soffit or a boundary, angle beads keep the reveals straight, and on a long town elevation a movement bead saves a crack later.
Cracking, delamination and staining. Map crazing is a surface fault. A crack from a window head or a door is movement, and covering it just delays it. Frost is what turns either into a blown panel, and algae on a shaded elevation is treated and cleaned at low pressure rather than blasted off.
Render over external wall insulation. With EWI the render becomes the weather face of the system, applied over a render carrier board or the boards themselves with a mesh basecoat and a thin coat topcoat, and every bead, sill and pipe reset to the new thickness. It suits a block or cavity wall, not a solid one.
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.
Ringwood has 61 listed entries, most of them in and around the old town, and on a listed building a change of render needs consent from the planning authority however ordinary it looks. New Forest District Council is that authority here rather than the National Park, and the National Park property map is the quickest way to check which side of the boundary a property sits. On an unlisted house, putting a similar finish back is repair rather than development, which is the line Planning Portal guidance on external walls draws, and Approved Document L is what raises insulation when a whole elevation comes off.
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 town centre frontage straight onto the pavement, a bungalow gable on the newer estates and a two storey rear elevation over a narrow garden 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. On an old brick wall never pull at loose render yourself, because the face of the brick comes away with it and that is a bigger repair. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
Worth knowing
Take a panel off before you commit to a price
Close to one home in five in Ringwood was built before 1900, which is a much higher share than the villages around it, and on a wall of that age the render is almost never original. It was added later, and it was usually added for a reason. Sometimes the reason was fashion. More often it was brickwork that had spalled, a patch where an opening was closed up, or a wall letting driven rain through. Whatever it was, it is still there under the render.
So on an older house here we would rather open a small panel than write a confident number. It takes an hour, it goes somewhere that will not be seen, and it answers what decides the cost: is the brick sound or has the face gone, are the joints holding mortar, and does the render come off cleanly or want to bring the brick with it. Ask anyone quoting on an old elevation here whether they have looked behind the finish. If not, the price is a guess, and the difference lands on you once the scaffold is up.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Ringwood, Hangersley, Poulner, Ashley Heath and St Leonards, broadly BH24, 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.
Questions
Ringwood questions we get asked
Should we take the render off our old brick house?
Only once you know what is behind it. On a sound brick front, taking a poor render off and repointing can look wonderful. On a wall that was rendered because the brick faces had already gone, stripping it commits you to a much larger repair. A small test panel answers it in an hour.
Why can't you just quote from a photograph?
Because a photograph shows the surface and the cost is in the background. Two identical looking elevations, one sound behind and one hollow for a metre, are days apart. We tap the whole wall, and on an older house we open a panel, before anything goes in writing.
Is lime render really necessary on an old wall?
On a solid wall with no cavity, yes. That wall gets rid of moisture by evaporating it off its face. Seal the face with a hard, plastic-rich render and the moisture is trapped and shows up inside instead, usually above the skirting within a couple of winters.
Our render is cracked around the windows. What causes that?
Stress concentrates at the corner of every opening, so that is where a render cracks first if there is no reinforcement there. In a modern system we run mesh across the whole basecoat and add diagonal pieces at each corner for exactly that reason.
Why does the scaffold stand longer than the working days?
Longer than the days we are working on the wall. Render goes on in coats and each one has to be left, so the platform stands through the whole system rather than just the working days. We put the expected duration on the quote and tell you if weather moves it.
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Get a panel opened before you get a price
Thomas comes out, taps the elevation, takes a small area off where it will not show and prices the job on what is actually there. The visit and the quote are free.