Rendering in Rockbourne

Lime render on cob and rubble. Two or three coats of lime, hair gauged into the base coats, worked well into the background and protected while it cures. It is soft, it is breathable, and it is sacrificial by design: the render weathers so the wall behind it does not. Finished with a float or a limewash, never a modern paint, which would undo the point of it.

Taking cement off an old wall. The most careful job on a wall in Rockbourne. Hard render on cob has to come off by hand, not with a breaker, because the wall behind it is softer than the coat. We tap the whole elevation first, work in sections, keep the wall covered between coats and never leave an earth wall open to the rain overnight.

Cracking, delamination and where water is getting in. On a cement coat the crack is the giveaway: water runs in behind it, cannot get out through the face, and the bond fails outwards from there. Tapping tells you how far it has already gone. On lime, fine crazing is normal and self healing, not a fault.

Silicone thin coat and monocouche. The modern systems, and they have their place in Rockbourne too, on the later houses, extensions and blockwork garden walls. Primer, a polymer basecoat with mesh, then a through-coloured silicone or a single monocouche coat scraped back. Beads, stop ends and a bellcast at the base. What they do not belong on is an old solid wall.

Sand and cement, pebbledash and Tyrolean. Where a wall already carries one of these and the background suits it, a scratch and float coat with a dry dash or a Tyrolean finish is a straightforward repair. We match the aggregate and hang a sample panel first.

Algae, green growth and staining. Shaded Rockbourne elevations under trees hold moisture and go green. A soft wash lifts it. Pressure does not belong anywhere near a lime coat, and we will refuse to take the face off a wall to make it look clean for a season.

Render over external wall insulation. Board fixed to the wall as a render carrier, then mesh, basecoat and topcoat over it, with Approved Document L setting what a renovated wall should reach. It belongs on modern construction. On a breathable earth or rubble wall it is the wrong answer and we will tell you so, not sell it to you.

Rendering in Rockbourne has no rate per square metre. What is on the wall now, and what it is built of, decide the price.

Access. A cottage on the Rockbourne village street, a brick and flint outbuilding, and a modern house on the edge of the village each need different platforms. The platform stays up for every coat, and the work at height rules make it a priced line.

What comes off. Sound render may only need repair. Blown cement render has to be hacked off, and that is the part nobody can see from the road.

The wall behind. If a Rockbourne wall is cob or soft brick, it needs lime. Cement render on a cob wall traps water, and cob that gets wet loses strength. Lime costs more to apply and takes longer, but on these walls it is the right answer.

Details. Corners, window reveals, a drip at the base, and refitting pipes all add time.

Weather. Lime cannot go on in frost, so an autumn or winter job may need sheeting and heaters, which is a line on the quote.

Ask other firms which render they are quoting and how many coats, whether the old render is coming off, and whether the scaffold is in the price.

An old wall in Rockbourne is not waterproof and was never meant to be. Cob, chalk block and flint rubble all take up some rain in a wet spell and give it back in a dry one, and the lime coat over them is soft enough to let that happen and cheap enough to renew when it has done its work.

The comparison between lime and cement on historic walls is well documented and the conclusion is consistent: the hard coat wins the argument with the soft wall, and the wall loses.

What happens in practice is slow and then sudden. A cement render is stiffer than the wall, so as the building moves it cracks rather than the wall flexing. Rain gets in through the crack. It cannot evaporate back out through a dense coat, so it runs down inside the render, softening cob or washing fines out of a rubble core, and it comes out at the bottom or on the inside face as damp. From the road the wall looks fine for years. When the render finally comes off, whole sections come with it and there is less wall behind than there was. If your cottage has cement on it, get it tapped now rather than waiting for a piece to fall, and budget for taking it off by hand rather than patching over it.

Rockbourne lies 16 miles from our Boscombe base. We cover the village, Whitsbury, Damerham and the villages towards Fordingbridge, with New Forest District Council for planning and building control. Thomas Hannen, the owner, taps the wall and prices it himself. One verified customer scored us 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. Before you book a visit in Rockbourne, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Rockbourne 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.